WEEKLYPLATFORMLIGHTSWEEKLY

JANUARY 19-25 2015

GALXBOY

CASSPER NYOVEST

MUTUAL FRIENDS

REASONEDA ROSE

THE ONE TO BACK IN 2015

THE HOTTEST SHOW ON TV

2 SHOTS SHAKUR

MAKING BIG MOVES

GREEN MONEYEDBEAUTIFUL SHOES

U-BOAT/HUAWEI ASCEND P7/ALL-STAR CONVERSE

PLATFORMLIGHTS

Ed’s notes

Urban sub‐culture with a political twist. This is what this magazine is. Young, vibrant, conscienceand 21st century African! This magazine will help you on your journey as you become asuccessful African person of class, power and wealth. We will bring you people that will inspire you. Figures that have already made it or figures that are on the same journey as you, those whohave already have had a little breakthrough into the big leagues. We will preview items andproducts that you will need to make sure that your image makes an impact.

Welcome to 2015. and our very first issue. OUR magazine will have these following sub‐structures,Platform Lights, Platform Lights Business Express, Applify and Hot. As we enter 2015 we look at the people that we think will shine and dominate. We look at the entertainment and Businesssectors. Wha’’s the one thing we know for certainty in 2015? The political parties will be in full swingahead of the 2016 local elections, these could possibly be the most important elections yet. Thedynamics at play could have the Capital City fall to a different party either than the ruling party. Thisis a topic that we will definately touch on.

In this issue, we have Cassper Nyovest on the cover, possibly the artist with the most impact atthe moment, either than just music, how his brand is managed, moves that he makes that showhis intentions to be a power player even outside of the music industry. Our other big stroy is ourarticle on Eda Rose, born into previlege and making her own way through life, trying to make amark. We preview what we believe to be the best show on television, ‘Mutual friends’; not onlyare the actors brilliant, but the plot as well unfolds at a beautiful pace, realistic and painfully so..Its a definate must watch.

If you reading this now, thank you for taking your time to do this. If you subscibing, double thankyou . We will not dissapoint you. Enjoy our first issue.

George Mabona@Borntoadynasty

PLATFORMLIGHTS

Creativity is a difficult enigmatic thing. Especially if you dwell in a sector that a lot of people are in. It takes a lot to stand out from the rest of the Crowd. Branding is a very competitive industry, especially with the leaps that technology has made; a laptop and software is all one needs to start producing work. The generation hash tag fashion industry is littered with competitors, local and international. This is were the GALXBOY (Galaxy boy) brand comes in. GALXBOY is a clothing brand that is aimed at the teenage and youth market of the urban market. The clothing line was started by kids from Pretoria who are Photoshop wizards, judging from their posters and ad campaigns (GALXBOY and Fuck VIP campaigns, too dope. The brand has been around for a couple of years now, their self made marketing and branding campaigns have been amazing. They now have opened their boutique in Hatfield (1066 Burnett Street, Hatfield, Pretoria)

MAKING BIG MOVES

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Judging by the location that they have chosen, they are on top of their business game and know their market. Hatfield is a suburb in Pretoria with its own small central business district, with Pretoria University being in Hatfield, this means the place is populated with students, most of them renting flats there. This is where The GALXBOY store is situated. The one area that most independent growing brands have trouble with is identifying their market and where to find their market; what we want to sell, who would want to buy it and can they afford our product? This is why in years past, there would be a brand that comes on the market and celebrities would be rocking it but years later the brand would just die out slowly. This is the direct result of the hype not matching profits. Let’s analyse GALXBOY’s bizz game. Is their product unique, offer quality and can stand side by side with any other known brand out there? The answer is yes. Is their marketing campaigns affective and reaching their target market? The answer is yes. Have they mastered the pricing game? This is where maybe they will have problems with sustainability, as good and unique as their product is, their product sometimes tends to be a bid expensive. The only people who can afford their clothes is the kids from the middle class. For a kid who is from a working class family, they will have to save cash or buy it because they ‘really’ love the brand and want to make a fashion statement. At the end of the day when your product is R350 and is standing alongside a Guess t‐shirt and Levi’s shirt at the same price, for you to pick a GALXBOY shirt, you’d have to be in love with the brand. Maybe this move is what would make this brand work! Bravery and knowing their worth. Would this brand still be around 10 years from now? Only time would tell. But for 2015 we predict that expect them to invade the mainstream.

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I remember seeing Cassper Nyovest on television on the 31st of December 2013, on the official New Year count down on SABC 1. He was performing there, he had a lot of energy and you could see that he put in a lot of work; and all of a sudden he was forcing people to sing along with his song. He actually stopped performing and told the crowd that he feeds off their energy and if there's no energy coming from them he's going to give them a shit performance. I remember thinking this guy is bloody arrogant, you haven't made any hits for you to expect the crowd to sing along word for word.

Fast forward 12 months later he has 3 chart topping singles, sold Gold, took home best album and song of the year at the SA Hip Hop awards 2014 and everyone is singing along to all his songs. Maybe what I called arrogance was a dude who knew his worth. What caused this drastic change to this Mc's life? The music he is releasing is hot , flow is sick and the rhymes are vicious; but there is plenty rappers out there who are also vicious, but what makes this Motswako rapper special and the best MC for 2014? The music itself is well balanced, the choruses are sing alongs and the effects on the chorus are enough, nothing to overboard, that’s why they appeal to the normal person on the street. The verses are ill and have enough punchlines and storytelling to keep the hard core rap audience pumping the cd over and over again.

“AKA’s favourite rapper,I guess I made it on the Forbes list...”

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Apart from the music, you have to give credit to him and his team for developing him into a mainstream brand. His hairstyle is unique and exclusively his signature, and you starting to see kidson the streets rocking them. His dress sense borders on the cool cat slash nerd vibe, those dudes from ‘The big bang theory’ would most definitely all rock his socks that he is promoting.When it comes to his game, only he would know why he goes after the girls he goes after; could bethat he truly feels for these women, or could be a Jay/Kanye move of going for high profile powerful women. First Boity and now Amanda Du’pont, much respect from my side towards him, But he tendsto live out his romances in public and in the social media pages. A Word of advice would be that, he isnot a normal dude on the street. Keep your relationship off the social pages and just keep it aboutmusic and business in 2014 we also saw him featuring Talib Kwali, this is equivalent to Kelly Khumalo featuring Jill Scott or Angie Stone, and it’s a huge move. As we enter the New Year, you can bet that this Motswako rapper will continue his trail blazing, if you had to place a bet on an act, put your last dollar on Cassper Nyovest. All he needs to do is drop one more hot single off this album and his second album will be the most anticipated. So in 2015, he’s the guy to back.

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Apart from the music, you have to give credit to him and his team for developing him into a mainstream brand. His hairstyle is unique and exclusively his signature, and you starting to see kidson the streets rocking them. His dress sense borders on the cool cat slash nerd vibe, those dudes from ‘The big bang theory’ would most definitely all rock his socks that he is promoting.When it comes to his game, only he would know why he goes after the girls he goes after; could bethat he truly feels for these women, or could be a Jay/Kanye move of going for high profile powerful women. First Boity and now Amanda Du’pont, much respect from my side towards him, But he tendsto live out his romances in public and in the social media pages. A Word of advice would be that, he isnot a normal dude on the street. Keep your relationship off the social pages and just keep it aboutmusic and business in 2014 we also saw him featuring Talib Kwali, this is equivalent to Kelly Khumalo featuring Jill Scott or Angie Stone, and it’s a huge move. As we enter the New Year, you can bet that this Motswako rapper will continue his trail blazing, if you had to place a bet on an act, put your last dollar on Cassper Nyovest. All he needs to do is drop one more hot single off this album and his second album will be the most anticipated. So in 2015, he’s the guy to back.

PLATFORMLIGHTS EXPRESSBUSINESS

GREENMONEYEDBEAUTIFULSHOES

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Apart from the music, you have to give credit to him and his team for developing him into a mainstream brand. His hairstyle is unique and exclusively his signature, and you starting to see kidson the streets rocking them. His dress sense borders on the cool cat slash nerd vibe, those dudes from ‘The big bang theory’ would most definitely all rock his socks that he is promoting.When it comes to his game, only he would know why he goes after the girls he goes after; could bethat he truly feels for these women, or could be a Jay/Kanye move of going for high profile powerful women. First Boity and now Amanda Du’pont, much respect from my side towards him, But he tendsto live out his romances in public and in the social media pages. A Word of advice would be that, he isnot a normal dude on the street. Keep your relationship off the social pages and just keep it aboutmusic and business in 2014 we also saw him featuring Talib Kwali, this is equivalent to Kelly Khumalo featuring Jill Scott or Angie Stone, and it’s a huge move. As we enter the New Year, you can bet that this Motswako rapper will continue his trail blazing, if you had to place a bet on an act, put your last dollar on Cassper Nyovest. All he needs to do is drop one more hot single off this album and his second album will be the most anticipated. So in 2015, he’s the guy to back.

Coming from a moneyed up family, where going to university, seeing the world and havingopportunities is a certainty can be a heavy burden to bare. Already it is hard enough to figureout what you want to do with your life. In most cases facing poverty or the budget constraintsof a working class background pushes you to figure out early what you want to do. This is the burden that the beautiful and multi‐ talented Eda Rose had to face, but so far the results showthat she had little trouble navigating through these stormy waves of high class living. Eda Rose,real name Carren Lamperini. Bit confused? Let me clarify, her mother is Xhosa and her father is Italian. This talented beauty has already made her mark in a lot of industries, perhaps most of us first heard of her when she was on the Yfm’s breakfast show with Mo Flava. She has also done a bit of acting and a lot of billboard and voice over work. There is also intellectual power pushing this beauty, she is an Accounting and Finance Honours graduate from the London Metropolitan University in England. Already you can compare her to powerhouses like Basetsane Khumalo and Carol Bouwer.

Before we get into why we felt we need to profile her on our very first issue; reading her biography forces you to juxtapose her against the environment of the country or better yet her fellow dwellers of Johannesburg in the townships and Joburg CBD. What does it take to make it in Johannesburg as a youth hustling in Johannesburg? Are we really an equality based society, what shapes our youth.Is it the education that we receive that we are made to believe is equal as far as the syllabus goes, or is it the conversations that we grow up hearing in our dinner tables and environment, a typical kid from the townships would hear about Generations, witchcraft and soccer, while Eda Rose and her counterparts would hear about mergers, Time magazine man of the year, the falling economy and the recession. Something to think about. What does it take to make sure that we have an equality based society? Education, Education and Education!!! Then what happens to those kids who really are not good at school but are entrepreneurs or those kids who think they are good at nothing? You GO to THEM and teach them better through workshops, which we don’t have enough of. We have a large youth that is just drowning in poverty. With that said Eda is heavily involved in Cheese Kids doing charity work. As someone who has been involved with Cheese Kids before, it’s just a PR exercise for rich kids, they really have no lasting impact that they do.

Back to our Green warrior (check out her green tips on twitter), her current primary business venture is something that is really amazing, especially for the local market. Eda Rose latest venture is a shoes and bags collection that that she sells online. Why do we think this is amazing and feel we have to lend our full support to this venture? The internet offers freedom that was never available to independent entrepreneurs before, and Eda Rose is taking full advantage of this, by cutting out the middle man and fashion distributors, when she does decide to avail the collection to mainstream shops, it will be on her own terms. She is personally involved in the collection, she took time to find the right bags and shoes, sources from such places as Brazil and Italy. Check out her entire collection on www.ercollection.co.za

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HOT

The Huawei brand flooded the market with the Y220 android phoneat a very affordable phone, extremely affordable. This move offered the opportunity to the masses to own their first touch screen smartphone. What did this move do? It made a lot of people notice a brand that they knew nothing about before. They succeeded in brand awareness, but it killed the image of its upper market cellphones. So cats are sleeping on the Huawei Ascend P7. The truth of the matter is it’s one of the best phones out the. So if you need to get yourself a new phone, get the P7, it’s got a 8‐megapixel front‐facing camera, a 16GB internal storage and a 32GB memory card.

Image is everything, especially if you making a first impression. The one thing that every man who takes himself seriously needs is a proper watch. A watch should make a statement. If the statement you want to make in life is that you bold, handle any situation, stylish and going places! Then you need to get the Italian made U‐Boat watch. The U‐Boat pictured here is the Chimera Chrono. Bronzed glass, sapphire curved on the front and flat crystal on the back of the timepiece and double gasket sealing.

If you want this particular watch, then you need to have serious connections, cause this is a limited edition, but you can get other brilliant U‐Boats, from U‐1001 to Classicos.

This is the most comfortable tekkie (sneaker) ever made. Period! The All‐Star Converse. What makes this tekkie the best the ever was? It’s just a perfect balance of everything, stylish, simple, can be rocked clean or dirty. The All‐star can be rocked with any outfit. The only shoe that can be worn by Billionaires, Rock stars, panstulas, ballerinas, professors… absolutely anyone can rock an All‐star. Everybody should have a pair of these tekkies. If your concern is the fact that most people rock them and you want to feel like an individual, they come in all sorts of decorations and styles, check out their catalogue, anyone can feel unique in an All‐Star.

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The South African media industry is growing at a rapid pace, the satellite networks, we are getting more and more choices to choose from. We have the a National broadcaster which has 3 channels, An independent Network E‐TV, DSTV Network, Top TV and OVHD. With all these channels available it’s hard to make a choice on what to watch, to add to this, with all the international shows with their epic budgets and international stars, some local shows don’t get a chance to shine and get the ratings. With all this said, we feel justified in flying South Africa’s flag high, by declaring proudly that the best television show at the moment has to be ‘Mutual Friends’! They have a perfectly balanced cast of heavy weight veterans like Luthuli Dlamini, Jafta Mamabolo, Vinolia Mashego and Neo Ntlatleng and a very impressive new comer Zimkitha Nyoka.

A rural kid called Badanile gets a university bursary to go study to go study medicine. Her dreams are paying off, all the studying and hard work. She is the first person at her family to go to university. It’s a big deal. She gets to the big city and university, turns out she fucked up and missed an important deadline, so she forfeited the bursary till the next year. Instead of going back home, she decides to stick around the city and crash at a bus stop. When a security guard tells her she can’t sleep there and an altercation happens and Jabu comes to her rescue. Jabu is a stuttering rich kid who is studying medicine because his father forces him to. Jabu is still trying to find his way in life. The only outlet this stuttering kid is social media, were he has a great following. He takes Badanile to his house so she can crash there for the night; Badanile gets to meet Jabu’s father, the great Dr Zweli who happens to also lecture at the university, Zweli upon hearing Badanile’s story organises a full bursary with a boarding budget in there.This is more than just a series about university life. It’s a universal storyline that touches upon these that people across the age groups can identify with. The class systems of Johannesburg, The pressures of fitting in and living up to other people’s expectations, the hustle to make your dreams come true and grabbing every opportunity that avails itself to you and running with it. This is really a very good series, the writing is brilliant, the acting is superb, make sure that you catch it on SABC 1 every Wednesday at 20H30.

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HOT

Most of today’s rap artists are studio rappers, the art of battling and freestyling is lost on them. All they do is record commercial albums that ae released to the mainstream. Hence why most rap artistswill release albums and every now and then will release mixtapes, that’s where they show off theirrap skills and stay relevant to the underground cats who only respect artists for their lyrical ability.This edition’s hottest current video goes to a vicious rhyme animal, Reason. Reason is a well respectedMC, both for his studio game and street credibility. He first started being noticed when he was regularly featured on YFM’s then breakfast show that was hosted by DJ Fresh and Thato. Reasonwould drop just freestyles on the daily. He has now dropped some albums and has had mainstreamsuccess, but cats on the street still know not to mess with him when it comes to freestyles. He alsohas the hottest video at the moment, ‘2shots Shakur’. Just like the play of words of the title, this videoIs based on symbolism. For this type of video to work, were it’s just the artist on video, no girls, hotwhips or different locations, the song itself has to be tight, and it is! The beat is sick, the lyrics are onpoint, punchlines all the way. The video is shot in black and white and it’s just Reason on it. The editingbrings life to the video, the images are all relevant to the lyrics and song, so it is a well thought outvideo, they took time working on this video, there’s also these video images projected on his person,makes it a sick video. Great work from ‘The Grand Kids Collection’ and Reason. It’s a dope video allaround and has to be the hottest video at the moment.

“...I’m taking 5 shots inone night, 2 shots Shakur”

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APPLIFY

If having a smartphone in your hand makes you feel that the world is in the palm of your hand; then this part of the mag called Applify is for you. Having a smartphone is pretty much useless if you not using it to make your life easier. There are over a million apps out there, covering pretty much any topic you can think of. Every issue we will explore and preview different types of apps, apps designed to make your life easier and smooth. The top ten apps that you have to get first on your smartphone are, Whatsapp, Twitter, Instagram, Take‐a‐lot, Shazam, Flipboard, Cheap flights, Facebook, Price check and DU battery saver. Have these apps and you will be socially relevant, chatting on Joburg’s most popular platforms for chatting, be able to get the cheapest flight for those last minute spontaneous Durban getaways. Be able to identify songs banging on the club sound system that you have never heard before, be able to get articles from all your favourite sites and magazines on one pp. These ten apps are the first apps you need to get on your phone.

Flipboard probably still the best app out there, everyone should have it, and released in 2010 by Flipboard Inc. Basically what this app does is let you design your own customized magazine, by compiling articles and feeds from what your interests are.

Google Play SummaryFlipboard is your personal magazine. It is the most popular way to catch up on the news, read stories from around the world and browse the articles, videos and photos friends are sharing. To begin, pick a few interests and tap any of the files to begin flipping through your personal magazine. Add blogs and publications…

Is your life lived out to a soundtrack, every moment of your life has a song that accompany it, most songs remind you of an event, when you happy you listen to music, when you sad you listen to music. When you want to keep everyone out and have some me time, you put on your headphones and simply thrown in the beats and your thoughts. You simply can’t live without music, then the Shazam app is for you.

Google Play SummaryShazam is the best way to identify music and TV. In seconds you’ll know the name of any song, or more about what you’re watching ‐ touch to Shazam to start your journey.

HighlightsOnce you Shazam music, you can easily:• Preview and buy tracks on Amazon or Google Play• Sing along to the beat with real time lyrics• Share your discoveries on any social network• Watch music videos on YouTube

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