Black Vulcanite hits SA scene hard

WindhoekGordon Joseph All boy group Black Vulcanite has been making waves in Namibia and South Africa with their unique beats and thought-provoking lyrics. The group consist of AliThatDude, Okin and Mark. AliThatDude is an extrovert that loves chocolate chip cookies from the Shell service station in Rosebank, Cape Town. He is the group's MC and vocalist. Okin is a published poet and founder of the League of the Learned, Mark is an all-rounder. AliThatDude and Mark are childhood friends that grew up in the same neighbourhood. Okin also shared a childhood friendship with AliThatDude, but was only introduced to Mark years later after they met up to discuss the possibilities of forming a Hip-Hop poetry group in Namibia. Okin proposed that they get together to produce an ensemble that would use unadulterated Hip-Hop to tourists to Africa, and so Black Vulcanite was born. The group is dedicated to rewriting how the rest of the world sees young Africans and aims to inspire a culture of self-determinism among their peers. Mark reveals that their art borrows from the comparative strength of each member, but they all contribute to various parts of the creative process. “No one person is entirely responsible for contributing to a specific part of the creative process, instead we vote for all ideas among ourselves and commit to the idea that finds the most resonance,” he says. Asked about how the name Black Vulcanite came about, they tell us that the “Black” serves a philosophical prefix embodying everything black and simultaneously African. The “Vulcanite” has an overlap between being a hardened black material used to make jewelry and “Vulcan” which is a loan word from the Start Trek universe given to a race of humanoid species whose society is founded on reason and logic. The group is signed to a South African-based recording label. Asked about how this happened, Mark says that their manager and friend, Leneave Hansen, had been promoting their music in Cape Town for quite a while before it reached the ears of Rude World Records, who subsequently decided to sign the group, based on the strength of their hit single I hope they write. I hope they write is their favourite song on their recently released album, because it talks about how they want to be remembered. “Generally every artist wants to leave the world with an immortal legacy that represents them,” they say. Asked about whether it was hard to break into the music industry, Mark tells us: “I'd say breaking into it is a misnomer because we've been in the music industry for quite a while, the only thing that has changed is that I believe we are more relevant now because of our foreign exploits or the dramatic switch in our content.” The group admits that although it may be breathtakingly clichéd, their ambition is world domination. “Realistically we just want to keep making music that embodies the spirit of Namibia and makes our fans proud and maybe ride bicycles in Europe as well,” Mark adds.