THE TRILL IS GINGER: One Year Anniversary Of His “Because I Said So” Album

ARTIST: Ginger Trill

Sawubona. From Clipse making a heavy comeback after 26 years, to Ginger Trill dropping an album we didn’t even know we were waiting for -2025 was a great year for Hip Hop music. The ill but ill-treated are back with very personal comebacks that feel like sheer revenge against the game’s forgetfulness. Ask Izithunywa Zohlanga.

I can’t help but be reminded of the time Ginger Trill was rearranging the game with Stogie T (then Tumi) and Reason at Motif Records. But the writer has been married to no label but the game. Going at it like a real professional, he has given us complete projects since 2019 with the EP PIF, followed by the albums From Potch With Love (2020), Burn After Reading: The B.A.R Album (2022), which were all pieces of art to be looted at any given moment.

Not to forget one of those very necessary duo albums, Boyzen Da Hood (2023), which he did with the untouchable Touchline. And 2025 was also as cold as it gets with Because I Said So, where he worked with some of the best in the game.

LABEL: Stay Low

Stay Low is the label that Ginger Trill is pulling karma on the game with. We heard about that collaboration in an era where we were not in lack of rappers. The cupboard was full. New names every week. Algorithms feeding us something fresh before we’d finished chewing the last meal.

But when we heard the announcement, we knew it had to happen. After what Stay Low did for the game – giving us heavy hitters like Zulu Mecca, Priddy Ugly, Zoocci Coke Dope, and others – we knew we were up for even more. Because there will always be a place in the game for Ginger Trill. Especially if he will get to ride over a Shooterkhumz beat.

PRODUCER: Shooterkhumz

That laid back Shooterkhumz production runs through this album like a spine. Melodic and cinematic beats that hold on to the kick of Ginger Trill’s bounce.

Shooterkhumz is no stranger to creating worlds for dope lyricists to jump around in. His album I Was Overthinking This, ran through the frequencies like jersey number 11 Oswin Appollis runs through the football field. Just him, the game, and the god of the game: which are all one.

TRACKS:

Jungle

This is where the album demands we start. “The sample is free, the dope is so separate / Dope boy etiquette, stone cold penmanship / Gentle when I pen it ’cause the flow is so delicate…” You have to listen to the verse yourself to feel its delicacy.

A lecture of the Hip Hop game for this mafia-like industry, told through champion deliverance and coded sleight of pen. Then the hook lands: “Welcome to the concrete jungle where the soft need muscle / ’cause the strong eat the humble and meet / get the duffle in the belly of the beast / need a shovel to dig your way out, the devil got receipts…” 

There is a thing about rappers who are able to mould their voices in a particular way, that you start to familiarize their voice with a certain musical instrument.

For instance, If you listen to Thato Saul in Pheli Politics & Passion, you hear the sound of a praying saxophone. When you listen to Hymphatic Thabs, damnit I’m gonna say it, you hear fragments of Molelekwa in his Genes and Spirits era. And then when you hear Ginger Trill, you hear the sound of a kicking drum tuned to the right pitch. Which makes it even easier for it to blend into the kicking beats of Shooterkhumz.

James Harden

For the love of the sport the Trill is still doing it. Embodying the athleticism of basketballer Harden in sonic form: study of the game, precision, completeness and a bastard-child left shoot that makes you punk about how left hands aren’t supposed to do that Mr.Harden!

Trill bouncing on the beat like the ball does on the court. He can hook, he can also run a transcendent verse. He did it all for the love of the sport. A complete MC with very unselfish play, and should be made the captain: if not coach.

Big 5 (featuring Zulu Mecca)

The album’s undeniable centrepiece. Or is it? Zulu Mecca and Ginger Trill trade bars like jazz musicians trading solos – each verse building, responding, elevating. It’s the sound of two lyricists pushing each other to heights neither could reach alone. While at it, defying the myth of a “Top 5” in the game.

It’s gentle. It’s hard. It’s hip hop. Like rounding up what Ginger Trill had to say with the whole project of Because I Said So: an undeniable reminder that your best rapper, is not the best rapper. Yes, that one.   

FINAL WORD:

One year after Because I Said So landed, the album hasn’t aged. It has simply settled into its rightful place – not as background music, not as playlist filler, but as a statement of presence. Ginger Trill isn’t asking for your attention. He’s reminding you that he never left.

And in front of the Lord, some of you may have to give account on how you took for granted that the Trill is Ginger. Unless of course you don’t know what trill is – which we’d have to blame on your playlist. Then hold up, wait a minute, your playlist aren’t shit unless it got some Ginger in it.

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