Pretoria rapper, Thato Saul, kicked it on The Element with The Pristine Queen, Azizzar and chopped it up about his latest full body of work titled #LifeIsGangsta, which dropped on 10 June 2022.
The rapper who is on quite the rise spoke about learning and unlearning as he grows as a rapper; his philosophy and role models on love; themes on the album Life Is Gangsta as well as the deeper meaning of the album title.
Here are the 5 key things that we learnt from, and about, Thato Saul:
- The song ‘Deep In The Mix’ featuring Tron Pyre is special and sentimental for him.
“My favourite feature was the Tron Pyre feature because that’s who I started doing music with. So, finally, I put him on a project.”
- Modimo Ohla Pheli is his favourite Thato Saul song so far.
“It has everything. Everything that I stand for is in that one song”
- Members Only is one of his most significant projects
“Members Only was supposed to be my final project [but] I think it was the reception of that one [that changed a lot of things]. It was just meant for my neighbourhood but then people from outside started liking things that were meant for just a few people so I was like ‘let’s keep going’”.
- Thato Saul is undergoing a huge unlearning & transitioning process, personally, as a result of being a rapper
“I’m trying to change how I react – I mean we walk around with scars on our bodies because of how we react. So, now I’m trying to find a different way of reacting to things. When I’ve figured that out, I’ll find a way of moving forward with people, especially in this industry – which is tough”.
- Life is the most Gangsta thing
“I said ‘Life Is Gangsta’ because there’s nothing harder than this life. The Gangsta is seen as the tough guy, the clever guy – life is exactly that. There’s nothing tougher than life. I don’t care how much money you have; I don’t care how tough you are – it’s very tough. Life, itself, is the most gangsta thing ever”.
WATCH THE FULL INTERVIEW, HERE:
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The Element is presented by The Pristine Queen, Azizzar, and broadcasts every weeknight from 18:00-20:00, CAT, all #ForTheLoveOfHipHop.
