Legendary Crisp is making her mark on The Mix Capital

Legendary Crisp is the bright braided DJ serving you your weekly Amapiano dose on YFM. Born Tumi Crisp, she is a 27-year old LLB graduate from WITS and is from Westbury, Johannesburg

A long-time lover of music with a taste for deep and soulful house music, she has always had an ear for Amapiano and knew from the start that it would be the biggest sound to hit South Africa. It is, in fact, her pure love for Amapiano is that propelled her to venture into what is now her DJing career.

“Growing up, I was always that girl who people at school would go to for deep house and soulful house tunes. House is really my forte. It was something that I really loved and, for the most part, listened to in its entirety. I did listen to other genres, but I was very passionate about house and when Amapiano started popping up in 2012/2013, it really resonated with me and it was something I had been following for the longest time,” she says.

Her big break came when Tumelo Diaho-Monaheng offered her YTKO spot on alternate Mondays with Da Kruk. This made her happy as she had already auditioned for the position, which will see her dreams come to fruition and share her music taste with her listeners. “It’s just really been a really good roller-coaster ride,” she tells me as she explains her journey to the decks, “no-one actually ever really prepares you for becoming a DJ, even as a young girl.”

She recognises and embraces that she has a different image to the one portrayed by the media and accepted by the masses. On her journey, she also hopes to inspire other females and let them know that it is ok to be comfortable in what makes you different. She says, “If you are that sporty person, if you are someone who doesn’t wear makeup, if you don’t wear wigs… I’m just trying to show you that someone can look that way and look good and do amazing things.”

Unapologetically opinionated, Legendary Crisp hopes to make a difference within the industry. Taking her chances and applying at the Y-Academy in the last year of her law degree, it paid off when she got accepted and thus laid the foundation for her to build on. This is not to say she is done with law. On the contrary, she is considering delving deeper into it in the future because, as Hunter S. Thompson once put it, “The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs. There’s also a negative side.”

She explains, “Especially coming into contact with so many of these different producers. Hearing of their legal issues that they have with these different publishing companies, record labels and just seeing if there’s actually an agreement in place and if people actually knew their musical rights. So much of this greed that they happen to fall victim to could be avoided.”

In the meantime, she is concentrating on being her namesake – a legend. She says being part of The Mix Capital has been an amazing venture. An all-female show that looks to not only entertain but also uplift and empower females all across the board.

“I don’t want to be considered a female DJ. We are trying to showcase our talent and to show that we are mix DJs – period. It’s not about my gender because that’s still also a very huge barrier that we have,” she comments. Not a fan of conforming to societal norms, she is a believer in being true to oneself and putting in the work.

Be sure to tune into The Mix Capital every Saturday night from 10 pm – 2 am. Listen out for the guest DJ who will be opening the show for the legend in the making herself, Legendary Crisp and DJ Candii and – your host – DJ Fae Fae.