admin“You’re a superstar!” This is what President Jacob Zuma had to say wildly to popular hip hop artiste, Cassper Nyovest after he became the first South African musician to fill the 20,000 seating capacity Dome in Northgate, Johannesburg, without the help of an international act. Cassper Nyovest, real name Refiloe Maele Phoolo, performed to a full capacity Dome arena over the weekend at what he dubbed ‘#FillUpTheDome’, fulfilling his dream and in the process achieving a feat that no other South African, let alone African artiste has ever achieved.
“We congratulate Cassper Nyovest for his tremendous success which has demonstrated the rich talent that exists within our country’s music industry especially amongst our youth,” said President Zuma in a statement.
“Cassper has also confirmed the enormous support for local music by our youth, which augurs well for the development of our arts, culture and heritage.”
What started as a dream to get people to support their own content came to pass on Saturday as people from different parts of South Africa, some from Africa thronged the Dome to support Cassper’s noble initiative. Judging by posts on social media networking site Twitter which has for the past days been ablaze with congratulatory messages, it seems Cassper hit the right chords as those who attended the show seem to have enjoyed every bit of the performance. From Saturday, congratulatory messages have been pouring out to Cassper.
Organisers of the South Africa Music Awards congratulated Cassper saying: “#FillUpTheDome is a true testament of what happens when South Africans support South Africans and when dreamers are doers! Congratulations to Cassper Nyovest.”
An excited Nyovest who always takes time to appreciate his supporters posted on his Facebook page: “I cannot thank you guys enough for supporting my dream!!! You always go the extra mile for me and I appreciate it!!! Thank you”
“Shout out to every single musician that worked on #FillUpTheDome backstage and otherwise, thank you. We made history!!!”
Staying true to himself and refusing to be likened to other music greats, Cassper said: “I’m not SA’s Kanye West or Michael Jackson. I’m Africa’s Cassper Nyovest!!! I wrote my name in the history books!!!”
Yesterday, many music stations including MTV Base and MTV Nigeria posted him on their social media networking sites as their Man Crush Monday (MCM). MCM is when an inspirational man is celebrated. Not to be outdone was Cassper’s girlfriend Boity who also made Cassper her “Man Crush Monday” on Instagram, with a collage of the couple and simply captioned it: “Refiloe’s consistency game is on fleek!”
The success of #FillUpTheDome will likely see Cassper raising his performance fees especially considering that he is raking up endorsement deals and that his second studio album Refiloe went gold in three hours after its release. Cassper’s long-time manager Tlee announced on Saturday that the album would likely go platinum by Friday as they already have 21,000 pre-orders.
And now, the pressure is on other countries and their musicians to create a culture of supporting local content. An avid promoter of Zimbabwe music, Dzikamayi Chibaya yesterday questioned his Facebook followers whom they thought had the potential to attract 20,000 fans, shortlisting Winky D and Jah Prayzah. – Showbiz Reporter/Online.
Online Reporter