Botswana Hip-Hop OG, Scar, Keeps Reinventing Himself
We speak to one of Botswana hip-hop’s treasured talents, Scar, about his storied career — a convoluted mix of highs, lows, and impressive rebounds that have kept him relevant in the country’s entertainment scene for the past two decades.
There’s something disarmingly regular about talking to Scar, the Botswana hip-hop OG. Twenty years into his career, he still possesses a healthy pen game, quick and witty flow, and has got a newly-released project called Gaborone Son 2 to add to his series of accomplishments. Even over a WhatsApp connection, conversation flows easy, like paying a visit to a neighbor and chatting about the week’s issues.
Scar’s spent the past two days MCing the Forbes Under 30 Summit in his hometown of Gaborone. He’s blowing off steam and relaxing when we talk about various aspects of his storied career, one that includes a two-decade stint on primetime radio, and a parade of allegations that have followed him throughout his professional life, yet never managed to deter him.
The Roots
“I’m a rapper first, and then I became a broadcaster. I’m a father to one son. Currently, I have a girlfriend. I’ve been doing music for the past twenty years,” he says as we settle into our virtual hangout.
Scar has been rapping since his earlier years; his first project, Illegal Act, was released in 2002 under his then record label, Vivid Vision. He had barely turned 18 and was the first solo hip-hop act in Botswana to release an album at that age.
Kwaito overshadowed a lot of what was happening in the Southern African music circuit during those years, to the point where other music genres never got their deserved time in the spotlight. To speak of a hip-hop career was unheard-of.
“I got a bit of influence from [kwaito and hip-hop]. I was lyrical, but I also knew what I wanted to hear, and what a hit sounded like. When they heard [the album], the country went crazy man,” he says. Scar followed that debut album with Happy Hour in 2006. Around this time, he found another talent in broadcasting which he decided to hone.The Radio Bug Bites
Scar was the beneficiary of a blueprint laid by the likes of Big Duke, a hip-hop artist and former Ya Rona FM presenter. He signed his radio contract in 2007, did the usual graveyard shift to learn the chops, and got on air proper in 2008, when he did the morning drive program.
His music career was also popping off in a parallel world, and he was a judge on M-Net’s Africa Idols show. “I’d leave [the radio] on a Thursday, and come back on a Saturday or Sunday. It was for about four months,” he says.
Continental award recognition came in the form of a Channel 0 Spirit of Africa award for “Metlholo,” which won under the Best Hip-Hop category. He was also nominated in the Best Newcomer and Best Southern African categories for those awards. He then signed an endorsement deal with the cellphone network company, Orange Botswana, and became the face of one of its mobile offerings in 2009. His son, Adrian, was also born in the midst of all that rapid change.
“It was wild. I was trying to have some purpose [but] we got dizzy. You think the contract is there forever but like, that’s where the hardships of life started popping up. That’s how I quit school as well, because I thought I could make more, you know?”
A New Lease
Scar dedicated himself to his radio broadcasting career over the next decade. He was perfecting his presenting chops, understanding what it takes to retain listenership and satisfy sponsors on primetime radio, and getting the science behind content monetization.
“Ultimately, putting [all that] into what I do now is something that I will always be happy about. Working in advertising as an events coordinator also helped me harness my skills as far as being an events promoter.”
He got to work with the producer Drak, whom he’d known for a while, and Songs for Adrian was released in 2019. It’s been described as, “a repository of personal experiences,” whose open-endedness invites the audience to, “[decide] the meaning of each piece based on their own personal bias.”
Scar then later found a fitting producer in Fella, and that link-up gave him a new perspective on the music. “I wanted to rap, man. [We] did Gaborone Son 1. He just wants to keep me rapping. He enjoys recording [with] and making songs for me. That’s why I always go back to him.”
In a country like Botswana, a public figure of Scar’s standing tends to court controversy. He has said before, that he’s at an age now where he realizes that he’s not obliged to engage every bit of misconception there is about him. Still, there are some things he won’t let go, like how his last departure from Ya Rona FM was handled.
“If I really was such a headache, and people tried to get rid of me, don’t say I tried to hit someone,” he told The Juice 2.0 podcast last year. Essentially, there was a meeting at the radio station, tempers flared, and he was fired the following day.
This happened in the midst of the COVID-19 lockdown, and led to him going back to school to finish his degree.
“I went back to school because I got a scholarship from Limkokwing University. I went to classes for about two years. I [was] in there with kids who are younger than me, kids who have done absolutely nothing before. And I’m sitting there thinking, ‘if I set up this production [company], I can hire these kids!’ This is where my [space] got re-built.”
That was around the time he linked up with Local Corner, the team that films his podcast. “They had seen that podcasts were popping. Three years ago, they were like, ‘we’d really like to do one with you.’ That’s how I was able to come up with the name Podicast, because I had this clothing label called PODI – People Of Different Identities. We came in with no production money. We were all just jumping in, and we were all just gonna keep filming these damn episodes,” he says.
Scar also credits his girlfriend as the reason for his current path in podcasting. “She’d be like, ‘why don’t you go back to radio?’ The truth was I couldn’t, and no one wanted to [do anything] with me. She’s a really good organizer, so I made her line producer for the show. We put together a company, and we got to work. I’m happy to say that we’re up, papa.”