If you like cooking, you end up cooking your own dishes. It’s the same for music.”
This is how East London-born musician Mvikeli Masuku, better known by his stage name Blaqverse , described his journey as an artist.
Masuku’s latest album, Dawn, was released last Sunday on all digital platforms. It consists of six original songs and was made with the help of producers from East London and the Eastern Cape.
The musician said his love of music emerged at an early age.
“I grew up listening to a lot of music at home. My aunts and uncles listened to a lot of reggae.
“From there, I started appreciating a lot more kinds of music,” he said.
Masuku decided to try his hand at making his own music in 2014, when he teamed up with his cousin who also works as a producer.
He described his new album as “basically poetry on top of new-age beats”.
“The beats are pretty new-age and modern, and the lyrical content is very old-school hip-hop,” he said.
One of the main challenges he faced when putting Dawn together was getting the beats to go with it.
“Another challenge was getting the overall theme down, writing a consistent story across the songs,” he said.
Masuku has already received acclaim for his work, having been nominated for Best Newcomer at the 2016 Eastern Cape Music Awards.
“I am a student of the game and am simply a product of the culture in its current tides,” he said.