Musical Style, Rapping Technique and Influences
Sunny Boy fused hip hop and kwaito to create a sound he calls hikwa. Hikwa is compused of elements of both genres, although vocally it reflects more into hip hop. A lot of other artists has start to use this form of Kwaito to put more lyrics into their songs. Although Sunny Boy does not take credit for inventing the style, rapping in Kwaito has been used before by South African kwaito artists such as Zola, Kabelo, Mandoza, Brown Dash and Brickz, however he was the first to populate it in Namibia.
Sunny Boy is also acclaimed for his complex rapping technique which includes the use of multisyllabic rhymes. He is well skilled with crafting intricate and intelligent rhymes. Sunny Boy also uses extended metaphor to elaborate his lyrics. His raps are mixed between three languages, (English, Afrikaans and Oshiwambo), of which he highly maintain the a story without losing its meaning. Another rapper who uses this technique is Qonja, but what set Sunny Boy aside is the ability to cohesively run back-and-fourth between the three languages by telling the same story and bending words so that they rhyme.
Sunny Boy's draws most of his inspiration from hip hop. He named American rappers The Notorious B.I.G., Tupac Shakur, Jay-Z and Nas among others as his main influences. His voice pattern, flow and rhyme delivery is compared to that of Nas who is highly praised as one of hip hop's greatest poets. He also mentioned, Brickz and Brown Dash of South Africa as one of his influences.
Read more about this topic: Sunny Boy (rapper)
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