Snazz D

Born on March 13th, 1977 in Cape Town, South Africa, Snazz The Dictator is an authority figure when it comes to hip-hop in South Africa. Growing up in Guguletu on the Cape Flats during the height of the Apartheid Era, Snazz moved to Mitchell's Plein in the late eighties, another hood on the Flats where hip-hop was beginning to boom, with such crews as P.O.C and Black Noise emerging on the scene, a then young 'Snazzy D' could be found stealing the spotlight wherever and whenever rhymes were being tossed around. Making a name for himself at a very young age. Relocating to Johannesburg in the early nineties, Snaz took that same approach and energy to hoods such as Hillbrow and Yeoville, teaming up with Kaptin and Krook'd tha Warmonga, two like-minded MC's, to form the now cult crew Audio Visual. Coining the word "J-Sec" or "J-Section", a nickname for the City and it's surrounding areas, his crew garnered notoriety holding it down in champion form, making his first appearance in 1996 on "The Muthaload" a compilation on Tusk Music, on the stand-out track 'Mic Device' with his other crew Dark Seed, a group with Fee and Iko. Snazz D would become the host for the now legendary Saturday matinee sessions at 'Le Club' downtown Johannesburg with DJ Blaze and DJ Bionic, holding down the mic at the very heart of Johazardousburg's hungry rhyme scene, while furthering his horizons in his spare time, reading many books, and changing his writing style to his own form of calligraphy to avoid biters, making socially conscious tracks with a touch of humor and irony his goal. In 1999, he left to visit Cologne, Germany, doing shows and recording several tracks with some of the local hip-hop crews, some which found their way on albums and mixtapes, teaming up with X-Amount and other MC's upon his return to South Africa, to form the group Cashless Society, which saw the Fondle 'Em release of their single "Blazetha Breaks" on a split 12" with Mizchif's "Place For A Wife in 2000, as a result of opening for Bobbito, Mr. Len and Jean Grae at the Metropolis club in downtown Johannesburg. 2002 saw the release of "Demolition: The MeStory" an album by another crew Snaz is a part of called Groundworks, which includes Audio Visual, and other underground word manglers from the Johannesburg and Cape Town scenes, featuring on several songs on the album, the CD included his self-produced 'copaesthetic phenomenology' as well as the acclaimed 'Dungeon Keepers'. The following year Cashless Society followed up their "Blaze Tha Breaks" debut with the release of "African Raw Material Vol. 1", gaining high accolades, the album featured successful singles 'Hottentot Hop Bantu 1,2' and 'Taxi Wars', which had the group winning three SAMA's in 2004, and four awards at the South African "Hiphop Indaba Awards". In 2007 Snazz tha Dictator won the "Sprite Emcee Africa" freestyle battle, defeating J-Town from Ghana in the final of this continent wide competition, which included challenges in Angola, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and Tanzania, earning him $10,000,- in prize money, and a track with Wordsworth, one of the judges in the competition. Snazz has recorded with the likes of Shaheen, Metaphysics, Jonzi D, Tumi, Wordsworth, Masauko, Ramesh, Tha Hymphatic Thabs, Gini Grindith, Remarkable, Clueso, Modenine, Killani Rich, Zubz, Qba and Professor J amongst many others.