Humblo is crowned Face of VenRap

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A 22-year-old student at the University of Venda, Humbulani Winnie Manenzhe, was recently crowned Face of VenRap. She is an LLB student in her third year.

The proud former pupil of Ridgeway College in Louis Trichardt, Humblo, as she's popularly known in music circles, stated that being crowned Face of VenRap only meant that she was ready to promote the aspirations of the genre and artists. “My role is to promote the genre until it has reached international level,” she said. “I know that the fact why we are not heard and listened to it is the sad truth that our language is undermined. We are better than most rappers and rappers across other languages.”

Her love for rap music had started at a very young age as she was growing up at Muduluni village in the Kutama area. “My late brother, who happened to be my best friend, was a huge fan of rap music,” she said. “He listened to the likes of Ja Rule, Tupac, Dr DRE and Snoop Dogg, to mention a few. I would come back from school and sit with him while listening to music. He sang along with the tracks and wrote his own lyrics.”

Humblo admitted that at that stage she was too young to fully understand music, but still she loved it.  “As time went by, I started understanding and following rap music with an open, mature mind.”

When VenRap started making waves, she collected tracks from friends and listened to them. As she listened to the music she had collected, she realised that it was more appealing and relevant than hip-hop sung in foreign languages. “I could relate,” she said. “Mizo Phyll was the first artist to capture my heart. I had not seen him or heard of him elsewhere, but when I listened to him, I imagined a Venda boy all swagged  up, focused and representing Venda youths.”

In 2012, she was so drawn to VenRap so much that she wanted to find a voice of her own and get it heard by the public. As a result, she was featured in a song titled Music is all I need; it was a beautiful song that was well received.

“What I love more about Venrap is the fact that it takes young people from the streets and puts them indoors where they work in groups to get a track together,” she said. “This creates unity and purports the spirit of working together. It makes young Venda people to get themselves together and live in a rather decent manner because once you are an artist you feel obliged to show a good image as you are seen as a role model to youths.”

The competition was organised by Limpopo Online TV and VenRap Store in association with Tony Sam Pictures, Bomo Photographic Studio.

The spokesperson for Bomo Entertainment Media, Nema wa Mahunguni, said that the competition aimed to give back to all ladies who had always been supporting VenRap music from early days. “They always share music, attend events, buy albums and support artists but no one ever cares of their efforts,” he said. “They might be fans, groupies, artists, or music lovers but at end of the day they are the ones who give us hope when we are down. There is no event that will be great without ladies' talking about it on social media or boosting artist success.”

By: Tshifhiwa Mukwevho

Tshifhiwa Given Mukwevho was born in 1984 in Madombidzha village, not far from Louis Trichardt in the Limpopo Province. After submitting articles for roughly a year for Limpopo Mirror's youth supplement, Makoya, he started writing for the main newspaper. He is a prolific writer who published his first book, titled A Traumatic Revenge in 2011. It focusses on life on the street and how to survive amidst poverty. His second book titled The Violent Gestures of Life was published in 2014.