From an early age, Hip hop has proved to be a male dominated genre where only the best survive. Females have however joined in the scene and while others are easily forgotten, others remain winning and show qualities of being fearless and strong.
Sarona Motlhagodi, famously known as Sasa Klaas, is by far a female hip hop artist who is proving to be capable of standing as tall as men but also outshining them.
The 21-year-old young rhymer seems to be doing a great job destroying the proverbial glass ceiling to become a legend in her own right. She describes herself as a passionate individual who loves interacting with people and mostly being the voice for the voiceless.
Growing up, Sasa Klaas developed a liking for hip hop music at a tender age, she said it was only in 2011 that she decided to take this craft seriously and start a group.
“I grew up as a poet as I was very good with poetry, I later went to finish my schooling in Joburg where I learnt a lot about myself, I realised that I had a talent in me that needed to be shared with the world and that is when I came back here to share with my people,” she said.
Motlhagodi added that she then landed a presenting job which was a hip hop show on eBotswana. This is where her craft started growing in limps and bounds as she meet up with passionate hip hop artists who shared the same interest as her but who were already established and as a result was able to learn a few tricks of staying winning in the game.
“I started a music group with my friend who sang while I rhymed, although the group did not do well we managed to release a song called ‘Ultimate universe’ and it did quite well as it managed to get us noticed,” she said.
She continued that her partner decided to pursue a modeling career and that is when she decided to go solo as she had faith that she could make it on her own. “I called myself Sasa Klaas and a lot of people do not now that Klaas is my grandfather’s name so because it is a catchy name I decided to use it as having a catchy name is crucial in this business,” she said.
Being the youngest in the industry meant that Motlhagodi had to get a mentor who can show her the ropes until she can stand on her own. She added that because she grow up looking up to hip hop artist Scar, she decided to ask him to be his guidance teacher. “I leant a lot of things from him and he used to invite me to their recording studio so that I see what goes on when a song is made, all that learning drove me to make my first single called ‘H.A.D.S.A.N’ and surprisingly the song got a lot of attention from the media and fans who were shocked by the amount of talent I had,” she reminisces.
This achievement lead to yet another beautiful made melody as Motlhagodi collaborated with Scar to make another killer song called ‘A ke mo Khandeng’. She quickly pointed out that the fusion between her and Scar made people even from other parts of the world to start recognising her as a fearless hip hop female artist. “I started getting a lot of bookings, I performed alongside SA’s greatest hip hop artist Khuli Chana and also opened for Joe Tomas when he was here,” she said.
All this great work managed to get her nominated for the Yaronafm Music Awards (YAMAS) which will be held in November. Sasa Klaas has been nominated under the category best hip hop and motswako and for the award best new comer. Motlhagodi added that she stands a chance to walk away with all this awards that is only if Batswana vote for her in large numbers.
She continued that she is now busy in the studio working on her first album which will include some of the best artists both locally and internationally.
Although she has recently been in the public eye for tweeting about having managed to get someone spend p50 000 on her in a month, she said she wants people to appreciate her music and see its potential as opposed to her private matters.
When asked if she is indeed dating the Olympic star Nigel Amos, she said, “We do hang out most of the time and we are very close but we have not labeled it as dating,” she said.
