VTSEK has taken South African social media by storm. Blending South African political and creative titans (Cyril as a Broke Boy??) with American icons in portrayals from Paris to the Spaza; founder Otsile Moumakoe is a young creativefast developing full-mastery over his digital medium. With nearly 14k followers, VTSEK is the kind of account that will continue to go viral; with its humorous and deep anecdotes alike. In our conversation, Otsile self-described as being raised on TV; like many of us growing up, pop culture, music videos and sitcoms were our first exposure to a bigger and wider world.

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“I think a lot of my interests come from TV as a kid. I was pretty average academically, so when I discovered hip-hop, I found my feet and that feeling of belonging. I used to rap, but then I started making the cover art for my music – I was introduced to Photoshop in high school, when I was grounded at home and I couldn’t watch TV. At a certain point, my cover art surpassed my rapping, and it became my main focus.” This natural progression reminds me of when I thought I was going to be a fashion designer; my whole life, it seemed like that was what the goal should be – but within various disciplines and creative industries, there are so many roles and so many different ways in which talent can be nurtured and expressed. With VTSEK, Otsile found a way to speak to the culture and create iconography for it outside of the formula of a verse and beat. Lockdown 2020 was the seed of VTSEK, “I was rapping at the time, but then shows were cancelled. I needed to find a way to express ideas that I couldn’t with music. I think the best way to describe how every South African felt at that time was ‘’voetsek!’’ – that phrase is just ingrained in all of us, especially facing the pandemic. People didn’t quite get it at first, but then my work was noticed and started getting reshares. I think the first big moment for VTSEK was when Scoop Makhathini reposted my work, which was exciting. It kept me going, and then reaching 10k was big.”

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The idea for VTSEK is to use the American culture machine and translate it through a South African lens. Otsile’s work speaks to this frontier we are rising to meet in the country – we have seen so many people refusing to be fed by the projections and ideals of the global north. Instead, we are rising to meet, engaged rather in  cross-cultural and cross-continental exchanges, with artists like Otsile shaping visual coding as nuanced and striking as the everyday experience in South Africa. Ostile speaks to his inspiration, “I think we were influenced by American TV, but I got tired of that – I got tired of hearing rappers just speak to the American experience, and the expectation that the whole world is supposed to relate. I started infusing a lot of South African stuff with the American stuff, and my aesthetic was born from there. I wanted to see all of these influences and people in the same spaces as each other – I think that’s the point of what we can do with digital art, we can create visual stories that are totally our own.” The political sentiments in VTSEK images were influenced by Otsile’s father, “My father reads a lot of political books, and our PVR had a lot of political documentaries – as I said, my first research is from TV – I would page through and see Steve Biko and Mandela, and I mean – those are our icons. Why shouldn’t they be hyped in the same way we would hype Tupac or Virgil?”

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The granular, vintage-esque design of VTSEK pieces are intentional; mimicking the grainy, pixelated era of VHS tapes, and knocking the TV to get the signal working, Otsile says “I want my work to look retro, like back in the day when TVs were boxes and there was somehow always that greenish colour lurking in the background. It also helps hide some of my mistakes, to be honest. I also want to bring together different timelines, and it feels like the best way to show the time we live in; it’s the past and future we always wanted, where rappers in America are rapping over Kwaito beats.” Now, Otsile is participating in a creative wave that is suited for his continued success – his art is the kind of work younger generations will reference in decades to come. Having just moved to Cape Town to study graphic design, while taking commissions for VTSEK; the aim is to move into merchandising, and get his works up in galleries and exhibitions. Only big things, next.

Written by: Holly Beaton

Published: 30 January 2023