Not new to the industry and establishing his mark without any co-signs from any well-known artist, not to mention no album or music video, Ixa Ikey Ike is reviving the Afrikaans rap circuit.
Much of Ixa’s work has been noted for addressing contemporary social issues, and he is considered a symbol of resistance and activism against inequality for over three years.
Speaking to Entertainment Now! Ixa said that there’s a number of things that inspired him to join the ever so hard entertainment industry. “I think the lack of coloured musicians in the country inspired me to pursue my career in music. I feel I have a lot more to offer...presently I’m working hard to give Afrikaans music a bigger platform in order to help other Afrikaans artists,” he narrated.
The careful minded artist turned down a contract with Sony South Africa in 2018 after being noticed at the Klein Karoo National Arts Festival Oudtshoorn, interviewed on SABC and doing a Cypher on Dj_Ready_D’s Show on Good Hope FM in Cape Town.
Not one to rush to release an album yet he believes he can still grow a bigger support system. “A lot of musicians are always in a hurry to release an album. Because a lot of them are desperate to generate an income, not me, till this day I feel privileged to get payments for gigs.to be the headliner of a show where other established artists perform as well. I’ve learned to be patient, it will happen when God wants it to happen,” he said.
Ixa has taken it up a notch by developing an app eight months ago that already has over 2 000 downloads thus far with 25 songs available.
His monster hit single ‘Sout n Suiker’ featuring Salvador released this year, has been receiving a considerable amount of airplay on the radio after careful planning upon release. He explained, “It’s about how people’s intentions sometimes look real but with time you’ll come to find that it is not and how difficult it is to predict it because everyone seems to have a legit agenda. So you need to trust them first to know if they’re really family, friends or enemies.”
Last year, he wrote the theme song for the movie #LANDoftheBRAVEfilm alongside Namibian Annual Music Awards (NAMA) award-winning Artist Vaughn Ahrens
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