Chronicle Editor
Mbulelo Mpofu, [email protected]
AVID Bible scholars know that there is a time for everything, and in the fullness of time, changes happen. This is the case with a Zimbabwean rapper based in Canada, Yung G (born Gugulethu Leslie Ndibali) whose career has just got a shot in the arm.
He believes he was not expressing himself artistically to the fullest extent for a long time and wants to make things right.
Yung G has been recording music in silence and feels it is about time he unleashes his works. His first stop will be the release of his EP, Stop Nonsense next month. Deep in that whisper, he wants to roar and raise Cain on himself.
He blames his “big ego”, delinquency, and complacency for the stagnation in his career.
“From the time I began my career as an artiste till now, I haven’t stopped, but slacked a bit, but now I’m back. I called this EP, Stop Nonsense because I feel like musically, looking back where I started, I should have been too far if it wasn’t for my laziness and big ego.
“I’ve been up to no good in a lot of ways and lost good people in my life because of my behaviour, but now, I’m stopping all that nonsense because I’ve grown. I’m not young no more,” he said.
Yung G has changed his stage name a considerable times, from Mr Leslie to Lil G and now Yung G. He has not been all about bars, metaphors, and rhymes, but has a serious Kwaito background anchored on listening to the likes of Mapaputsi, Mdu, Kabelo, Pozee Younga97 and Tunyce.
His first recording was back in 2012 with the group, “Good Fellas” and Kelly Nelly when he was still Lil G on a track titled, Bayeke Bekhulume. He then went on to record the second titled, I Do More with the group in the same year. Sadly, they had a fallout when the other members relocated to South Africa and this necessitated the birth of his solo career as Lil G.
In 2014, Yung G was instrumental in the promotion of the Kasi Lami Art Platform and the distribution of their music overseas as singles such as Top Dawg, Make Em Klap and Alaina’s Juice Box got some spins in Canada on the Breakfast Club (Shady45).
Three years later, he joined forces with Mr Confidence from Cameroon to form, Dream Chasers and together, they recorded and released the single, “We Original” that same year. Since then, he has worked on more than 50 songs that are unreleased due to not being professional and greed among the artistes he worked with.
Has it been all doom and gloom for the rapper? No, he has come of age and made major academic strides after completing a Film Studies degree at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg and is pursuing his Masters at the University of York in Toronto, Canada.
On his theatrical side, the thespian has been featured in a lot of movies and television shows.
“We were shooting a television show called, The Boys, but the production got stopped due to the strike in Hollywood. Other productions that I’ve been a part of include a popular television show in Canada called, ‘Kim’s Convenience.’ I was also part of Amazon Prime’s American Gods and Netflix’s Bad Blood,” he shared.
He has performed in diverse places in the past and his favourite was bringing Ammara Brown to Canada and being her opening act.
Yung G had an intriguing childhood after being part of a multi-cultural family in the mining town of Gwanda with his father being a Zambia-born Zimbabwean and his mother being a South Africa-born Zimbabwean. – @MbuleloMpofu
Online Reporter