{"id":2454,"date":"2011-06-13T13:49:13","date_gmt":"2011-06-13T13:49:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africanhiphop.com\/?p=2454"},"modified":"2011-06-13T13:49:13","modified_gmt":"2011-06-13T13:49:13","slug":"salute-to-leon-botha","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/africanhiphop.com\/salute-to-leon-botha\/","title":{"rendered":"Salute to Leon Botha"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/africanhiphop.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/leon1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-2455\" title=\"leon1\" src=\"https:\/\/africanhiphop.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/leon1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"430\" height=\"286\" srcset=\"https:\/\/africanhiphop.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/leon1.jpg 430w, https:\/\/africanhiphop.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/leon1-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 430px) 100vw, 430px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Salute to South African hip hop pioneer Leon Botha, also known as dj $olarize. Leon passed away on the 5th of June from complications arising from progeria, the rare condition which he had lived with since birth. We first came to know Leon as a visual artist whose paintings were inspired by hip hop cover art. In 2007 we featured his work in an online exhibition which can be viewed <a href=\"https:\/\/africanhiphop.com\/archive\/index.php?module=subjects&amp;func=viewpage&amp;pageid=266\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->In recent times, Leon joined forces with Die Antwoord, the Cape Town based hip hop crew who became an overnight success after their album and videos became a viral success on the web. Using his dj name $olarize he was seen in &#8216;Enter the ninja&#8217;, which gained him a whole new fan base around the world.<\/p>\n<p>[youtube]http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=wc3f4xU_FfQ[\/youtube]<\/p>\n<p>Last year, the photo exhibition &#8216;Who Am I? Transgressions&#8217; in which South African photographer depicted Leon in a surrealist landscape was shown in South Africa, Holland and Germany.<\/p>\n<p>While Leon had been battling with his disease for long &#8211; he was one of the oldest survivors of progeria &#8211; his health deteriorated after he suffered a stroke in November. Leon died on 5 June, a day after his 26th birthday.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Aq2r2g4F5UQ\">Interview (video)<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/leonbotha.net\/\" target=\"_blank\">Official website<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/solarize-liquidswords\/\" target=\"_blank\">Flickr<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/LeonBotha.LiquidSwordsman?sk=info\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook page<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Salute to South African hip hop pioneer Leon Botha, also known as dj $olarize. Leon passed away on the 5th of June from complications arising from progeria, the rare condition which he had lived with since birth. We first came to know Leon as a visual artist whose paintings were inspired by hip hop cover [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2455,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanhiphop.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2454"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanhiphop.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanhiphop.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanhiphop.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanhiphop.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2454"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/africanhiphop.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2454\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanhiphop.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanhiphop.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanhiphop.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanhiphop.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}