Thursday 6 March 2014

The rise of Unknown Division

The newly recognized rap group Unknown Division was started in June 2012, by the founding members Marven SouthGate and Lo Ski with RUK as their main producer, under Infinity Records. The members of the group Lo ski and Marven SouthGate are co-producers under the independent Label as well.

"Marven SouthGate"
"Uhm, well the idea of becoming a group came about from a feature I did on Lo Ski's Mirror mix-tape in 2011 at Infinity studios. By the time I had recorded some material with Infinity, both RUK and Lo Ski felt my drive, so Lo Ski and I recorded a track called "Priddy Gully" on the spot...which moved the hip hop scene in Windhoek, fellow rappers and producers would often tell us that our creative combo was of a concrete standard, and somehow we felt the same about it. So, a year later (2012) we started recording more songs together, and the creative levels kept getting better with every song we worked on and this sparked an idea of us doing a mix-tape together."-said Marven SouthGate.
By the end of 2012 the duo had a good number of songs together but didn't have a name for the project, until 2013 when they came up with a name for the project, namely "Bad manners", and in mid June the same year they came up with the name Unknown Division, which was inspired by the fact that they came up in an industry whereas they had achieved recognition as one of Namibia's authentic lyricists without people really knowing who they were. "People had known the names Lo Ski and Marven Southgate but we were never really known physically (unknown), but at the same time we were separated (Division) from the average from the mass of rappers around Namibia...and classified among the big names", said Marven.
"Johnnie Lennoir"
By the end of 2013, the duo dropped a music video, shot and directed by Riz (DBR) which had the masses feel their presence in the game officially as a group. And at the time, Lo Ski was busy recording a rap artist by the name of Johnnie Lenoir, who was working on a project called Mission To Infinity "the voyage" that is available for downloads on www.datpiff.com, "its heavyweight artillery...has a vintage feel to it. I'd encourage every hip hop head to have that in their collection" said Marven. And because of that, the duo was too moved by his work. Having a similar feel and common goals & objectives, lead to the duo deciding to put him aboard as an "Unknown Dividend". They proceeded to record their first song together as a group titled Passout Session which is also featured on their recent tape called "Alkebulan Connection", which is the oldest and first name of the continent Africa. The mix-tape features Marven SouthGate, Lo ski, Johnnie Lennoir, and LeSean Freespirit.
"LeSean being from Zambia, Lo Ski and Johnnie Lenoir from Tanzania and myself being from the Land of The Brave- Namibia, completes an African connection (Alkebulan Connection)" said Marven.
"LeSean Freespirit"
"On this tape we all offered our services as individual/solo artist..so Alkebulan Connection is the name of a tape by rappers LeSean Freespirit, Johnnie Lenoir, Lo ski and Marven Southgate and features appearances from various artist namely Cardiac Ski, K9 fellow stablemate, Static Playa and Gaspar a Congolese artist on a revolutionary song called "Heroes", which pays tribute to both our fallen heroes and those that are still holding us down", continued Marven.



"Lo Ski"
Currently, they have been working on the Unknown Division album, that should claim anticipation, as this is believed to be a classic offering from the three heavyweight MCees Marven Southgate, Lo ski and Johnnie Lenoir, although they have opted to hold back the name of the album for now, as its due to be complete, and before that they are expected to drop Project Society (PS) songs while fans wait, in sequence PS1, PS2 and PS3. In these songs the group addresses the Hip Hop industry. Project Society 1 (PS1) is already out and available for download on soundcloud (click here to download the song).
Also to be expected are the solo projects, a tape from Lo ski called "Say Aloha" and a tape from Marven Southgate called "Room16".

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