Hip Hop artists collaborating with sports brands, alcohol and car companies has been a relationship that’s going on for years within the culture. I remember the first South African major Hip Hop act to collaborate with a corporate brand. HHP really played a role in pioneering the culture of brands working with artists in South Africa, with his deal with Status. JR also had a huge deal with Vodacom back in the day, regardless of this, at the time you could really hand pick the few acts that were really doing it.

Now it’s become a very common factor in SA hip hop, rappers are signing endorsement deals, left, right and centre. Stogie T with Chivas, Cassper and Da L.E.S with Ciroc and Khuli Chana with Absolut. Those are just the alcohol endorsement deals, on the other hand you have Nasty C with Mercedes Benz and Frank Casino with Kappa and Converse. It’s a really good time to be a rapper in South Africa, when you’re good at it of course.

AKA seems to also be enjoying his lions share of corporate sponsorship, deals with Cruz Vodka have seen him shoot adverts and have billboards all over South Africa. They further topped that with a Watermelon flavoured release with the AKA brand attached to it – of course a limited addition release. Though that’s not the only deal that Prince Costinyo has managed to finesse working with AKA. Another major deal is the one with Reebok Classics Africa.

In collaboration with Reebok Classics comes the birth of Practice, a song where AKA explores the concept of practice and being a super star. The song is based around the major collaboration between the two brands. The song also dropped with a new one shot music video which you can check out below or download on reebokdelta.co.za. This all comes a few weeks before he drops his third solo studio album Touch My Blood.