{"id":88890,"date":"2021-10-05T15:15:41","date_gmt":"2021-10-05T13:15:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/?p=88890"},"modified":"2021-10-05T15:50:16","modified_gmt":"2021-10-05T13:50:16","slug":"kid-x-father-of-zen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/kid-x-father-of-zen\/","title":{"rendered":"Kid X: from ‘tsotsi for life’ to ‘father of zen’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The least we can say about Kid X<\/a>\u2019s rise is that it has been unorthodox. Born in Mpumalanga, Bonginkosi Mahlangu fell in love with rap after watching 8 Mile <\/em>and truly began his career around 2010 when meeting K.O<\/a>, another serial hitmaker in the making. Unifying with K.O\u2019s Teargas team members Ma-E and Ntukza, soon joined by AB Crazy and Zingah (formerly Smashis), the boys formed a rap group called Cashtime Fam and quickly became frontrunners of South African hip-hop, a genre still struggling to achieve mainstream success at the time. In visuals like \u201cStundee<\/a>\u201d or \u201cGoodbye<\/a>\u201d, still more or less available on Youtube, you can see what Kid X (and South African rap in general) was about in that moment: a \u201cnothing to lose\u201d attitude, a taste for intensive wordplay and a heavily Americanized style. \u201cGoodbye\u201d eventually ended up being a considerable hit, and Kid X started making a name for himself outside of the group, hanging out with DJs, upcoming rappers and a certain Kwesta, who broke countless records a few years later. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2014, Cashtime Fam was disbanded and Kid X, alongside others, became the first round pick for the newly rebranded Cashtime Life. This new entity made a strong mark on the 2015 South African rap landscape. A kind of label, super group and entertainment company, the Cashtime boys (and girl with rapper and television presenter Moozlie later joining the crew) seemed to be everywhere in Johannesburg. Their verses were on every track, high school pupils were fighting over their streetwear clothes and their famous tag \u201cCashtime Tsotsi<\/em> [urban thug] For Life<\/em>\u201d was heard on a daily basis. K.O and Kid X took advantage of that momentum to release \u201cCaracara\u201d. Seven years later, we are only starting to realize the impact the track had for South African hip-hop and street culture. A major crossover hit, it cleverly blended rap culture, still considered foreign at the time, with typically Mzansi cultural elements: the pantsula attire, the caracaras (Volkswagen microbuses, an omnipresent vehicle in local townships), the catchy and simple choreography\u2026 \u201cEasily the South African hip-hop song of the decade<\/a>\u201d for some, it was the first local music video to surpass 1 million views on YouTube. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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