From athletes to fashion designers and musicians, South African stars are making their mark on the international stage.
Amapiano star Kamo Mphela is the talk of the town following her collaboration with American rapper T.I.
The “Dalie” hitmaker has been featured on T.I.’s upcoming single, “Vacay”, which dropped on November 2.
In tapping into the amapiano sound, T.I. worked not only with Mphela but also with Champuru Makhenzo as the producer of the song.
While many are happy that he was considerate enough to work with South African artists, where amapiano originated from, others were not entirely impressed.
“I feel like US artists are now using African artists to stay relevant, ever since we started supporting our own artists most of them are no longer relevant, and this T.I. and Kamo Mphela collaboration is another clear example, tell me the last you listened to T.I.,” commented @TwaRSA26.
Some agreed with her, while others pointed out how you cannot impress everyone.
“South Africans are such bad PR for their own country and talent. Kamo Mphela got a collabo, and she’s happy with it.
“Why are y’all up in T.I’s timeline with your 2 cents? This toxicity is taking us nowhere. Luckily, RSA is not X/Twitter, it’s a nation outside of clickbait,” said @RayMaboya.
Mphela broke into the music industry in 2019 as a dancer. That same year, she released her first single, “Suka Emabozeni”, followed by “Siyavuma” and “Amanikiniki”, which became a sensation.
Since then, she has become one of the most sought-after amapiano artists, breaking records by becoming the first South African lead female artist to have a song receive more than 100K daily streams on SA Spotify with her recently released single, “Dalie”.