Otarel

BIO

Oko Lerato Mabusela aka Otarel is a mc who hails from Eastern Cape ZA. She began her journey with hip hop at the age of 12, when she started writing poetry. At age 14 she began attending ciphers at the Musgrave Bus Terminals with beat box extraordinaire, Pasgenik. Who taught her how to beat box and introduced her to the local rap scene. After attending the ciphers, she started going to more sessions and developed a penchant for rapping and started writing rhymes. Her first performance ever were courtesy of The Nowadays poetry sessions in 2004, held at the Bat Center, followed by Inqaba Hip-Hop sessions held at the same venue every Thursday night and at the Bling Free All Elements Battles that were hosted by Ewok, held at Albert Park. She has shared stages with the likes of Tony Blackman (USA), Raheem Kemet, Lex La Foy, Moonchild, Zuluboy, PKuttah and Optical Illusion. Otarel’s first feature was for Sketches of the Mind, Lex La Foy’s first project, where she does a Beatbox and vocal backings. She then featured alongside Black Moss for the Earthworm Assignment by Liquid KZN and has since worked with various notable local artists. She is the first female in Africa to have been crowned Slam Jam Champ by Poetry Africa, runner up beat boxer for BOTY, runner up in the End of the Weak MC Challenge and has headlined across Eastern Cape through KZN all the way to JHB. Performing at events like Vans First Thursday, Remember Me by Spiga and Trap out Thursday to name a few. She has worked with DJ’s Q-one and Dj KGB on a variety of occasions and featured on “Where is the Beef TV”, “Drop a hot 16 TV” and done interviews with Durban Is Yours, Bubblegum Club, Platform and she was also ranked one of the top ten Durban acts to look out for in 2017. She has worked with a number of live bands and various producers to keep her music rich and relevant. Currently residing in Johannesburg after the release of her debut project "D.A.S.T", she recently worked with @itsmazzi on her 1st international collaboration titled "Chromosomes" which is available for streaming on all DAP's, and is a part of T3AM360, where she is a creative and an artist, working with Reverb360 on their collab title "R&O"

Music
https://soundcloud.com/otarelworld