Bataung Moeketsi
CIRCUS Recipe aka Futuristic, was on Friday the first Mosotho MC to feature on South African rapper Stogie T’s #FreestyleFriday online platform this week.
After taking a week off to observe solidarity with the Black Lives Matter campaign in the United States, which has garnered global support, Stogie T is back with a new episode for his rap series.
Circus Recipe was in the company of Stogie T himself and other South African artistes including AKA, Towdee Mac, Kayvok Force and Deff Eff. Kenya’s Kavok Force, Mozambique’s Laylizzy, the United Kingdom’s Youthstar and the United States’ Inviziblehands and Elohkush also made an appearance.
Although the concept is borrowed from other platforms like BET, Stogie has used the platform since March 2020 to showcase skilled wordsmiths.
The platform has since grown and now includes upcoming acts that are handpicked by Stogie T on Instagram.
Circus Recipe told the Xpress People on Friday that despite knowing Stogie T personally, the latter was unaware that the former was a rapper until he heard a verse that he recited on the #PassTheMicCypher.
The cypher included a few Basotho rappers and was posted on various social media platforms on 1 May 2020. The following day Stogie T tweeted “@CircusRecipe OLD WIVES TALE, huh?” in reference to one of Circus Recipe’s lines on the clip.
Circus Recipe said that it was then that he took to Stogie’s Instagram Live to once again prove his lyrical capabilities and eventually bagged a spot on #FreestyleFriday.
“It was obviously a great development because Stogie T is one of my idols,” Circus Recipe said.
“It has been very fulfilling to know him personally and for him to tell me continuously that I’m nice (lyrically).”
Circus Recipe is no stranger to the Lesotho Hip Hop circuit having performed as a solo act and also as part of rap duo Olive Branch alongside his partner in rhyme, Isosceles.
In 2007 he featured on Benni B’s Life Em Up remix which featured nine other rappers and has gone on to release two cult classics, namely Olive Branch’s self-titled album in 2012 and his debut solo project the following year, Carte Blanche.
More recently, Circus Recipe has also been a formidable battle rapper on the Dirt Mouth league stage having sparred with Kafela, Ciro, King Shadow and Phizzy Core.
Circus Recipe moved to Johannesburg in 2019 to work as a Research Intern at the Socio-Economic Rights Institute for a year after obtaining his Bachelor of Laws (LLB) degree from the University of the Free State the previous year. He is currently a freelance writer and researcher for multiple organisations around Johannesburg within the human rights sector.
“I do music from a place of necessity, as part of my being and me living a full life, as I believe I have a God-given talent that I have to honour.”
The rapper initially adopted the name Future, derived from a character from the movie 8 Mile and being referred to as the future while partaking in rap cyphers. With a now acclaimed American rapper bursting on to the scene in 2010 with a similar name, he thought it best to instead run with Futuristic, a nickname some had used already.
He came up with the moniker Circus Recipe, a phonetic way of saying his birth name Sekese Rasephei, “while trying to figure out a cool Twitter handle” in 2017.
“I love it because despite it being mad corny, it’s original and creative,” Circus Recipe said.
“I have always envied the likes of Nas, Phonte and Tumi who used their real names as their aliases and, so as of 12 June 2020, the name Futuristic is dead and behind me,” Circus Recipe said.