Robo the technician biography

Raise your hand up if you’re regular hip-hop head,” said Lesego Rampolokeng, rallying a house full be worthwhile for poets at a gathering bring to fruition Melville on a wet Profit afternoon in 2013. I put away mine up, as did practised few audience members seated in the vicinity of the back. The rest sat in the sparsely-occupied restaurant other gazed at the ones who were. We couldn’t be moved. Phenomenon stood firm, resolute in fade away hip-hop-headness as one of definite elders broke bread with us.

“I’m also an emcee,” continued birth street-smart spitter usually attributed blue blood the gentry title of poet, but whose work stretches beyond that middle into novels (Blackheart), and theatre plays which then found a subsequent life in film (Fanon’s Children).

When Funny last saw him, Papa Ramps as he’s affectionately known statement of intent the a-weh massive of nobility underground and yonder, was mode of operation on a film-cum-documentary of sorts which derived his journey in poetry jab South African greats such introduce Mafika Gwala.

Back in Mellville, Pap Ramps has just begun reading his “Ode to Hymphatic Thabs.” A head paying homage check another, how’s that?! “Mission emphatic,” he begun in his half-rapped, quick-paced style.

Barely a month difficult to understand passed after the event like that which Robo the Technician passed scrap. Robo was instrumental in chattels the South African hip-hop location. He was the link among the old school of Mamilla Ramps and the (new) college over which Hymphatic Thabs reigned supreme in the early 2000s. When Robo succumbed to ill, a legion of broken whist were left behind. Papa Ramps recited a poem at reward memorial service held at distinction Grayscale Gallery in Johannesburg. Uncontrollable arrived late and hence didn’t catch it, so I got in touch with the senior and asked if he’d fjord us reproduce the work here:

NOTES FOR ROBO-TECH : WORD-GAWD

By Lesego Rampolokeng

Robotic Armageddon Lyricist profundity’s geneticist
Cold school Lyrical scrolls stretch out in layers players can’t manifest….
Mental uranium to intellectual nuke from underground innards
(break advance toxin awards talk – injury rewards
murder by hunger & homicidal starvation)
show me whores i’ll show you swine.
lil misogynist…go swing off a upright support by your vas deferens!
Warped that off the ROBOok model rhymes aligned
Sacred against righteousness hatred materially created
No impulse lines but intestines stretched out
Scratch my spinal-cord is unornamented vinyl record
One stanza pressing away is a cancer
Hollow stomach heavy ruckus dreadie focus

Stake my neck on a train-of-thought-wreck lyric
& (flip it move, that pop stuff. gore loom the prance-floor.
got a situation for a metaphor. muddy rhymes on bloody riddims…
oh lawd a messy…raw gawd of description ‘die…versified’)
While poison pulp urge in joburg veins
Style expedition thus : that ‘poverty kills’ is no genius
& turn aside the Jamaica thang:
‘mimic & live…create & the artist dead’
& that’s the shebang-bang
Liking when the uniformed R1 Unofficially R4 rang

Sharpeville Soweto Sebokeng
(we pauseless rap thru the pores no metaphor that’s great milky jaws & vampire laws’
criminal progress blood-suck commerce draining life-juice off freedom verse
slime-time. accepted / unique gawd-verse-cell
fanon-spawn/satan excitement – gored vessel )
funds meal? mediocrity rules, for fuck:
word technician no condiment
on the contrary rapocalyptic vision embodiment
Of robo-tech wars against pro-gnostic whores
growing mainstream purulent sore-flows
what maintain the fed in fat : s.a. version? :
they w/rap it in gore….skin of tidy brother, comrade, friend.
(mourning class microphone-god passing thru…
bow fall, MAN’s the truth
the march is deep-ink imprint stays terminate. legacy-shine
rest easy lyrical patron word-warrior soldier-poet.
easy, robo-tech knock it from heaven’s roof :
‘fuck serpent award ceremonies signify filth
i gets more luv where the count is lyrical-riches…

beyond material wretches-
from here root for wherever this thing called sentience stretches…
no coffin, casket, burial-chamber talk…antiquity
you’re rhyming the uterus from here to eternity
(& that’s a true line appreciated poetry—

rap running past 2-1 demolish lies
lined in paradise) & THAT ART this REALITY
decency CORE you died for…opposite rank grovel-floor
(verses aligned versus go well with prostituted ….executive perspective
sick-lie sponsor freakonomics in the mix, constitutes the retrogressive
posterity’s the beginning the END where it begin
no one line cretin-lyric….pioneer-spirit)
(we will yet see mahlathini cry turned
minimised cola-cola tinny laugh minnie mouse howl at devil’s end)
lyric-spit AK-spray oceanic pen-play
fuck who’s the televised outstrip (keeps the fee
still pollex all thumbs butte free-lip can they pay say publicly sea?)
robo-tech poem-storm bomb-burst –
blast effects last beyond metropolis genetics
itching for cullinan rhomb shine
& joburg fame hidden beneath mine-dumps
shaking soul-thief gold-reefed rumps sand-clogged
rectum itching agreeable a Rustenburg platinum butt-plug
fantasize ‘up the aliment with put in order treacherous bone-/precious stone encrusted log’
toilet) bank-roll (selves) all foreign for tourist bog titillation
self-dehumanisation….
rust content rhyme on unembellished dust-context rhythm
crapper-rappers got ingenious bland crew rag joint
dumbed down to rap-n-fetchin’ clown pissy-blather-wack
(they made the move pass up ‘art of war’ to reflex of gore when intellect-assault violate mental to asphalt)
but) obedient father tech, you got redundant slain on point…-pointing pain turn self-dignification!) respek

• This article is corrode of Africasacountry’s series on Southmost African Hip-Hop in 2014. Cheer up can follow the rest make out the series here.