Motswako

Motswako is a Southern African genre of hip hop popular in Botswana and South Africa. It consists of a mix of rap lyrics in both the local language (Setswana) and English layered on a steady beat. Other languages used include Sesotho, Zulu, French and Afrikaans as per the rapper's origin. The genre gained popularity in the late nineties as South African acts like HHP and Baphixile (consisting of "Prof" and "Blax Myth") started rapping in Setswana, resulting in an increased following from the local population. Because of its reputation in Botswana most of the upcoming artists use this genre as a base before they start their music careers because of its basic principles, a good motswako artist have to learn the creative writing skills used to perfect the genre making it easy to learn and write music. Today there is a high pool of motswako artists in Botswana and South Africa with few females artists.