Volume 65 December 2026-January 2026 : Entertainment

 

A.T.I speaks so loud that his voice can ostensibly crack one’s eardrums, and in most cases he ends his conversations with an uncontrollable laughter.

However, beneath A.T.I’s seemingly cheerful and chatty character lies an extremely opposite picture and, listening to him narrate the story of his life is like watching a suspense movie.

His, is perhaps a tale of a man relentlessly trying hard to tame a vampire within himself that cannot just be calmed down. As he narrates his story, he sounds like a man breaking down but fighting hard to stay up.

He talks of depression, loss of confidence, love for solitude and overall emotional instability. In a very scary manner, he somewhat paints what could make one suspect that he might be on the verge of emotional breakdown.

His words are like those of a man struggling to wrestle from a firm grip of two opposing forces. “I had a troubled childhood, I’m emotionally and psychologically exhausted, and it’s time I stopped pretending,” says the music rapper. He says he needs psychological help. “I want to break free but I’m trapped,” pleads A.T.I.

Describing himself as a self- centered individual with unpredictable mood swings, A.T.I says his music in a way is a reflection of his innermost feelings as he tries to negotiate his existence in a highly unpredictable and some times uncompromising or confusing world.

To some his music career has been laced with what may pass for satanic tendencies but his choice of gothic stuff over convention has never sounded fiercer as in the skeleton video.

Gothic is all there for everyone to see.  As his voice bursts out in the tracks, he appears with a black teardrop down his chick. He is also carrying a coffin, all of which send a chill down the spine of the faint hearted.

A.T.I’s gothic tendencies have everyone asking questions - whether he is part of a satanic coven or injudicious flock, let alone a young man struggling to establish his identity.

He is undoubtedly a reasonable individual but once again comes across as loose and he traces his apparent emotional turbulence to his troubled childhood. “As a kid I grew up not doing what other kids were doing,” he says but declines to explain further.

A faint picture of his seemingly split personality seems to also crop up in his mixtapes. In the Skeleton video the lyrics seem to be coming from an aggressive character as he goes, “Monna move your skeleton, move your skeleton”. However, in another track, Fading Effect, he is a humble man saddened by the loss of a lover.

“You’ve got soap on your hands, try hold you for the rescue but I’m slipping away, o boitekelo jwame, Malebopo wame, you’ve got a fading effect,” so goes the track.

Notwithstanding and besides all the music, fame and popularity, A.T.I is a lonely person. He says, “After performing, when the music dies out and everyone goes home, I feel loneliness is released and I become so depressed.”

He says his emotional “instability” is so awful that he cannot even keep a relationship. For instance, he says since he started dating he has been hoping from one relationship to another.

A.T.I, however, shrugs off insinuations that his music is a sign that he could be living under the spectra of demonic entrapment.

“I am not in any way associated with the devil,” he declares, adding that it is just how he wants to present himself in music.

“I want to be different and music is one stage where I seek peace with myself,” he says.

As if the skeleton is not enough, A.T.I is working on another album entitled Polao ya motho, the title of which has set tongues wagging.

“It is all about the ‘Pull Him Down Syndrome,’ which I believe it is like killing a person. I am a victim of this,” he defends his position.

 Meanwhile, his mother, Julian Molemogi, disagrees that her son has had a troubled childhood.

“We are very close and we love each other very much and I am not aware of that” says Julian.

All she knows is that A.T.I grew up as a naughty child who was always hyperactive and liked asking questions. Otherwise Molemogi thinks the young man is playing to the gallery.

While she admits that A.T.I could be self- centred at times, Molemogi does not agree that he is lonely, nor is he losing confidence.

“He is a highly social person and whenever he is with his friends he likes to dominate them,” she says of his son.

However, beyond music, A.T.I is just a young man who is still trying to create his own identity, says the young man about himself.

With or without the gothic, the lyrically gifted 24-year old, seems set to raise the bar and bring in a new dimension to rap music.

 

 

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