Tru Crack's code to making music and winning at it

I first got hint of Tru Crack through a track of his titled "Yanos". I think I first heard it on Motsweding FM. This was when AmaPiano was rapidly taking over. I had never heard of him before nor of his music.

This was early 2020 and the track was newly released. He then released 2 more tracks that same year.

Tru Crack, real name Ofentse Mothelesi is a Hip Hop (Trap) artist, producer and sound engineer. His music career dates back to over 10 years since he started out and it was around 2016/7 that he started getting visible and making moves that would see him where he is now. He took his musical interest seriously to a point of enrolling at Audio Academy to study sound engineering.

After this, Tru Crack went on to work with the late HHP as his rehearsal engineer and other artists like Reason, Towdeemac, Unathi, Fifi Cooper and Khuli Chana. He's also appeared on SpeeKas' well-known "Sotra Cophers" Freestlye Series.

Though he is now a Gauteng resident, Tru Crack hails from Bodibe Village in the North West Province and this is where he made his earliest moves as a rapper.

Now the reason my attention was caught when I heard this song for the first time, besides the fact that “Yanos” is a banger of a song, was the way the song was written and what he was saying on it. The song basically talks about “loving the yanos” but it is a T/rap record. Like I said, in 2020 piano was dominating and taking over the mainstream and Hip Hop was going down slowly. Now as an emerging artist trying to build up and come up in the midst of all that and the Corona virus and lockdown, he sure found a steady way in.

I’m speaking more on the strategic part of the artist. He saw an opportunity to incorporate something that was popping which worked for him. Because true to his song, people were loving the yanos and he capitalised on it.

This song had great momentum and saw him doing a media tour which saw him on platforms like Afternoon Express on SABC3, Good Hope FM, Motsweding FM, Tru FM, Hype Magazine, Lesedi FM, Cape Town TV and his music played on YFM, Metro FM, MTV, Trace Africa and gaining more traction, even outside the Hip Hop circle. I think it’s pretty cool when an artist is able to think out the box like this and actually come out winning.

He has since gone on to release “Listen” in August and “MaHippi” early December, which actually is another ride on the “Vuli Gate” trend (the song goes “John vuli gate for mahippi”). The video to the song and the song is still on the radar and popping. His YouTube channel is sitting on over 30k views and he has merchandise coming soon and he is working on an EP.

I’m looking forward to seeing what Tru Crack got up next but he sure knows how to catch momentum and use it for good. Maybe he’ll drop a “John Wick” single and cater to the Hip Hop heads so they don’t feel left out because right now, he seems to be the only one with the winning code of mainstream appeal while not loosing the essence of his genre and it's doing pretty amazing things for him.