Kgosi King

Kahelo Tsosani who is well known as Kgosi, which stands for King in English. Was born and raised in Lesotho, he relocated to the Western Cape on the year of 1998. Kgosi was raised by a single mother, he is the first born amongst his siblings, Kgosi fell in-love with poetry when he was in primary school. He got interested in Hip Hop when he was in high school, engaging in cypher battles behind school classrooms, Kgosi’s friend who was a rising music producer at the time helped him to produce most of his music. But Kgosi realized how his friend struggled with most of his music resources and materials, and he felt that he should just go back to poetry so that he wont have to go to produce music anymore. Kgosi used what he had, to craft his own poetic art, and poetry was his refuge. Kgosi began to perform his poems for his school mates and classmates at high school, when Kgosi was at varsity he was introduced to Ikamva Lesintu and Ink Prophets which was led by Nqobi Madlala. Kgosi blossomed at Ikamva Lesintu, and he took leadership of the organization, but the workload that came with heading the Ikamva Lesintu movement began to isolate him from writing and performing poetry, fore he was busy organizing performance platforms through the Ikamva Lesintu movement for other artists. Through Ikamva Lesintu Kgosi was influenced to read through the ideologies of Steve Biko, Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe, Kwame Nkrumah, legends that helped him to understand the landscape of the township life, and the oppressing structures that aim to suppress the black child. Kgosi was also greatly influenced by the music of a Cape Town based Hip Hop rapper “Ndlulamthi” who he quotes his words “As black child elokishini manintsi amathuba wokuba uzbhaqe useVantyini yamapolisa…” Kgosi has studied a teaching course at the University of The Western Cape, even though people may stereotype the profession of teaching as one of the low paying jobs. But Kgosi believes that he is not adventuring in the profession for the money, he believes that he is there to make a change, and that if all people were born with the same advantages in life, we would have been better off as a society. He further says that “If you cannot afford to offer financial stability for your children, at least offer them emotional, wisdom and mental stability. That is not man made or bought.”