Khuli Chana's looking suave, but that's to be expected. The groundbreaking emcee, whose flows have resulted in riotous rap-a-longs at clubs and stadiums alike, has that inexplicable "thing" for seriously elaborate threads.
We meet to talk about The Rise of Us, a recently released social entrepreneurship documentary in which he stars.
ON MENTORSHIP:
How I came onto the scene, I got put on by HHP [Hip Hop Pantsula]. He had this Castle Loud performance, his first appearance, and he insisted "I wanna do this with Morafe; I wanna do this with my boys from Mafikeng." And I remember them trying to talk him out of it like, "Dude, nobody knows these dudes, nobody knows this song. What the fuck are you doing." That moment has a lot to do with why I'll always put guys on and carry on tradition.
ON THE RISE OF US
The timing was impeccable. I was at a point where I was like "OK cool, I know what it feels like to have a hit record, and I know what it feels like to win a bunch of awards, but there's just gotta be more." So I guess that was the universe also responding. That was the more.ON HITTING A CREATIVE CEILING
Once an artist isn't dishing out hit records anymore, they start to think that they've fallen off; they either start to self-destruct, or they just go hide out somewhere. Half the time, it's living inside your head. Being an artist is a tough thing because without the validation you just feel worthless. That's why, for me, I had to find more.
ON MEETING WYCLEF JEAN
I was gonna check out a talk the day following the awards [at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity]. Somebody had told me that Wyclef loved the song [One Source], and that he actually fought for you, he was part of the jury. On my way, who do I see? Wyclef. He turns around, he's like: "There's that dude!" He then tells me the story about fighting for the song. Meanwhile, I'm in awe of this guy.
After the talk [Jean gave a presentation at a Spotify talk] he goes, "I'm gonna call my South African dude on stage." I come on, I do my thing. It was crazy! That was a game-changer for me. It was genuine. No business, just like "Yo, we have to do this. It's important."..