#FillUpFNBStadium: Cassper Nyovest’s rise to fame

Cassper Nyovest is just one day away from making music history. The rapper is hoping to fill up FNB Stadium on Saturday, December 2, and if history is anything to go by, SA’s golden boy looks set to do just that.

He’s already sold out the Dome (as you’ll see in documentary Cassper Nyovest: Fill Up the Dome on Showmax) and performed to thousands of screaming fans during his historic show at Orlando Stadium in 2016.  

If anyone can fill up FNB Stadium, he can!

With the stadium’s capacity of 94 736, the thought of a local artist filling it up without the support of a featured international act seems nearly impossible.

But as we saw in Cassper’s Behind the Story documentary, it doesn’t matter what people think you can do, it’s what you believe you can do that counts.

It’s a lesson the ‘Tito Mboweni’ hit maker learned many years ago, when he was humiliated at a party after someone posted a picture of his hair, describing it as a bad Easy Waves campaign.

But Cassper would have the last laugh, going on to become a household name not only in South Africa, but in the rest of Africa too.

Here are three other lessons we learned from Cassper’s documentary.

1. Stay humble

Cassper’s journey to success has been a crazy one, and he reveals how he took every opportunity that presented itself. He has had many ups in his career, like the time President Jacob Zuma congratulated him on filling up the Dome.

But he has also had many lows – his never-ending beef with AKA comes to mind. Despite all the drama and the success, he always reminds himself to “stay humble”. This is just one of the secrets he shares on how to break into the cutthroat music industry. 

2. Tragedy can make you fearless

Cassper also opens up about the death of his brother, and how it made him fearless.

“I idolised my brother even more than my dad for some reason. I didn’t have anybody to look up to anymore or anybody that I feared. That’s why I’m a fearless human being, because there is no one I respected more than my brother,” he said during the interview.  

3. Believing in your dreams

Many people would be shocked to find out that one of South Africa’s best-known rappers is a high school dropout. Despite both his parents being teachers, Cassper revealed that he made the difficult decision to drop out of school in Grade 8 – not because he struggled in class, but because he wanted to follow his dreams.

“The chalkboard would be the stage and I would feel that this performer really sucks and I need to be there and perform for these kids.”

In 2015 he released a song titled, ‘Mama, I Made It’, and we doubt anyone is prouder than his mother!