Pollen Eixab
Beloved for their talent and introducing a style of music unique to Namibia, Black Vulcanite made waves throughout the Namibian and African music industry for over a decade.
Formed in 2013 by members Mark Question (Mark Mushiva), AliThatDude (Alain Zillet) and Okin (Nikolai Tjongarero), the band promises new feel-good sounds soon and a legacy.
Releasing their first full-length EP Remember the Future, ‘Black Vulcanite’ made themselves known for their unique conscious hip-hop raps mixed with radically honest lyricism.
The EP was mostly produced by Swiss native Maloon Da Boom, whom the band had brief online interactions with before he flew down to Namibia within a month of having known them to collaborate.
“Afro-centric futurism,” AliThatDude describes the sound.
“It is not just Hip-Hop. It incorporates technology and black utopianism, with a lot of facets relevant to socio-economic issues – issues that both third world and western countries face. Our music speaks to our experiences growing up in Africa,” he explained.
The last decade has seen the trio winning awards for best music video at the 2015 Namibian Annual Music Awards (NAMAs), travelling Africa and Europe from Cape Town to Amsterdam as well as being featured on South African Rolling Stone, OkayAfrica, and landing the number one spot on Sabelo Mkhabela’s Top 5 greatest hip hop songs of all time with their song, How to rap about Africa.
The band also collaborated with South African artist Youngsta CPT on songs such, Drinking life.
“Looking back at the last few years has been nostalgic. We were listening to the music we made back in the very beginning, and it was inspiring. It makes you want to be back in the same city to create more. When we came up, culture was changing, and our music spoke to an urban representation of the youth at that time,” says the Black Vulcanite triad.
At present, the band members are in different cities, pursuing other interests but also making time for new music.
Mark is in Germany doing robotics engineering, having just received his PhD in computer science last year.
AliThatDude is in his third year of pursuing a bachelor’s in media studies and is an intern for a startup media house.
For his part, Niko continues to write poetry for Barnone, an online poetry society, whilst doing Bitcoin Mining crypto-currency consultancy.
The last full-length effort by the band was ‘Black colonialist’.
The album had politically relevant influences, speaking about socio-economics and the effect of colonialism caused systemic oppression to be felt even today.
The band promises a five-track EP to be released soon.
The EP will be accompanied by artwork all on NFTs.
“A little exclusive package with bonus tracks and videos,” they said.