PROFILE: CYRUS THE VIRUS

Phumelele Zikalala A.K.A Cyrus, born on the 7th of March 1982. Discovered the art of rapping in hip-hop when he was 14yrs old back in 1996.
Cyrus went on to form a crew with his peers named Grass Roots. They went on spreading their love for the art form in street ciphers and played a key role in developing the love of hip-hop in their home ground meadowlands. In 1998, they had earned their street credibility and were expanding fast, after merging with another crew of rappers from Alexandra they switched the crew name to U.R.O’s (Unidentified Rhyming Objects). During the same year U.R.O’s merged with Asylum Trybe which was one of the biggest crews at that time, in the clubs and on the streets.

By the year 2000 Cyrus had already developed his writing skill and went on to write his own solo songs. In 2002 he co-founded Dungeon Shack sessions together with a DJ Thabo and together they hosted a lot of rappers from Meadowlands during their mic sessions which helped to expose the hip-hop culture to the mainstream market in and around Soweto, to as far as the Vaal and Tshwane. In 2004 the Dungeon Shack session worked together with Black Hands Projects in partnership with all the local hip-hop sessions around Soweto, to organise a Soweto hip-hop tour. During the same year Cyrus released his debut E.P titled ‘The Real O’Sirus’ which was released independently and sold on the streets. In 2007 Cyrus took a break from music and was invited by the Cultural help-desk’ to develop his business skills for a year. He received a certificate for having attended classes on business administration. In 2009 Cyrus went back into studio to record his full length album titled ‘Journey to independence’ and after a long journey of recordings, the full offering is here which was released independently late 2010. In 2011 Cyrus established the X-GENERATION Musik to further help with managing his career that also led to the setting up of  a youtube channel purely dedicated to covering African raps and content spear headed by Cyrus the Virus. The channel features "The diaries of the illest rapper ever", a series of 16 bars from Cyrus to further promote art of  lyrics-ism in hip hop, live Performances by mostly Cyrus but also feature other rappers. Early 2012 X-GENERATION musik together with EGZABIER clothing and MOKHOZIKA enterprises teamed up to fund a project titled Team efforts media, to provide a media outlet for all their products via blogging. The address is www.teameffortsmedia.blogspot.com.