Everything Local caught up with one of Cape Town ’ s very own … Grandmaster Ready D . We asked him about his love for music , drifting , and how it all began .
Good Evening D , thank you for taking the time to chat to us .
You ’ re welcome man , thank you very much for allowing me the opportunity to chat with you .
D , please will you tell us where it all began for you ? You know what aya , I ’ m always telling people I grew up in a musical community , and I think it probably all started before I was born . You know , because music is all around us . I was born and bred in District 6 , it ’ s a community that was driven by music , and I think , because there was so much going on in the house , in the road , in the community , there ’ s always a rhythm that ’ s been out there . I was lucky to be exposed to a whole lot of different genres . My dad used to play guitar , not as a professional , you know , just as a guy that used to entertain family and friends . Opposite our house we had the guys who used to practise for the koon carnival . We had the Christmas choirs that came to our place . I used to attend church , I was heavily involved in church , so there ’ s music in church as well , so it ’ s been all over the place . I ’ m always telling people , you know the whole thing with Hip-Hop and rhyming is a part of who we were . We were telling jokes in rhyme form as kids , even before we knew this thing was going to become Hip-Hop , you know . It was going to evolve into this whole thing , Hip- Hop as we know it now , so I would say it was deeply entrenched in our DNA .
How did you get involved with POC ? With POC and with Hip-Hop , I got involved through DJ ’ ing , been a beat boy and been a graph writer ( Graffiti artist ), so we were quite active in the early 80 ’ s . I would say we were the first generation of Hip-Hop heads . We then went from the streets into this club called “ Club Teasers ” ( lol , not the strip joint ). Club Teasers used to be pretty much I would say a “ white ” club that was cutting edge for the time . They were heavy into rock , they were into , I ’ d say rock and reggae music , heavy metal and punk vibes , and us dancing on the Grand Parade dancing as bee boys , you know every Saturday we used to take the train to town , to go battle or just dance , until the security or the police would chase us away , and we had friends , believe it or not , you know so called coloured friends who used to hang out with the Punk Rockers , and they told us about this club .