A 27-year-old entrepreneur from Sunningdale is fast making a name for himself as a music promoter.
While still at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) in 2014, Luvuyo Ndiki started a business, Red Cup Village, manufacturing plastic cups that he would then sell at events he helped to promote.
In 2016 Luvuyo teamed up with Boro Money, a Lagos-based musician, actor and businessman and opened a Cape Town branch of his record label, Cash Hop Investments, which, according to Boro Money, offers a range of ancillary services for artists.
Luvuyo runs the music studio from his home.
“The aim is to offer services to our clients that help them in the future. We do web development, animation video production, talent and social media management,” says Luvuyo.
He and his team want to promote raw talent and break the stranglehold they say Johannesburg has had on the country’s music industry for too long.
One talent Cash Hop has uncovered is Tshepo Ntamane, also known by his stage name, Dirty Poet.
Dirty Poet grew up in Cape Town and has lived in Durban for some time. He started rapping in 2012 after a friend asked him to write a verse for him for a song.
The name “Dirty Poet” came from a conversation he had with a friend, who commented that, “rap is dirty poetry,” after watching a rap cypher video.
He says his music is a little different from the conventional rap heard these days.
He started off doing poetry in his younger days and made the switch to rap after that.
“To be honest, I have never really been into rap but it sort of crept up on me while listening with a friend.”
Speaking about his recent trip to Nigeria, he says he felt his sound would be more appreciated there because they have a similar Afro-pop feel to their music.
“I know that to make it big, I have to make myself well-known in places besides just South Africa. But I do believe that for me it’s important to be big here in South Africa.
“There are a lot of artists who are big in the rest of the world but are hardly known here. I believe that charity begins at home.”
In Nigeria he met the likes of Ice Prince, a superstar name there who also has won many international awards including a BET Award.
“Being there and sharing the same space as those guys was surreal and I saw how hard they work.”
Cash Hop is planning to release a music video for Dirty Poet’s first single, Questions.
The song was released recently iTunes, Spotify, SoundCloud and Audiomack.
Luvuyo says they are there to help local artists build their brands.
“We are in the business of creating a space for artists to be their own business and not just make music. We let the artist have creative control and that is very rare in this industry,” he said.