THINXX (South Africa) – Ballpoint Magician /// UndergroundHipHopBLOG.com
[bandcamp album=18568775 bgcol=000000 linkcol=ffffff size=venti]
“ThiNXx” is an independent hip hop emcee and producer from Johannesburg, South Africa. He creates his own lyrics and artwork, along with self-producing most of his own beats, mixing and mastering his own music and running his own website. On the side, he also runs another NGO website called “do hiphop”,” trying to bring indie hip hop artists and general awareness to people across the globe. ThiNXx is an artist concerned with hip-hop and world activism, and is a firm believer that music and artists can change the world.
He is currently working on a number of albums due to release in the not-too-distant future, and has performed at various local shows in Johannesburg including Splash Jam, Babylon, Wordplay as well as a few others sharing stages with the likes of Witchcraft, Blakrok, Likwidskillz, Ewok, Articulate Artists, The MisinlinK, Rapid, Qba and Inco the Locks Myth to name a few.
ThiNXx entered the music industry in 1998 as a house DJ under the stage name “Fly,” attaining various residencies across Johannesburg before leaving for the UK in 2004 where he played at various venues, bars and clubs. He learned, however, that this was not where his heart was. With the direction of his muse, a writer from Botswana named “Spy” Says (who ironically preferred punk music to hip-hop), along with inspiring performances from “Atmosphere” and other artists, ThiNXx decided to abandon his dreams of being a professional DJ and focus on the much more daunting task–actually making music.
Returning to South Africa in May 2006 with a resolve to enter the world of hip hop music, he released his first hip hop single “No More Links” in July 2006 along with a few other lo-fi internet releases. In December of 2009, he released his first-ever publicly released piece, “The Write is Write Mixtape”. In May of 2010, he made his international debut with an appearance on New York City-based “Kamikaze Picnic’s” album “86,” where he rapped as an old man on a track called “Posture Perfect Orthopaedic Go-Kart Cavalry”. In September 2010, he released a demo track called “Don’t Dance for Congress” over a Bonobo beat called “Magicman” which became his most popular release to date and received play time on various underground internet radio stations including the “Take the Red Pill” show hosted by Slim Swayze. In December of the same year, he officially released his debut album “White Paper Blackouts”. All the instrumentals, lyrics, production, artwork & recording were done by ThiNXx himself apart from the last track, ‘Religion,’ which is recorded over an instrumental by RJD2 called “Someone’s Second Kiss” because he believed that it had to be this instrumental that would introduce this track to the world. Closely following “White Paper Blackouts”, in February 2011, he released a completely freestyle & free-for-download mixtape called “This is Free-Style. Your Argument is Invalid” which was put together to show what he felt could be done with true free-style as opposed to “battle raps” that seemingly dominated the freestyle scene. Recorded over a three-week period and involving emcees like Morrello and Poetic_in_Justice, this release was put out in the essence of fun and the love of hip-hop. In December 2011 he released his second album “Change the Channel”, a concept album again completely mixed, mastered and recorded by ThiNXx himself.
IN September 2012 September he released his 3rd album “Sentiments to Cinders” again completely written, recorded, arranged and mastered by ThiNXx himself with features from the likes of “Phil G the Knowbody” and “Immaculate Mentality” with beats by Kamikaze Picnic, Mainvein, Phil G the Knowbody and ThiNXx.
He continues to make music to this day and has vowed to continue to until he is no longer able to do so.
“Change starts the minute you initiate it,
Initiate it!” – ThiNXx
