Born MMM Mahlangu to an anti-apartheid activist slash bank robber slash playwright father and an entrepreneurial mother, MaliQ had the training of keeping the illusive balance between business and the arts at an early age. And not without a touch of healthy street cred(ibility). After matriculating in 2000 he unwittingly got involved with street hustle types dabbling in fast money but soon pulled out, visited the Sudan for some time and in his own words "came back home/ splitting domes with these ghetto poems". MaliQ describes his style of rap as simply smArt rap. A loving family man, dedicated activist to the cause of "freedom again" and entrepreneur, he insists that his music is just an extension of these roles.

Having burst onto the scene as one quarter of the group Ba4za, now recognised as "the original godfathers of of Cap City rap", there is also much to say about MaliQ the serial trendsetter, not least of which is his blog streetsheet.co.za, voted the no.1 hip hop blog by Hype magazine in 2009. To date MaliQ has released several street albums/ mixtapes, Official Bootlegs Volume One, which he first tried to modestly dismiss as "a bunch of tracks i put together for the Red Bull Music Academy which I was invited to in Seattle, USA in the summer of 2005". But it was clear to all after receiving raving reviews from critics at home and abroad that this was no ordinary bunch of songs; with the bulk of production done by fellow Cap City beat extrodinaire Nyambz. Then came the unusually titled follow up in 2009, Sleepless in Seattle/ Cap City On My Mind, a tribute he says to his love for arts, film and fashion. 2010 saw the final coming together of MaliQ's greatest passions, music and fashion, with the opening of the HHH-ShoP concept store and the recording process of what he promises will be his greatest musical work to date, the magnum opus A Mic & A Dream. But before that, there's the taster prequel mixtape released online in the form I Have A Dream.

To think it all began in the the dusty township streets of Mamelodi, the New Orleans of South Africa, miming Nas rhymes just trying to pick up girls in junior high school in his teens. Growing up between exile, Mamelodi and in the former apartheid homeland of his native tribe the colourful Ndebeles, his diverse artistic influence remains a balance between these places- global in influence yet local in relevance. Or is it vis a vis. He's not sure yet, and that doesn't seem to bother him much. In the end, only time will tell if this self-confessed dreamers' dreamer was just that or a much needed boost to the gospel of street preacher members of an emerging band of young rapper entrepreneurs determined to put South Africa in its rightful place as a contender in world music and style trends.