It’s thirteen years since South African verbalist, Yugen Blakrok dropped her debut album Return of the Astro-Goth (2013): a scintillating project. It was a powerful introduction to Yugen’s thoughtful brand of, intricate word play with esoteric leanings.
Since that debut, Yugen Blakrok has dropped numerous singles, emigrated to Europe and become a name synonymous with quality rap.
While we are awash with global female rappers, Yugen Blakrok is very different. She is the foil to those over processed popular female rappers.
Rather than generic bars concerned with their apple booty and having the wettest (surgically enhanced) pussy, Yugen seeks something with a bit more thought. Must say however Doechii (part of those new wave female rappers) is a different level; verbals awash with humour, double entendres and amazing linguistic dexterity.
Yugen Blackrok’s latest album is The Illusions of Being (2025). That title sounds deep, conjuring ideas of profound lyrics instigating electrical impulses for your grey matter: the album is exactly that! It’s Yugen Blakrok solidifying who she is as an artist and crossing musical genres, without missing the beat: It is a defining album.
Having interviewed here a while back it was just that time to chat with our sista!!
What does it mean to be? Stripping away the veils. The illusion of being “human” on “planet earth” in this “time”. I didn’t want the music to be an escape but rather a way to find a deeper within.
Since we last spoke, Yugen has risen to amazing heights!
I moved continents, didn’t I? That’s been one of the biggest things. I’ve found a different strength, I’m growing more into myself, and I really like it. With the music, I feel like my little drop in the ocean is an ever-expanding wave.
As you continue as an ‘artist’ what are the difficulties in being an artist and living as an artist?
I think living peacefully with uncertainty is one of the challenges of being an artist. Especially operating in an industry as insecure as ours. What I do appreciate is discovering and meeting more artists going against the grain. Defining their own terms of what success is.
Since that interview too-where is SA hip-hop and how has it hopefully improved?
There’s always cats doing dope shit. Shoutout to Zapsign Deebo and The Cooligans. SA hip-hop has always been mad diverse cause we’re a diverse people. And within it, I have and always will be drawn to the underground scene – those cats never let me down.
So illusions discuss in respect of your album and the ideas you wanted to explore.
It came from a space of being stripped of everything. Alone and lost in a dense fog, suffocating. I’d initially planned to call it The Fog but as the songs came together, the themes weaved their own pictures. Are we even here? What does it mean to be? Stripping away the veils. The illusion of being “human” on “planet earth” in this “time”. I didn’t want the music to be an escape but rather a way to find a deeper within.
Do you use psychedelics or the weed to find that ‘place’ where words/vocabs start to materialise-in this album was it the same process to creating ideas for albums?
I prefer to write completely sober. My thoughts are fastest in the morning when I wake up. I like to use weed to “slow down” and ground myself, especially around people. It helps also when I’m editing scripts, verses, ideas…to take time and not rush myself. Also, during recording, if I need super-focus for a moment or to block stuff out for the session. I just can’t write while I’m high.
Sounds like you gave the ‘brief’ to Kanif The Jhatmaster to just go wild-what did you tell him when creating the tracks for this album.
Hahaha, he knows me well enough by now. We’d go through several versions of tracks for some, until we found the right vibe. I appreciate that he understood and matched the urgency I felt. I like hard shit and he’s always happy to oblige. It’s not an “easy-listening” type of album, nothing about making it was easy and I’m proud of how it came out.
Album reminds us of that cult trip-hop hero emcee Tricky.
The Doors. The Funkees. Björk, always. Tricky, forever. We were rewatching some of the old sci-fi classics and just comparing how close they were in imagination to the future we live in. We stuck to the tradition of not bumping any hip-hop at all while making it and to be honest, just the general isolation made it, so we dug deep into ourselves for inspiration.
Different mediums to engage with music is essential in this musical climate-talk about Tessellator ft Cambatta and that lyrical animation
I knew Cam and I weren’t gonna meet face-to-face in time to shoot a video for the track, but I still wanted a visual. Enter Kanif. His thinking was literally: 2D animation for 3 animated 5th dimensional beings. I couldn’t argue with the math. Besides, we’d always talked about doing another animation, following the IAPETUS series (Sky Chariots, Gnostic Wars, Darkstar).
The Grande Geode-Ft Sa Roc-love that track explain the ideas behind this (geodes have a metaphysical connection)
I love Sa-Roc’s work, and I feel parallels and crossovers in so many ways with her. The title is an obvious play on our names. The inspiration was just to do something for the love of it AND for the sisterhood of it. The Great Rock from which we’ve chipped off. It’s number 10 on the album to represent the 1s and 0s in binary code. The first woman. The purpose is written into the chorus “we’re just shining for Ra’s sake”.
Hold Ground a grunge inspired track was a bonus track (I think) on download from Bandcamp-why did you opt for that?
I was nostalgic for the era of hidden tracks on albums. It’s one of my fave tracks from the album and I guess I also wanted to prioritize the people buying the album if I’m completely honest.
Anything to add.
Just keep supporting the music!
Album out now!
All images by Eliot Pyne