Nutz about rap!: A deeper look at Ash-leigh Lexikon L Foy

Lex La Foy, Queen Shalabeama the mother of Torquois!!!

Phresh spirited South African freestyle murking emcee, is no fresh face to South African hi hop Lexi's been kicking verses for 9 years and counting,

SAHHA (best mixtape) award nominee 2012 and Top 20 BTTC finalist of the 10k challenge,(@ www.backtothecityfestival.com) We're going to be looking at Lexikons' creative make and get to analyse the detail of what she does and everything else surrounding it.

It goes without question that allegiance goes to our ladies first as the fresh rare edition to the male dominated arena, the 4 of us behind scenes Nutz are loyal supporters of Lady Lex, loyalty is what it is all about..keeps it moving Lex, we'r all behind u all da mathafriggin way bay!!

A quick intro

for all heads who don't know Lex yet (of which you should be ashamed of!)

>Lexikon debuted onto the scene in 2004, featured in DYR's hip hop show Swiss chedder.

>She got invited to rap at the inqaba hip hop sessions at Bat center in Durban.

>Was in the same crew as Zulu Boy and Raheem of T.H.O.T.S

>Her mixtape "sketches in the mind" was executively produced by Blaq Hitilah a.k.a Kangamaan supreme and was nominated at the 1st annual SAHHA awards

Lexikon as the battle emcee!!

The scrambles for money battle circuit has been responsible for the buzz of excitement that's been going on in the hip hop community (nationally), anybody whose a South African head has got 1 battle to tell you about from scrambles that they thought was dope..F**k it! If you can't share a single line from a hard hitting battle on scrambles, then ur just NOT STREET enough...period!

So we also spoke to Lexikon about her battle on scrambles, n what that experience was like, with only 2 questions from the whole interview.

CLICK HERE! to be re-directed to youtube to watch the battle, Protista vs Lexikon

Lexikon spent the first 4 years of her rap career battling and freestyling

" at the time, it was just the thing to do. Honouring the gift because it exists. I later came to learn that all that was referred to as 'earning one's dues"

- Quoted from an interview answer by Ashleigh.

Q: Before the battle took place, did you look forward to it?

A: "I did. I was driven by the hype around the event and the great media attention given to it."

Q: What was battling Protista like? And what did you take with you from that experience?

A: "It was super fun. I hadn’t battled in years. And I won’t lie, I was rather intimidated at the offer to battle again. I love an adrenaline rush though. I love challenging myself and being challenged and I love confrontation. While I was up there I remembered how much I enjoyed battling. A Queen must always be prepared to go to war for her people. And so there I was. I did best, and it was cool earning respect. Ofcourse there were huge commentaries on the judgments at those battles. I’m all good though, her and I spoke the other day, and, well…let’s just say her admitting she felt the way she did, was soothing justice for me. There was a lot of hostility in the air at the time, and a while after. We’re all good now. Battling is an art, and we saw it through. I know bushwomen (like myself and her) are always full of attitude, so I enjoyed it artistically. I’d battled other femcees in the past that were a lot more boring. She was nice"

I give it up to both ladies on this battle, Protista was nice in delivery,word play, rebuttles were strong..flow and rythm waz hella!! Lexikon was nice on the punch, presence was crazy n she really did go in there to attack..big ups!

Back to analysing Lexi, we concluded that...

(Focused on her "ooh ahh" joint that made it into the back to the city festival's 10k challenge top 20 finalists list)

CLICK HERE!! to be redirected to soundcloud where u can listen to the track

With influences such as Kanye West, Jay-Z, Godessa and Lauryn hill, you can already see where the minimalist in her material comes from.

she described her writing process as

"If God is this circle of All Creation and Energy dancing inside me, then I just need to be self-aware enough to hear the lyrics come through. The mechanical process includes me listening to a beat and interpreting lyrics for it, or alternatively I’ll just write when the urge arises, and I later find that it fits a beat. It’s a supernatural process really. Like all things, the beat and song must be complimentary, and so if we are at the same vibratory level, things just flow"

A lot of her inspiration comes from a natural process, emerging from a time where u were not regarded as an emcee if you couldn't write, battle and freetyle makes her so much more of a package than most of the emcees to emerge from this era since it was long then a requirement to exist in all 3 spheres and not jus simply work with what you deemed your strong points. of which in that case you woudn't be identified as an emcee. Which is why Lexikon would come across as an all rounder.

Lexikon goes on to complain about how kids these days are bedroom rappers that heard new flows and call themselves rappers.

"Ofcourse, nobody’s complaining. We all had to start somewhere. Myself? I’m an artist. I’ve never categorized what I do into a box. As I mentioned above, this art thing has a lot to do with obedience or being real with one’s Self. I’ve just done what the (he)art has instructed. If a song came through I’d sing it. If a poem came through I’d recite it" - Quoted from interview answers.

After watching her battle on scrambles and listening to her "ooh aah" joint we concluded...

in 2 elements of emceeing (battle, write), we felt that Lexi's strength were mostly in battle, Her tracks flow was enjoyable and that beat could go onto our playlist for hourzz! but paws came out hardest in battle.

It seems Lexikon has a spiritual connection with what she does, she explained her writing process as "listening to a beat and interpreting lyrics for it" the same way that Erykah Badu listens to the beat first and then expresses the energy she has picked up and given her the words to speak/sing. She also went on to say that " the beat and the song must be complimentary, and so if we are at the same vibratory level, things just flow". That statement simply justified our ideas to having a spiritual connection with her craft because wen u think about frequency resonance, vibrations and energy..you simply know that the artist is coming from a metaphysical place with subconscious inspired material.

Our ratings: scale 1 - 10

content - 6

delivery - 7

wordplay/rhyme - 7

(feel free to also rate Lexi's material on the comments section at the very bottom of article)

The original dynamic that Lexi brings in, is the energy of an accepted idea of a female figure in society. She has a motherly feminine feel of tenderness but still keeping true to her hand in the arts of emceeing. which is a beautiful energy that you can pick up from just also being around her. She has a lovely aura with her that is clearest when she performs. Experiencing her performing at Bat centre this weekend waz bonkerzz!!

The criteria used to analyse Lady Lex's creative build:

- base of the artistic acts in the form of influences, inspirations, origins of the whole idea and the full story behind it.

- Original dynamic and personal factor's within that traditional element of Hip Hop. The personal self n tastes and how they come out in material.

- The artist and their relationship with what they do.

- manifestation of character in lyric, content, delivery, and style analysis.

- other fortifying factors.

- ideological build of the artists identity.

The culture of Hip Hop in itself revolves around competition, as far as skill is concerned, domination is key. Whose act do you think you'r doper then? in the battle circle is where that stuff can be put to the test. We ended up debating a whole lot around this but eventually came to the conclusion that battle certainly is and should stay a vital part of the existence of any emceeing. If you can rap, u certainly should be able to battle. you can be strong at either freestyle or writtens but taking somebody on shouldn't be a problem to you it should be a challenge, to compete with yourself like Gin - Grimes once mentioned in a promo clip for his battle with Kadence. sometimes it should just be about testing yourself to see if you can knock down your opponent with all your skill and lyrical strengths, can that be enough to dominate another emcee? and the point of written battles is probably to accommodate really sick emcees whose strengths are not in freestyle.