Priddy Ugly said in 2021, "a re rappeng bafwethu," calling to action to SA hip hop and now he has announced his final offering ‘Dust’, which will mark the end of the Priddy Ugly era.
One has to wonder what happened. How did we get here? After all, the rapper is taking centre stage in the hip hop industry; he’s performing on all the right stages and his music is scoring airplay.
His single ‘Ntja’ka’ featuring Maglera Doe Boy over a MashBeatz and Herc Cut The Lights production is a firm favourite among fans.
While rap and hip hop are not at the forefront of Mzansi’s music scene at the moment, the rapper feels that their call to action was understood and a lot of guys have stepped up and have been rapping more.
Priddy Ugly has solidified his place on the hip hop scene through a career that has spanned over 15 years and the era may be ending, but this doesn’t mean he will stop making music.
“I'm never gonna stop making music and I'll never stop rapping. For me, the expression of creating music and writing is spiritual for me.
“It's just maybe partaking in the music industry as this entity that is Priddy Ugly. I may not be in that space anymore, I’m always gonna make music but I feel like I'm gonna be in the background.
“I'm always gonna be writing for an artist. I'm always gonna develop an artist, stylling, directing and producing for artists which is what I do on a daily basis.”
Born, Ricardo Moloi, Priddy is not just a rapper and is now at a place where he wants to get his hands wet in other avenues.
“I'm still definitely gonna make music and be behind a lot of artists' music. But I think this is as far as Priddy Ugly goes, it's definitely the last album.
“I've had the alias Priddy Ugly for the last 17 years of my life, and I'm also a different person from who I was when I started it as a 13-year-old teenager.
The rapper is looking forward to unlocking the next phase of his life - whatever it may be - but for now he is giving his fans the last chapter of Priddy Ugly.
His new music will see Priddy Ugly wrap up his three part musical series – ‘Soil’, ‘Mud” and the yet to be released ‘Dust’.
“This is my most honest album to date and my most reflective album today,” he revealed.
“This album has a lot of raps but raps don't attract everybody and on this one I'm trying to attract people who are not rap fans.”
With the previous two projects, they were heavily influenced by the raps but here he is trying to lure all kinds of people to his music.
With this release, the rapper guarantees that there's going be a lot of footage showing events leading up to the release.
“We've done so much documentation, just over the last three years with me working with Stay Low.
“There's gonna be very intimate things that people haven't seen us share about, it might even take us back a year ago, to the point where a year ago, last year I was fighting Cassper Nyovest.”
The two rappers got in the ring last year and Nyovest claimed victory, and on the same night he was among the closing acts for Back to the City Festival. This year in a turn of events, Priddy Ugly performed in a similar spot at the festival.
“For me, it's one of those things so I commend the better man that day. He definitely was a better fighter. so people are gonna see footage of even as far back as what was happening in that time.”
He also hints that fans won’t have to wait for too long for the music video of ‘Ntja’ka’, now that schedules have aligned.
It’s not easy working with raps MVP Maglera Doe Boy, his schedule has become super tight.
“There's a lot of moving parts and I pray that's all I can do, just pray and try and plan that everything else in our rollout happens seamlessly and people get the videos when they're supposed to get them.”
His partnership with record label Stay Low continues to be a fruitful one on both ends. “I've grown a lot from this relationship and they continue to support me, three years later, even in Covid.
“To see the things like their structure and how they integrate everything that they're doing into their ecosystem and how it benefits the artist and how the artist benefits the label and everything.
“It's been a beautiful relationship in that sense that I've gained a lot of knowledge from it.”
As South Africa hits the festive seasons, fans can of course expect to see him outside performing on some of the biggest stages.
He has a new single out with Tyson Sybateli ‘So Disrespectful’ and ‘Dust’ drops on January 24, 2024.