Johannesburg Duo MajorSteez Is All About Standing On Business Ahead of Their Debut Album Dropping This July
Johannesburg-born duo MajorSteez has been around the block for a minute now, and yet every exercise they’ve undertaken has merely been a warm-up, a herald of the greatness they have in store. Since their emergence in 2016, the brothers have been strategic in marking themselves present, registering singles such as “Slime”, “LIES”, and “Asbonge”, gradually burning their name into the minds of the masses as the ambassadors of hip vibes.
In a country with rampant youth unemployment, the dynamic brothers epitomise the street adage coined by the late Mandoza: “Uzoyithola kanjan’ uhlel’ ekhoneni?” Taking up an interest in music, the pair followed the route of self-teaching, working through their craft by studying those ahead of them and stepping into their footprints until their feet were big enough for them to make trails of their own.
“Everything we learned about music has been self-taught; I’m not gonna lie. It came from a lot of research and practice. We’ve been practising for eight years, and yet we’ve only been popular for two, three years,” the duo said.
MajorSteez
And the training days have shown in real-time, with their smash hit “Asbonge”, featuring BET-nominated rapper and businessman Cassper Nyovest, notching over a million views on YouTube. MajorSteez have been mobilising the release of their posse cut “Standing On Business”, featuring Priddy Ugly, Usimamane, Lucasraps, Baby Daiz, and Ziggy4x.
Paying homage to the late Boss Zonke Riky Rick’s seminal single, “Amantombazane”, MajorSteez rounded up a roster of the new wave to recreate the energy for the culture.
“We put the song together in the spirit of remaking “Amantombazane”, which featured a very long lineup as well. We decided to use that song as the model for “Standing On Business” because we specifically wanted it to be the new-age “Amantombazane”. And we were fortunate that everyone was willing to come together for the sake of hip-hop, you know what I’m saying?” they said.
More than just making music for the fun of it, the duo has been racking up hours in the studio in search of an album. After a long time coming, the artists revealed that their first to start off their discography is merely waiting for its release date and that “Standing On Business” will serve as a starter to whet the appetites of those who’ve been patiently waiting.
“We’ve just finished our debut album called The Sweet Life Of MajorSteez, and “Standing On Business” will mark the project’s lead single. We announced the album two years ago, and it will be finally coming out on the 19th of July,” MajorSteez said.
Good music never goes out of style. The same can be posited about sincere artistry. Left to their devices as autodidacts, MajorSteez mostly cited ol’ school bands, with exception of self-styled Black Beatles Rae Sremmurd, as their primary influences.
“Groups that have influenced us are TKZee, Rae Sremmurd, and – believe it or not – Boyz II Men,” they said, laughing. “Also the Jackson 5 back in their hay days. A lot of the old groups, actually, because we love R&B, so it would definitely be those guys.”
MajorSteez
The daily grind, apart from invested diligence, is a game of chance. While success is up for grabs, not everybody is favoured enough to get their full grip on it. The two stars, cognisant of the fact, listed spiritual intervention as one of the critical components which have helped them grow in the industry alongside remaining grounded enough to keep on putting up numbers on the board.
“Number one, we pray. Because at the end of the day, the Big Man’s in control. Apart from that we stand on business by trying our best to stay hungry as we were four years ago when no one knew about us. Those days when we were still only getting 500 to a thousand plays on SoundCloud. We try to keep that hunger and that underground artist mentality,” MajorSteez said.
Fantasising about dream features of American pop icons Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber, MajorSteez talked about their love for mainstream pop music, and how much they tinkered with the idea of trying to appeal to overseas audiences.
“Pop music is a genre we’d like to experiment on, actually. Our greatest passions are within R&B and hip-hop and afrobeats currently. But there’s a pop element to almost everything we do. So I think we should do a straight up pop record one day. I’m talking about exploring the sound of pop on the highest commercial level outside the country. That would be something of a dream come true,” the duo conceded.