The South African hip-hop artist and entrepreneur
experienced a hurricane and a seismic spiritual shift in the city of
Cancun.&nbsp; 



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It has been a journey, a lot to learn and a lot learned,”
says Siyabonga Metane, popularly known on South African hip-hop stages as
‘Slikour’.



The learnings have been in music and business, but the
journeys have been beyond both.



Just two years post South Africa’s democratic elections in
1994, Slikour was part of a rap group named Skwatta Kamp, formed on the streets
of the country’s Gauteng province, with the aim of commercializing the local
hip-hop scene.



The group consisted of seven members and most of them went on to release solo albums. Slikour released two, Ventilation Mix Tape Vol.1 and 2, in 2005 and 2007. Long before that, in 2002, Slikour had turned entrepreneur, co-founding Buttabing Entertainment, a record label and artist management organization.



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&nbsp;Today, he is also the
founder of SlikourOnLife, a prominent urban culture online publication that he
started in 2014 catering to music lovers. 



Returning to the word ‘journey’, it especially sparks
memories of a trip he undertook in 2011 to Cancun, a Mexican city on the
Yucatán Peninsula bordering the Caribbean Sea, known for its beaches, resorts
and nightlife. Slikour was there for a television shoot as part of a group. The
trip still stands out in his mind. 



He was not blown away by the city initially, but as he
visited some of Cancun’s tourism attractions, he began to change his
perception. 



Ultimately, it proved to be what he calls an amazing
rendezvous. 



“The people were pretty much speaking Spanish,” he chuckles, recalling being immersed in the local culture.



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“There are a lot of laborers there and the people are
beautiful and accommodating, but we never really spoke or interacted with the
community.”



Slikour decided to savor the city’s famed nightlife instead
and see for himself what all the hype was about. 



It all began and ended with tequila, a distilled alcoholic
drink and one of Mexico’s most famous exports, made of the blue agave plant
from the city of Tequila in Mexico.&nbsp; 



“Everything you do there is done with tequila. I don’t drink
alcohol, but I had to accept and apply myself because there, they don’t use
tomato sauce, they use tequila; I literally had to get into the tequila swag;
it’s everything there. Tequila started there,” Slikour says.



Mexico is known for its recurring hurricanes too, which
Slikour also got a taste of while there.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;




“After a few days of getting there, we were warned of a
hurricane, and asked to close our doors and windows, and because these things
happen regularly, there’s a drill to follow. The hurricane wasn’t a major one
but I was excited because I wanted to see it. I had to look through the
window,” he says. 



The hurricanes are so frequent in Mexico that he likens the
precautions taken to lighting a candle during South Africa’s frequent power
cuts.&nbsp;&nbsp; 



Despite this exhilarating encounter with nature, the real earth-shaking experience for him, however, happened deep inside a cave in the city of Cancun – and also deep inside him. 



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“My spiritual [epiphany] was when I went into those caves.
You go in there with your self-assurance, claiming you understand everything.
Thereon, they tell you where everything comes from and all of a sudden, you
become this very small thing in this big ecosystem. It just shows how
everything affects everything,” Slikour says.



The tour guides explained how everything inside the cave
came from rain, elaborating how it was connected to the core of the earth; which
is where they were at the time.



Slikour was in Cancun for two weeks, and also visited the
pyramids. 



“The Mexicans didn’t have all the mathematics that we have
now but the pyramids were built to perfection. It just showed you how
forward-thinking they were and how behind we are in as much as we think we are
forward; we just have technology. We don’t think the way historic societies
used to think,” says Slikour, in deep reflection.



Mexico is a place he would return to, anyday, in a
heartbeat.

Tag: Cancun

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

Executive Travel: Slikour’s Mexico