That is where Grixxly finds himself on the newly released Shimpilika Remix. The Mbabane-born rapper and producer is one of seven artists brought together on Bab’ Dlamini’s expanded version of the February single, alongside Oriiginelle, Sean Cast, MCO Jamrock, Ncwiki Flex, Thaifo Son and South Africa’s Nino Fresko. The remix was released on September 18, and runs for just over five minutes, giving each rapper enough room to make an impression. Grixxly does exactly that.
His verse is one of the moments that immediately stands out on the record. He attacks the beat with the confidence that has become increasingly familiar in his catalogue, switching between tightly packed bars and a delivery that lets the words land.
On a song built around several rappers, where every artist has to establish a presence quickly, his contribution does feel like filler. It is one of the harder verses on the remix.
That is not a new development in Grixxly’s music. His catalogue has consistently put the writing ahead of the need to fit neatly into one version of hip-hop.
His first major project, the five-track As The Fruit Ripens, arrived in 2021. The EP was entirely produced by Grixxly and introduced listeners to a rapper who was comfortable over hard trap-influenced production while still leaving room for soul samples and more reflective writing. The project included “Blank Kanvas”, Blessings, Said It and Brema To Rio, with Oriiginelle appearing on the closing track.
Even then, the production was part of the story. Grixxly had grown up around a broad mix of music. His two older brothers exposed him to house, R&B, kwaito, and different sides of hip-hop during the early 2000s. Outkast, Eminem, T-Pain, and Lil Wayne became some of the artists who shaped his early relationship with rap, particularly the way they used music to tell stories and communicate their perspectives.
His own writing started informally. He would take verses from artists he listened to and rewrite them around his own experiences before gradually moving into writing material that was entirely his own. That process eventually became more personal, with music providing a place to work through experiences rather than simply imitate the artists who had introduced him to the genre.
That distinction has remained important to his work. In 2021, OkayAfrica described As The Fruit Ripens as a project built around Grixxly’s lyrical ability, hard-hitting trap-influenced beats and soul-infused samples. The publication also highlighted “Brema To Rio”, where his ambitions stretched beyond Eswatini’s borders.
Four years later, the ambition had become easier to measure. His 2025 mixtape Bear With Me brought together boom bap, trap, gospel touches, reflective rap and other sounds across a project that Grixxly himself described as a collection rather than a tightly themed body of work. In an interview with MELT FM, he explained that he had become less concerned with proving that he could rap and more interested in experimenting and enjoying the process.
The numbers around that release also gave him one of his clearest career markers. Bear With Me passed 30,000 Spotify streams within its first 10 days, while “Sheleni”, featuring Lyrikal Busta and Sarnilo, was selected for Spotify’s Fresh Finds playlist, with Grixxly appearing on the playlist cover.
That recognition came alongside another important part of his career: being heard outside Eswatini. Grixxly became the first Swati artist featured on Apple Music’s The Nadeska Show, according to local reporting, and in January 2026 he joined Kopton Music, an agency working in areas including music rights, licensing and artist support.
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In July, Grixxly joined Young Zesh and Sarnilo on Garments, a track that moved into fashion, identity and self-expression while also finding an audience on TikTok. The song was produced by Grixxly alongside Sihlangusibiya and Vuyo SZ. Then came Shimpilika Remix.
The record is a different test because the attraction is not one artist carrying the song from beginning to end. It is a collection of rappers being given space to put their own stamp on the same beat. The title itself means slide in siSwati, and the remix brings together artists from Eswatini and South Africa in what has been described as a hip-hop cypher.
Grixxly’s contribution fits that format because he does not sound as though he is trying to blend into the lineup. The verse has bite. His cadence stays controlled while the writing does the heavy lifting, and there is enough variation in his delivery to keep the section from becoming another interchangeable guest appearance. On a remix with this many voices, that matters.
It also brings the story back to one of the qualities that has followed him since his earliest releases: he takes the actual rapping seriously. That is easy to miss when an artist is also producing his own records. Grixxly has spent much of his career working on both sides of the music, building beats while developing his own writing and delivery.
His discography makes that dual role difficult to separate from the artist himself. As The Fruit Ripens was self-produced, while Bear With Me allowed him to experiment with different production styles and African musical elements alongside hip-hop.
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That development is probably more interesting than trying to put Grixxly into a single genre. He can make a hard trap record. He can rap over boom bap. He can bring African chants and siSwati into a hip-hop arrangement. He can produce the beat himself and then step in front of the microphone.
He can make a personal song and then turn around and hold his own on a seven-artist remix. The Shimpilika Remix gives listeners a particularly easy way to hear that progression because the competition is built into the record. Several established voices are taking turns over the same production, and Grixxly’s verse arrives with enough force to demand attention.
For an artist who has spent years building his catalogue without rushing the process, that is a useful place to be. The name Grixxly may have started as a play on grizzly, but there is nothing particularly complicated about what the rapper has been doing with it.
He has been writing, producing, experimenting, and gradually making the music harder to ignore. And on Shimpilika Remix, he sounds very much like an artist who knows exactly what to do when the beat finally comes to him.
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