Dust off your Ugly duds

When the nominees for the 31st annual South African Music Awards (Samas) are announced next week, one of last year’s top winners will be there in person to pass on the accolade.

In boxing, it would be a kind of title defence. The champ steps back into the ring, belt still gleaming, crowd baying for a repeat performance. That’s exactly how Priddy Ugly describes returning to the Sama stage — only his belt is a best hip hop album trophy and he punches with lyrics.

“Man, it feels like stepping back in the ring with the belt still on my shoulder,” he says, with a grin that knows the weight of legacy. Last year’s Dust  didn’t just win him the hip hop album crown, it shifted the air around South African rap.

“Dust ain’t settled yet. It’s still in the air, still in people’s lungs, still in rotation,” he insists. And he’s right — those streams don’t lie. Four-million in a few months, now topping 12-million across Spotify and Apple Music. For an artist who’s been chiselling his craft for more than 15 years, this was more than a chart victory. It was vindication.

But Priddy Ugly, born Ricardo Moloi on April 2 1992 in Luanda, Angola, always seemed destined for success. Long before hip hop stages, he made his mark on athletics tracks.

As a young athlete at the Moroka Swallows Academy, Priddy Ugly learnt how to train, fall, and get back up.

“Writing bars is like doing laps — repetition till it’s second nature. Albums? That’s a whole season. Performing? That’s game day,” he says. He swapped spikes for mics, but the muscle memory never left. You hear it in his bars: precise, lean, conditioned for endurance.

That sporting grit carried him through the unforgiving music industry. Label signings, breakaways, independent runs — he’s seen the business from every angle.

“Ownership is everything,” he says plainly. “Independence and ownership is key, but don’t sacrifice so much of yourself that you lose creative control and artistic integrity.” Now, he’s not just playing the game. He wants to help run it. 

In his early 30s, he is on the cusp between “still rising star” and “elder statesman”.

When Dust dropped, it was billed as his final studio album — the closing chapter of a trilogy that began with Soil and Mud. The statement sent fans into mild panic. Retire? At 33? But Priddy is quick to clarify.

“Call it a comma, call it an ellipsis. The story continues.” In other words, don’t expect him to go silent. Expect reinvention. Singles, collaborations, maybe even executive production. The album trilogy is done, but the artist is far from finished.

Besides, Dust still has legs. Or lungs. Or both. A deluxe version, Dust DLX, is in the pipeline, promising new cuts and extended life for what’s already one of his most celebrated projects.

My dad schooling me on the Panthers made me realise hip hop ain’t just entertainment, it’s education

—  Ricardo Moloi, aka Priddy Ugly 

“It’s about celebrating the milestones Dust has awarded me and my supporters,” he explains. Kind of like a victory lap in music, but still with that trademark introspection — part diary, part street scripture.

Fans of the genre might say that South African hip hop right now is a restless teenager: experimenting with amapiano, flirting with trap, occasionally sneaking off with Afro-fusion. Some purists scoff, others adapt. Priddy? He embraces the chaos. “Hip hop by nature is hybrid, it’s always borrowed, flipped, remixed,” he says.

For him, genre isn’t a prison, it’s a passport. His own catalogue has always bent toward kwaito, house, Afro pop, and beyond. “You can put me on any beat, I’ll still spit it raw. While the landscape shifts, I’m that pillar.”

That “pillar” is political as well as musical. His introduction to hip hop was Tupac, by way of his father’s school project on the Black Panther movement. The lesson stuck. “Pac wasn’t just music, he was movement. My dad schooling me on the Panthers made me realise hip hop ain’t just entertainment, it’s education.”

That thread runs through everything he writes, whether overt or under the radar. “Even when I flex on a track, there’s always subtext — identity, legacy, black pride, fatherhood. I always want my pen to carry weight.”

Asked what really keeps him grounded, though, and his answer is instant: Bontle Modiselle. His partner of 16 years, mother of his daughter, creative collaborator, and fiercest supporter.

“Yo, Bontle’s more than my life partner, she’s my anchor. Fame can gas you, fatherhood can humble you, music can stretch you — she helps me balance all three,” he says.

When the Samas nominee announcement happens in Women’s Month, the symbolism won’t be lost on him. “Every month in my house is Women’s Month,” he laughs.

These Sama31 nominations will not be just a list, but a show. This year’s nominee reveal promises more than a roll call of categories. The Recording Industry of South Africa is turning it into a spectacle: jazz royalty Steve Dyer, rising DJ Thabithabs and Priddy himself bringing fresh fire.

Hosted by Letuka Dlamini and Zama Naomi, it’s being billed as “a chart-topping showcase” — the kind of event where hip hop, jazz and house shake hands in the same hour.

For Priddy, though, the glamour comes second. The stage is sacred. “Every nomination turns the spotlight back on hip hop, back on the craft,” he says. And if his return inspires just one kid to pick up a pen, lace up kicks, and chase the mic? That’s legacy. That’s the real win.

“Recognition is cool, momentum is necessary, legacy is the mission,” he says with that mix of calm and conviction that comes from a decade-and-a-half of grind. Dust may be the past, Dust DLX may be the near future, but right now, it’s about Sama31 — the belt on the shoulder, the lungs full of dust, the mic live and waiting.

And if you ask him what the 15-year-old crew kid would think, standing in front of that stage? He doesn’t miss a beat: “He’d probably say, ‘Damn, we really did it.’”

The Sama nominees will be announced in a live-streamed event on Thursday, starting at 6pm, available only Sama’s YouTube channel and social media platforms.