Lee STK Ready To Duel With Hip-hop Giants

Lee STK is not your average village girl. She may come from the backwaters of the North West, a village

Lee STK

called Weltevreden, some 95km south of Mahikeng, but she is packed with chutzpah, ambition and drive.

She is on the verge of a promising hip-hop career after being discovered by talent scout, Ariel Modupe, and signed up by Gaolebale Entertainment record label.

The last thing she wants to be known as is a village girl. "To think of myself as a village girl is to put myself in a box and limit my potential. I'm a person, a dreamer and a go-getter. I can work harder than people from urban areas - because I was not given hand-outs."

Lee believes her rise through the ranks will show other young women in the villages that it's possible to reach the highs.

"I always dream bigger than where I come from. I'm different and I work hard.

"I don't give up quickly. If your dream doesn't scare you then there's nothing going on there."

Born Lilly Sewedi, Lee says music has always been a part of her life through church.

Now she is a confident rapper-cum-poet, with a deep love for Mafioso rap style. She started to compose poems in her teens and she would recite them at school.

By the time she got to high school she was writing rap songs. She did join some groups but that led her to nowhere.

Frustrated by the lack of a breakthrough, Lee found herself working as an intern for the department of arts and culture in the North West.

At the end of the programme she refocused her energy on her music and writing skills.

She attended hip-hop gigs in Mahikeng, Pretoria and Johannesburg, to hone and tone her craft through observation.

After meeting Modupe, she started recording songs for her debut album, Speaking In Tongues. She released some unofficial singles that enjoyed decent airplay on community stations.

Lee now performs in Newtown, Johannesburg, and across Gauteng.

Her first official single titled Azishe was released last month. It features Lil P. The album will feature artists across many genres and some up-and-coming talent.

The mother of a 10 year old son, Lee, hopes to build a studio to service creatives in her village and be able send her academically gifted son to a boarding school.