A song was made and then we became: A conversation with Off The Med’s Lead vocalist Kid Khuthaza pt.1

I always seem to think that people who move and spend a few years overseas tend to forget their home language, slang, or pretty much the essence of where they came from, which is often if not always, not the case. This thought comes from earlier childhood memories of jokes made around celebrities who went to the states, spent a few weeks or months and came back with awkwardly heavy accents and a dodgy loss of expression in their mother tongue.

This interview was another reminder that people have grown more conscious and proud of their identity, especially when they are halfway across the world and away from home… the conversation begins as drizzles of small banter that begin to feel like we’ve just bumped into each other in a queue for a taxi, after years of no communication; “What are you doing up so late in the evening bro?” I ask with enthusiasm, “It’s not late, it’s 8 am here” he responds in a composed manner. I quickly realize that I am so frazzled that I am not aware of the time difference, which is the prime contributor to why we are having this interview about making music in a foreign land(#SoFarGone); I break into nervous laughter and get straight into it, “So I want to get get a bit into who you are and why you do what you do…” my eagerness is quickly curbed by the shuffling of what sounds like plastic packets and the clacking of dishes followed by his lackluster remark, “ Ima kancane, ngi sa seyenza something (Please hold on, I am still doing something)”, It turns out that he is preparing breakfast and that this interview is not about to become typical, but more personal and very close to home.

Kid Khuthaza carries the undeniable spirit of a love affair between a Rock star and a Hippy, with the dress sense of a retired Russian gangster living in Boksburg. He exudes an endless amount of confidence in his verses as well as when he commands a crowd who probably do not know what the hell he is saying. He is a proud member of Off The Meds a Swedish/South African group consisting of super producers Adrian Lux, Carli Löf and Måns Glaeser as well as him – vocalist/MC Kamohelo Khoaripe known by his stage name Kid Khutaza. The group formed by chance or fate if you will – all the way in 2017 which feels quite like yesterday considering how consistent they as a group have been over the years.

Kid Khuthaza is definitely a name to remember when imagining the sounds of tomorrow, his guttural voice coupled with his minimalist kwaito-styled verses resonate with the monotonous yet quick-witted streets of a South African township as well as the high energy and teen spirited nature of the alternative Swedish club scene. 

“The guy I’m currently staying with now had an after-party down the road from the studio, a song was made and then we became.”

As I anxiously wait at the rare sight of a quiet night in the township, I make a quick and silent wish that we do not experience an unwelcome visitor in the form of Load shedding (Load shedding is aimed at removing the load from the power system when there is an imbalance between the electricity available and the demand for electricity often leading to hours of no electricity in various South African business and residential areas alike). I begin to think about how Kid Khutaza started creating as a photographer before delving into music. 

I glance over my questions and try to formulate them in my head in the most natural way possible, and it becomes clear to me how important this conversation is to the culture, as I paddle frantically under the deep waters of over-preparing while adjusting my voice to mimic the gracious poise of a duck with water running off its back…in a few seconds he interjects, “Se ngi grand, I’m ready” 

Is it pronounced Khuthatza or Khataza? – two words that have different meanings but are very synonymous in the hood. “You are the journalist, you should know” He responds with a much welcomed and smug sense of identity, “You can pronounce it however you want, it’s the same thing, it’s, however, you want it…that’s what I like about the name” he exclaims in isiZulu while he continues to eat in the background. We break into laughter as we talk about his bold move overseas and if he ever thinks about the moment he decided to fly out and start a new life, “I don’t think about the moment as much, it comes up here and there when people ask me or like once or twice a month at random times I’d be like f^@# there are only white people around me”.

It was amongst such company that 4 years prior to our interview he would meet soon to be, members of the Off The Meds. “The guy I’m currently staying with now” he calmly states, “had an after-party down the road from the studio, a song was made and then we became.”

As we delve deeper, Khutaza delivers a heartfelt explanation of how they make and perform their tunes and it begins to become engrossingly evident how the inception of how the group met, melds into how their sound is formed, which in most cases is the result of them as friends having fun and seeing what music forms from that joy and ultimately where it takes them. “Everyone has their different influences, so we just get into the studio and blend it together then it just becomes an Off The Meds sound. It’s not a Swedish sound or South African sound it’s really just experimental, we just having fun”.

The coming together of these individuals has resulted in them performing at global music festivals. I began to wonder how he felt being jolted onto those stages and what he had gathered from being part of such experiences. “The first one was a bit big as well, a lot more weird than big; It was at an Absolut midsommar Festival and Kuli Chana was playing there as well, I bumped into him there and we spoke, I think someone must have told him about me or said that a guy from South Africa just came in (laughs) anyways it started raining and we couldn’t play on the main stage and we ended up playing under a tent, I was pretty nervous and it took me like 10 minutes to go on and perform. Every time they played the song, people expected me to jump on and I was like “no,no,no.”…eventually they just let it play and I just went on.”

My curiosity led me to enquire a bit more about whether he still gets these butterflies or it pretty much becomes like riding a bike. He maintains his assured tone in his response, “I still get a bit nervous, but it depends on the gig…I mean I still get a bit of social anxiety because we don’t plan our sets or rehearse, we just go there and just start playing…we play like a proper DJ set and there’s no “hey thanks for coming”, we just play and get off the stage. It’s like a DJ set, that’s how we do it because it’s really Dance music and I’m just trying to hype the people up, so there’s never really a plan or an order, they just play the music and I jump on and maybe sometimes they’ll play something different and I will just improvise.”

At this point in the conversation, it has become evident that Kid Khuthaza has found comfort in his identity in a foreign land and that his contributions have been well received by the Swedish audience as well as his band members, his responses are effortless, heavily loaded and yet so succinct, very similar to his delivery of verses and bars that he lays down for Off The Meds. His style of delivery is extremely reminiscent of that of a Kwaito .

Kid Khutaza pays homage to the genre through his raw minimalist delivery infused with jovial stories of everyday life laced on very experimental and alternative beats,  I began to wonder if his style is premeditated or naturally a part of who he is; “It’s pretty easy for me to write monotonous lyrics, I’d do like an 8 bar and do the hook then repeat the 8 bar, which is very similar to how Kwaito is or how old school grime is. It makes it easier for people to get and then it’s easier for them to sing along. It’s the style of writing I prefer. I write about everyday things and things that happen around me.”

I’m not saying they copied it but they sort of followed that interest.

The history of Kwaito  has been one so solid and rooted that it has been difficult for musicians to replicate or carry the flag as custodians of the genre, leading to most believing that the genre has met it’s painful end. It has however remained the soundtrack to our childhoods and thus birthed an evolution if you may of modern musicians who have, just like Khutaza, infused it into their sound to share with a global audience; this topic resonates with both of us as kids “running” the dusty streets of the hood  in euphoria looking for the next adventure, stealing peaches, eating amakipkip and ice blocks while the reverberating bass lines and minimal lyrics in the far background play what would be the soundtracks to our youth and for him the impetus to what would become an integral ingredient in his music- I’m filled with so much passion and excitement as I ask: “Everybody is really trying to bring the Kwaito sound back, do you think it’s a beautiful thing or it’s one of those things that people should let go of?”, for the first time in the conversation his response begins with a slight hesitation, as if he is trying to piece the right words together in order to avoid conflict or being misunderstood about a very sensitive topic, he continues to respond “I think there’s a lot of people that are doing it and others who are trying to do it, I can personally reference people like Spoek, OKMalumKoolkat, BFG and Sandy B, but Sandy B has been doing it for a long time, and when Dirty Paraffin was coming out, their songs were Kwaito and they took a lot of influence from like bubblegum music and Euro Disco and Yeah, they  done it but they got more hype overseas and once the guys from back home heard it, they tried to jump on it. I’m not saying they copied it but they sort of followed that interest.”

— End of part 1, follow us on social media IG: @kaffeinmagazine, Facebook and Twitter @Kaffeinmagazine or subscribe to receive the link to part 2 of this article when it drops—