Hailing from Cape Town, the rapper is gearing up to release his eagerly awaited debut album, “Ivangeli”.
Born Luthando Dikeni, the rapper is the first artist to be signed under award-winning rapper Emtee's record label, Emtee Records.
In 2018, Lolli Native was discovered by the former Ambitiouz Entertainment and signed through his talent-search reality TV show, “Rap 4 Me”.
Lolli Native proudly regards his music as Spaza, an original South African Hip Hop sound, which uses isiXhosa in its lyrics and is heavily influenced by township living.
Speaking to IOL Entertainment, he shed light on the Xhosa album that tells his story of his journey as a hip hop artist in the country.
“My debut album is about patience, the hardships that I have run into, while trying to make it as an artist in the country. It's a Xhosa project, it deals with everything from when I started,” he shared.
The album title, “Ivangeli” (isiXhosa for “Evangelicalism”) is a reference to Lolli Native’s Christian values.
All 11 songs in the collection are completely written in his home language, isiXhosa.
The first track on the album is “uMama” which is a song Lolli Native has penned directed at his mother who has been supporting him for the start. The artist explains that the song is sort of an apology to his mother that things took time to come together as he chose his own path.
On “Ivangeli”, Lolli Native shares with his fans his process of getting to the point where he is able to create a body of work filled with songs of inspiration.
The lead producer is Knife Beatz, who Lolli Native has been working with for a while, he opted to work with him as they have developed a good working relationship and the producer has grown to understand his sound.
Lolli Native has worked with the likes Black Tears, Brian Temba, Master BC, young2unnbeats and Meloproduceit on the album.
For the features, Lolli Native strictly went with Xhosa artists, it is a Xhosa album after all, showing his Xhosa activism when it comes to hip hop music. Ensuring that his message does not get lost, Lolli Native opted to not have too many features.
Being under Emtee’s label does come with a lot of external attention, while Emtee is one of the country's greatest hip hop acts, his run-ins with the public have drawn criticism.
Lolli Native does admit that in the beginning it was adjusting to the extra attention that came with being associated with Emtee.
“I feel like I met Emtee when I was already an artist and I feel he also helped me become my own person instead of ‘Emtee’s artist’. I always put my best foot forward and with every feature, with every song that I appear on, every song I drop, I slowly show people who Lolli Native is outside of Emtee Records, Emtee the huster,” he shared.
With Emtee’s help Lolli Native is becoming the artist he wants to become. He also notes that there are “huge doors” that have opened up for him because of being associated with Emtee, which he is grateful for.
“I couldn’t be more grateful for an opportunity to work at Emtee Records because my relationship with them goes beyond business. I gained a second family and a whole lot of opportunities to elevate my career,” he said.
The record label boss has nothing but praise for him and sees good things in store for his future.
“The success of the few tracks that I’ve released with him in the last two years should be an indication of how talented and committed he is to his art. I am very excited for the release of his debut album!” said Emtee.
“Ivangeli” drops on August 19 on all streaming platforms.