siSTAR! Claim your blood, sweat and tears!

The utter, awespiring feeling of a thought being conceptualized, honed and then put out there in the big world to stand on it’s own two feet.

Sometimes it presents itself in a dream, in a stimulating conversation or the divine world just steers you to what was meant. Excitedly you put pen to paper, envisioning the outcome in all of its glory.

Nights of burning the midnight oil, pushing, believing, dreaming that your ART IS YOUR DREAMS MANIFESTED!

A determined, focused, motivated siSTAR is an indestructible woman.

No amount of hurdles or challenges being thrown in her path could prevent her from pursuing her dreams.

I remember it fondly, excitingly finding my purpose within the hiphop community in my country, I wanted to be a force to be reckoned with, I wanted to be taken seriously and most importantly I wanted to challenge myself to one of the most biggest concepts yet. At the time Cape Town, let alone South Africa’s hiphop fraternity was standing sturdy and growing steadily. The idea of hiphop theatre was experimented on, a young British emcee, Jonzi D blessed our theatres with a hiphop theatre show and we were blown away, years later siSTAR Natasha conjured up an amazing piece called UNDERNEATH POETRY, that I had the privilege of playing the lead role in. Hiphop in theatre planted its footprints in our country. Two years later I had the privilege of meeting Stacey Epps, myself and two other partners decided to join forces and place this amazing culture into the theatre, the same stage where ballerinas pranced around doing pirouettes, the same place where the Phantom of the Opera filled the seats. All these art forms did NOT represent the youth of South Africa at that time. This generation was defiant, and raising their opinion and their voices and were wearing their indigenous pride on the faces wearing tribal make up.

We plotted and planned this baby/revolution called HipHop Connected, with a budget that would be considered as miscellaneous for another production.

A low or non-existent budget was the very reason I discovered all my various hats. Project manager, scriptwriter, stage layout, props, wardrobe, stage manager, artistic director, and logistics, name what needed to be done and I was there. I even went as far as being in the production to cut costs.

But as the show was about to hit the stage the resentment started, people started ego trippin’ and everybody wanted to join the bandwagon. I had people talk to me telling me they are with the HipHop Connected, them not knowing I was part of the team. The initial squabbles began when the workload was seriously unbalanced, I spent every waking moment on this baby and people came and went as they pleased. As the show proceeded and the curtains was about to close everyone hugged each other in jubilation of it’s success, I went home crying, I felt I was not even acknowledged in the founding and start up as well as creation.

As the year passed it was HipHop Connected time again, I was excited yet anxious of how things would play out. I forged on because this was groundbreaking for our country it was bigger than me. I was still not happy with the way things ran, the male within the trio went on national television talking about I, I , I- how he was hiphop connected, I closed my ears because I knew God would not let my hard work go unnoticed.

The following year I became an intern at Artscape the very place that gave us this opportunity to conceptualized our ideas, and as intern GOD put in work and I became OFFICIAL, in ink project manager, with a budget and a salary for myself. Now that it was official I put extra blood, sweat and tears into the concept, our male counterpart was not to happy to take instructions, my other sister put in work harder than before. We were moving things were starting to look like a full fledged production, budget was well divided into various necessities etc, we pulled onboard Teba, an artistic director and we were set to go. Once again for the third year in a row the show sold out with a standing ovation. WE have arrived and most importantly I was acknowledged.

With that success came the urge to do more, the next two years the show was sold out and without fail more standing ovations followed.

Everybody claimed to conceptualize and run the project, everyone except me. That was the very reason I started feeling resentment, I resented them when I should have resented myself for not standing up for myself.

This year for the first time the show ran without me, I sat in New York wondering how it all went down, they say it turned out to be a concert this year just filled with mostly performances.

Surprisingly the weekend after the show, I was inundated with emails as well as facebook comments congratulating me and thanking me for starting and working on this baby and growing it to where it is now – a household name. I was shocked, to this day I still don’ know what was said at the show in my absence but the tables have turned they finally knew who WAS AND IS HIPHOP CONNECTED. I guess what I want to say is claim your blood, sweat and tears that manifests as YOUR ART.

DON’T EVER APOLOGISE FOR BLAZING A TRAIL!!!

- Contro Versy