Against The Clock: Stiff Pap

Against The Clock is a series where we give an artist 10 minutes in the studio and see what they come up with. Stiff Pap are producer Jakinda and MC Ayema Problem, a Johannesburg-based duo whose music combines hip-hop and house influences with South African kwaito and gqom. They describe their sound as “post-kwaito” in a nod to the previous generation of South African club producers, whilst adding their own spin to the genre’s rich legacy to create their own unique hybrid sound. On this episode of Against The Clock, we visit the duo in Johannesburg, where they make a track in 10 minutes with a simple setup including laptop, Ableton Live, NI Komplete Kontrol MIDI keyboard and APC40 controller, with Ayema Problem layering vocals on top. As the duo tells Fact, making a beat with time restrictions isn’t something that they’re used to. “The thing about making a beat in that kind of time is that you really get into it and then you wanna keep going,” Jakinda says. “I think that the method we use