A RAPPER NAMED SHAUNIAC: Revisiting His Debut Album, Family, Friends and Foes

Of Mics and Philosophers

ShauniaC, born Zamokuhle Kubheka, is a rapper from Madadeni, Newcastle, but with a mind that has travelled all 30+ Newcastles of the world. 

His KwaZulu Newcastle, Madadeni to be precise, is a place he describes as “amazing, beaming with potential.” Madadeni is usually know only for steel and clothes manufacturing. But lore should behold, there is more.

ShauniaC rates the golden years of Madadeni Hip Hop as 2006 to 2011, when cyphers happened on every corner and almost everyone was either a rapper or a hip hop dancer.

“When you see something, you better learn it also,” he says. “That was how we showed love for everything we found interesting.”

His early influences were split across categories. In the streets of Newcastle, it was Friz and Mape. [EDITOR’S NOTE: Friz Niz is one of the greatest that have ever grabbed the mic in Madadeni. Giving and unforgiving with the freestyle!]

In South African Hip Hop, Proverb, Zola, and Zubz. Internationally, 50 Cent and Lil Flip.

In Grade 8 at Phendukani High School, a trip to the toilet changed everything. Big things begin in small toilets sometimes.

At the toilets, he found classmates rapping, listened, and when they asked him to try, his “weak, nonsensical flow” was celebrated. Mape told him to stick close and learn how to be dope.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Phendukani High School has a long history with the culture of Hip Hop. It was one of the first school in Madadeni to get a basketball court. A lot of us witnessed that the flying and acrobatic b-boying moves we saw on TV, were actually a real thing. 

After high school, ShauniaC left KZN, for Eastern Cape. He enrolled at Rhodes University, where he studied Bachelor of Social Sciences, majoring in Philosophy and Psychology, later returning for his PGCE.

Family, Friends and Foes

The concept album is a meditation on the bonds that shape us: His family, his friends and the inevitable foes that come from protecting family. The project features DJ Ask on all 7 tracks.

If he had to choose which relationship influenced the project most, ShauniaC says it would be foes.

Probably because of the story he shares in the song Near Death Experience. Or, it could the one that he says demanded the most from him, The Enemy.

The purpose of the album, ShauniaC says, is for “how to navigate life, the good times and bad times, and how to view people and situations. It is about exposing myself naked so you grow and become better.”

There is a quiet intensity to ShauniaC that reveals itself the longer you sit with his debut album, Family, Friends and Foes. The title lays out the three relationships that shape every human life — the ones that lift us, the ones that stay, and the ones that wound. Across the project, ShauniaC navigates these spaces with the precision of someone who has felt each deeply.

Family, Friends and Foes is not an album that announces itself with fireworks. It arrives quietly, like a conversation you did not know you needed to have. Across its tracks, ShauniaC demonstrates that he is a rapper who thinks — not for the sake of showing off, but because reflection is the only way forward.

Near Death Experience

This is a song that ShauniaC almost didn’t live to write. An account of being stabbed several times while defending his older brother. He does not rap about survival; he raps from it.

The song opens with the hook, “So things are just really unexpected / Understood what Nas said, ‘Sleep is the cousin of death’/ Close eyes, open eyes, I’m still alive / That’s really a shock how am I still alive?”

Over a mellow and melodic beat, the poet starts with a child verse, though without the lack of that mrapper bravado. Narrating a tale of the life around him, to that fatal moment where he had to fight for his older brother, but ended up fighting for his very life.

A stab wound can let some clarity bleed out. He had his sisters to take care of him –which further emphasizes the role of family in this album.  

The Enemy

A song that ShauniaC says demanded the most from him. “I wanted to execute the idea so badly. I just did not want to miss the mark…”

The timing of the opening says it all about how important the execution was to him, and you would have to hear it for yourself.

One of the main characters of the album. Over a beat simmering with tension, ShauniaC poses a question that has haunted philosophers and street soldiers alike.

“Who is the real enemy?” Is the enemy external — the oppressor, the rival, the community that misunderstands you? Or is it internal — the spirits, the demons, the parts of ourselves we refuse to face?

He also stated that he did not what to make it too “complicated”. But this Kubheka wordsmith is a deep character, and in most cases, there can never be depth without complications first.

The result is a track that balances complexity with clarity. ShauniaC offers two or more perspectives on the same question, leaving space for the listener to decide where they stand. It is philosophy in rap form — not an answer, but an invitation to sit down and let your mind to the dancing.

Everybody

Everybody, is the reason you are here, reading this review of Family, Friends and Foes. This is the song that made me say, “Let me get in touch with ShauniaC again.”

For me this is the mother of this concept album, not ironic that he also opens it with a dedication to his late mother.

“Ask gave me a concept and said I need to write / About my mother and everybody I care about / Lost my mother as a kid / Broken memories not sure if we once played a kite, can only see glimpses of her smile… ”

Now that I remember, meeting him in our teenage years, I don’t ever remember ShauniaC talking about his mother, and selfish me has never taken the time to ask. But fortunately, DJ Ask is a very unselfish artist, as he gave his time and generosity for this baby to be born so we could all know the story.

He also goes on to say, “I remember how loud you were / But I cannot remember the sounds of your voice”, a painful memory of only remembering the idea of something, but not the thing itself.

Do you also know the process I starting to forget how a lost loved one looked, that even in your dreams, their images start to get distorted?

The hook of the song is an era of it’s own for ShauniaC, “Everybody’s special, from those who believed in me and those who did not / From those who lived and those we still creating memories with / Life’s a journey, we all need a few to go with. Everybody’s special.”

But one of the most necessary lines for many kids across the ages is his closing line that he repeats three times, “No matter how stationary, suicide is not an option.” And a life standing still can oftentimes seem like a life that should be thrown away.

But in the same song, he also says, “…life is not about wins and losses / Only goals curiosity and passing courses.” And if these are ones that you define yourself, you define the rules.

Everybody is a song that someone can truly use to navigate through loss, grief and the confusion that comes with the two.

ON THE GAME

In an era that often rewards the surface, ShauniaC

keeps digging by reading, learning from his own experiences and the experiences of others, having conversations, sitting in quiet places to think, breaking down concepts — and watching anime.

When he looks at the Mzansi Hip Hop landscape, he has zero concerns. “There are great writers like Zulu Mecca and them. I am just happy seeing pen-driven writers get some commercial play, and hopeful more are coming.”

For listeners tired of surface-level rap, this is a necessary listen. For anyone who has ever questioned who their real enemy is, this is a mirror. And for the streets of Madadeni that raised him, take notes. 

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