Background
Kgotso Semela was born in Jabavu, Soweto, a South African township.
Kgotso Semela was born in Jabavu, Soweto, a South African township.
Kgotso Semela chose Ben Sharpa as stage name, because he has "always been sharper".
His family moved to Chicago when he was still a kid. He became interested in hip hop in March 1985. The first album he bought was Criminal Minded, the debut album by Boogie Down Productions.
When he was teenager, he then moved back to country of his birth, South African apartheid referendum, 1992.
Ben Sharpa started his hip hop career in 1996 with the foundation of now cult crew Audio Visual, together with Military Cross"s Snazz Doctorate (Julian Du Plessis) and Krook"d tha Warmonga (Isaac Chokwe). The group later amalgamated into the group known as GroundWorks, which included Military Cross"s from both Cape Town and Johannesburg.
Early career
He formed a group with Krook"d tha Warmonga, Snazz Doctorate, Forekast, Gemini, Hueman, Non-Depiction, Bonafide, and South.E.L.F. called GroundWorks. In 2002 and 2003, the group produces two self-released albums on a label called Concentration Camp Records: GroundWorks Demolition: The MeStory and Pavement Special Volume(s).1.
Kgotso Semela uses as a reference to O Captain! My Captain! respectively the names Kaptin and Oh Kaptin, My Kap"n on these albums.
Number album has been released later by the collective but in a 2008 interview, Kgotso explains GroundWorks is still alive and "it’s not a group, it’s not a band, it’s not a cult or a gang, it’s an ideology and a mentality". He then visited London and met Eminem. In June 2006, Sharpa headlined alongside Wordsworth and Jonzi-Doctorate as part of the Tri-Continental Hip Hop Festival, a three cities hip hop tour that was held to commemorate the 30th anniversary of Youth Month in South Africa.
2008-2009: The Sharpaganda Theory and B. Sharpa
In 2008, he began a 3 month tour in Europe, in England, the Netherlands, Austria, Belgium and Switzerland.
The same year, he released his first album, B. Sharpa. The album was described to blend hip hop and dubstep.
Several producers worked on his album, Doctorate Planet, DJ Sibot and Hue Manitoba and DJ Milanese. The album contained featurings from Tebs, Archetypes, Konfab and WordsWorth.
The themes covered are dark, evoking the police brutality, the government agenda, conspiracies or the teenage pregnancy.
After B.Sharpa
In 2012, he released with Pure Solid the album 4th Density Light Show (4DLS).
The group was made up of members from acclaimed hip-hop crews from the Johannesburg and Cape Town music scenes, including members of Audio Visual, BaseMental Platform and Cashless Society.
