The song For Mqotsi's Lyrics

Yahkeem Ben Israel Ft. Sane (of Words Untame) Produced by Bongani Eden Koza

 

Sane: Time, time and time again/

 they take them out/

one by one shut them up/

feed them so they can’t pull out/

surely Truth will rise again/

sure to ease the aches and pains/ young man/

you were made by the works not by the gains/

by the fruits yea shall know what seeds they have sown/

Verse one:

You can never be acknowledged equally on both armies/

Neither can you be an agent for both parties/

Simply because you’ll love the other/

And hate the other/

Let the words I utter/

Resonate in your soul as I convey the story of the father/

The honourable comrade Mqotsi the Livingstone/

In His life time He proved a brimstone/

Fire to the opposition/

Firmly fixed to the cause no level of education/

Could pollute his vision/

Love for his people sparked rejection/

An outcast who never partied in the annihilation/

Of his own/ never known/

To wantonly gobble the spoils on the table of the master/

A soldier/ who like the seven sons choice the grave than tasting the swine’s meat/

Deliberately dancing off beat/ to the master’s tune…

Chorus:  You will always be in my memory/ It’s for you brother one true other/ You will always be in my memory/ It’s for you and matters we do things for/

Verse Two:

Not everyone engaged in the struggle was in it for the whole/

Some secretively persuade their personal goals/

Livie remains a Sole/

 Example of a soul/

Totally committed/

 When he was rejected/

By the education system because of his radical views/

He never kneeled before the machine begging for crumbs/

Instead he intensified the cause/

Defied their laws/

 He served liberatory interests/

With the purity of infants/

In his quest to disseminate Truth about the beast/

He pioneered publications/

Entertaining content relevant to the black nation/

His mission/

Was loosening the minds in chains/

As long as ignorance reigns/

The master’s grip remains/

He gains/ overwhelming power over the back souls

 

Chorus:

Verse Three:

His troubles begun to increase as people awoke to the apartheid scam/

His efforts demanded the subjects to act/

Ink from his pen proved to be a threat/

With an impact/

That surpass all chaotic riots combined/

All hell broke loose when this refined scholar released the house of bondage/

It sparked rage/

The fury from the pale system had him skipping states/

To seek refuge in the diaspora/

Where he remained until the apartheid order/

Was seemingly overthrown/ the tone/

Of his voice during the negotiations/

Through to the dawn of the new dispensation/

Haunted the black images advancing the white cause/

His stance had him muted and considered shelf material/

Until his burial/

The ruling class pretended as if he never existed/

Musical Profile

Emerging from the hostile streets of Motherwell, Eastern Cape's Largest Township is Yahkeem the Mastabilda a Profound lyricist, Poet Extra oedinaire, social commentator and Cultural activist. Yahkeem is a Hebraic name denoting "The one who builds", The Mastabilda is self explanatory and was given to him as by the GHETTO YOUTH UPRISING a social movement based in Motherwell, after observing the zeal and level of mastery in his quest to provide alternatives for his people. Mastabilda is more an attribute than a name. Growing up in the township he spent most of his time in the sphere of thought as he never mastered any of the ghetto arts fit to exalt and gain one glory in the hood this was a blessing in disguise for it enhanced his imagination, which was to be chief weapon in his arsenal in latter days.

It was very early in his life that he started to be fond of his pen, with no direction really aligning to anything that was popular on TV. The environment was not assisting him as well; it was dry and provided no motivation, inspiration or platform for a would-be artist. Things shaped up very late with the formation of the mighty Ghetto youth Uprising. It was in 2003 that he started to take his writing serious juggling in-between essays and rap scripts.

This was the same year that Khululekani an IsiXhosa Hip Hop outfit which proved a powerhouse not only in P.E but Thru out the Eastern Cape was formed, their glory stretching as far as places like Joburg and Cape Town to mention but a few. Khululekani enjoyed massive following and The Mastabilda was in the thick of things pioneering an era with this dynamic crew. He was a member alongside Tsiviel the Prince (one of p.e's fine and explicit rhyme slayer) and Ohayv (Founding member and vocalist of Usiba Noncwadi). K.K as it was affectionately known went on to release a greatly anticipated self titled E.P that enjoyed massive radio rotation from stations like Kqfm, Uwfm, Khanya fm,Bay Fm etc after the success of the E.P however life spiraled to different zones and made it almost impossible for the trio to meet and rehearse.

This vacuum set up a platform for Yahkeem to explore music as a soloist. 2009 saw a lethal combination between the Mastabilda and The Musical genius Beatology their interaction gave birth to THE SPIRIT LEVEL a bootleg album that wrecked havoc nationally. Prior the release the project got coverage in publication such as hype magazine it was the splendidly launched in April 2009 at Umhlobo wenene fm an on air one hour Launch this was a biggest step any independent artist has ever taken and a grand entrance on the scene. The Spirit Level established Yahkeem as the best kept secret and a jewel of hip Hop in South Africa. that very year got him performing in the sessions like The Hype sessions(The P.E leg), Queenstown annual Hip Hop session, Intloko Zeenyoka Launch, to mention a few.

In the year 2010 as South Africa was preparing to welcome the world Yahkeem Was busy at the Heavenly approved Studios with Geel Ben Israel eastern cape's most gifted and versatile producer working on an E.P entitled The One who builds with this project he went all out promoting it countrywide Performing it at sessions like Street Pop and did Splash Jam twice the same year (both in Joburg), Mr. Pickwicks, and townships around Cape Town. Massive activity also on The Fan parks and fifa zones around the bay. It enjoyed rotation on stations like ujfm, uwfm, trufm, vowfm, hedelbergfm, e.tc... The same year he was a panelist in The Splash Jam Hip Hop Conference raising the flag for the marginalized Eastern Cape.

Yahkeem's work has caught attention of the following media platforms:

Publications:

The Herald, Hype magazine. Ilizwi, Izimvo e.t.c

Radio Coverage:

UMhlobo Wenene fm, Kqfm, Fortefm, Rmr, Vut, ujfm, hot96, Bay fm, www.rechrgedradio.com, Trufm, Goodhopefm, Hedelberg fmuct fm, Khanya fm, alex fm, Moretele Community radio, Israelitemix, V.O.Wfm, Radio Graaf reiniet, Radio Zibonele E.t.c

Websites:

http://www.afrispora.com, http://rechargedradio.co.za, http://www.sheetstreet.co.za,,http://www.foundnation.co.za, http://www.reverbnation.com/TheMastabilda,http://www.facebook.com/mastabilda

Discography:

Intsimi Mixtape, Khululekani E.p, Concious Bling By Louzy Living, Bling City by Divided Souls(iamerican mixtape) The Spirit Level, The one Who Builds E.p, Formal Slang by Words Untame,Dj Zakes Mixtape, Truth Music Compilation, Reherb Mixtape, Officially Offside Mixtape(protest Compilation)

Latest Perfomances:

Opening Of The Season Hobbie beach 2010, Grass Roots arts Festival 2010, st. Georges Fan park2010, Fifa zone Central2010, Splash Jam 2010, Guild Theatre 2010 Mr Pickwicks 2010, Bensonvalle College 2009

Other music Related Abilities:

Radio Production, Deejaying, Master of ceremony, event Organisation, public speaking, Artist Management, Markerting and promotions.

Social Responsibility:

Workshopping inmates and motivating them to develop their artistry and interpersonal skills. 

Open Letter to Eastern Cape Media Platforms

Picking this pen and writing on this concept was met by internal resistance. I had to first consider where it will position me because beyond a concerned citizen I am an artist who will be authoring his demise. The people I aim to address may sabotage me and not allow me platform. But then again I had to think with a sober mind and consider in Truth how have I ever benefited from the same media that I am so considering not to offend. Understanding that you cannot lose what you never had kept me writing.

My limited understanding tells me that media is a medium that we use to direct public opinion, stir up debate introduce and market new ideas, it is a tool to communicate and inform the populace of the happenings around them. This is not text book definition but the perception I get as I page through newspapers and hearken to radio stations.

Media houses are run as businesses, that I understand fully, the need to generate profit would be their prime priority and that fact will of course inform their selection of stories.  All businesses have in the same breath community responsibility which most of the time is fulfilled by throwing money around to causes that will beef up their community standings. Most of the time the cause is not known to the employees, it is a decision made in a secluded office by an individual who is not in touch with the people that function on behalf of his institution with outmost zeal.

The Eastern Cape has numerous media platforms to mention, working together to build an industry in our province is an attainable and tangible thing should we work together on it with the same mind of building. Unfortunately it will take a long stretch for us to achieve that firstly because for E.C based journalists to recognise and respect our artists is at the moment seeming as an unrealistic expectation.  It is easy for Junnos this side to glamorise, praise and exalt anyone from anywhere except the people from the province. Artists have to literally die to be acknowledged and sanctified as the greats which is sad. It certifies Christopher Wallace’s words as gospel truth that you nobody until somebody (or something) kills you. Until when? Until we get brave journalists who are not afraid of themselves and their environment. I am sick of opening a newspaper and read about Mandoza when i know Ohayv (Vocalist/rapper/composer born and raised in PE) did a great show over the weekend that was well attended and he gave a great show and we continue as if he doesn’t exist. I am sick of sending mp3 files via email to EC radio presenters and be told my tendency of sending dodgy files is not welcomed when radio stations as far as the UK, Israel, to mention a few embraced the music and rotated it on prime slots. You need to support your own, inspire growth and if you feel they are not meeting the standard give them your criterion of selection.

Eastern Cape has two SABC head quarters, one in Bisho and one in Port Elizabeth; my question is how are those buildings benefiting the guy on the street pursuing his dreams?  How are they adding value to the provincial artistic landscape? Were they only erected to durbarnise, cape townise and joburganise the masses? If not, why are they only embracing those who have been acknowledged outside the province? Mercy Pakela, Ricardo, Zolani, Camagwini, Roger, Simphiwe Dana, Ntando,  The Bala Boys, Mxo, Sliq Angel, Feya Faku, etc all had to forsake home and head to destinations unknown to them in the quest to fulfil their dreams. All the places they went to never gave them the talent, they were great before they moved to those places but  our media was too blind to see these treasures. The province had to be brain drained to print front pages acknowledging Eastern Cape born talent and presenters to claim that they knew these artist before they blew up, but you wonder what did they do to push the talent? Nothing! Luckeez Mfowethu of Umhlobo Wenene illegally pushed artists from the gutter for years and did an exceptional work in introducing these artists and also creating a bond between these artists and their followers. This great work saw him being relegated to an hour reggae show every Saturday. The day he was taken off from Jaivah mzantsi is the day I stopped listening to Mhlobo for I knew no other presenter who would cater for people who are pushing dreams and wish to establish themselves without having to go out of the province. Maybe the EC media is incapable and has no level of influence on their audience so pushing local acts would make them find that out in a rude way.

What I find more foolish are community based radio stations that are so in need of sounding like radio stations outside the province and in the process alienate their audience. The content has to be everyday to them, this is a community platform, and the community needs to see itself, read about itself and hear itself in these mediums. What the local media tends to do on the flip side is de-motivate its readers by making them feel talent does not reside in the EC, also it discourages tourism because people will rather go to where there is activity, and that attitude adds more to forced migration. You will rather go to where people will embrace you as an artist. I write having an experience of how we as the EC artists get received in other lands.  One sometimes feel like not coming back but the thought that someone has to break the chain of artists leaving the province keeps one coming back.

It’s a sore reality that can only change when the EC media employs folks who will have belief in our talent, faith in our artists and desire to move the province from the tail to among the heads for after all every three out of five great South Africans are emerging from the east. How then are we the consumer province with nothing to offer and show? On a more extreme but necessary level artists need  to assemble teams that will create  platforms  that run parallel to the one that is currently failing the culture, arts and the vibe of the EC. This is important!

Until  the media takes our artists serious they will remain as curtain raisers for the whole world, they will remain mistreated by organisers who have scored tenders to organise year end functions on behalf of the city, they will remain as weirdo’s, and un-progressive lot that has been doing the same thing on the same level. We need the media to step up and play a significant role in writing new history. I will rather have more articles printed, gigs covered, artists profiled and their music aired than see more bags packed.

Yahkeem Ben Israel

P.O. Box 12226

Centrahil

Port Elizabeth

6006

Knowledge Of Self is prerequisite to True emancipation

"...You cannot be concious of yourself and remain in bondage..."

                                                        -Bantu Biko

I write what I like.

This great African scholar and organic philosopher gave us blueprint to total freedom. It begins with one identifying  and being able to define self according to ones mode of thinking. Before any nation, organisation, or individual can step up and wage a successful and sustainable war they need to first study themselves. It is essential that they know who and what they represent. You need to know your former state of being to discernthat your current situation is oppressive.

To know yourself means being aware of your role, worth your relationship with yourself, your people, your land and ultimately the entire creation. On the contrary you can entertain self-destruction, be a plague to the land and creation being void of self you would except a base level of existenceas your highest standard. As long as you do not know that the intention of creating cuffs and chains was to ensnare and enslave you, you will spend the greater timeof your life in persuit of bigger, better, and beautiful looking shackles. Consider Ngugi's dissertation:

"The domination of  apeople's language by the languages of the colonizing nations was crucial to the domination of the mental universe of the colonized...

The colonial child wasmade to see the world and where he stands in it as seen and define by or reflected in the culture of the language of imposition."

-Ngugi Wa Thiong`o

Decolonizing the Mind pp16,17

Your enemy wants you to look at him with trembling fear. He conquers your mindso that you defeat yourself before entering in the ring. If you can understand language as a concept travels beyond spoken sounds, it has to do with dietary principles, manner of dress, general practices, ritualistic rites, conduct,e.t.c. It encompasses every aspect of life. If it is your enemy who shapes your mind, influence your dress code, prepares your meals, sets the standards of moral behavior, then we might have a problem! If he plays an instrumental role in the develoment of your faculties of thought(education) then he has to ensure that the student is not greater than the master by manipulative means. If he influences your dress code he will give you circus gowns and take away all the majestic raiments that defined your essence. Most definatley the adversarial chef has to feed you meals relative to his thoghts and feelings about you and when you fully comprehend this all the dietary rooted diseases tht run rampant on the face of the earth become lucid. It is not in his best intrest to give you life sustaining food. He fractures your moralvalues and priciples and the leaves yoiu sucseptible to anything. You become stranger to your kind and not relate to every done under the banner of your authentic self. You wiil be found at all places except your own, playing all kinds of roles except your own.

"... in order to subjugate a people you must cut them off from their strength or that which makes them superior."

-Ben Ammi

Yeshua the Hebrew Messiah or Jesus the Cristian Christ? P 41

The Holy father puts it into perspective, surely now you can comprehend why was it imperative for your oppressors to tell you your history as they want you to know it? When you page mostly of the so-called African history as we were told begins with the khoi-san and Jan vanrebeeick.who coming fom the conventional educationdesigned to keep the mind captive can speak authorative aboiut the time prior the arrival of other races? Who can tell a purely, and uniquely unadultered African story? Who is the black man? I know everytime someone  begins to talk about the love of his own or reveals his zeal of uncovering and tracing the true origins of his people "evolutionists" are quick toto accusse him of racism and discrimination(while in their closets they keep accurate family trees).

Every thing attained if it's not informed by authentic self is not true freedom. True freedom does not begin with uncuffing the chainedbut the tied must know why they want to be freed?what their program/agenda when uncuffed? It is useless to be unchained physically but youryour mind bares a haviest yoke that make you eternally grope in the shadow of of enslavement.

Life and living is of any people is enhanced or worsened by their own perceptions of themselves; so if I would stand in the steadof advising our people Iwould tell them in their quest for freedom they must not concentrate much on the superficial enviroment but the inner, who are you? If you can anwer that then freeing your self is a walk in the park.  The question is imperative because smetimes the oppression is self –engeneered (what then?!)if you do not know or not honest you will have misplaced anger and subsequently never healed... FINDING YOURSELF IS FINDING YOUR WAY!!!

By: Yah-keem Ben Israel