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Family confirms rapper Costa Titch death, tributes pour in

South Africa’s 28-year-old rapper Costa Titch collapsed and died while performing at the Ultra Music Festival at the Expo Centre in Johannesburg on Saturday night.

In a statement sent to TshisaLIVE, the rapper’s family expressed their devastation.

“We are thankful for the emergency responders and all those present in his last hours on earth. As a family we are faced with a difficult time as we try to make sense of what has befallen us and we ask that we be afforded the time and space to gather ourselves,” the statement read.

Fans captured his collapse on the Ultra stage. Costa Titch, whose real name was Costa Tsobanoglou, hailed from Mbombela in Mpumalanga and had been in the entertainment industry for a few years as a dancer, but recently branched out into rap.

His style of rap, aesthetic and language of choice made him the talk of the town when he broke into the industry.

Costa rapped in English and the Pretoria dialect s’Pitori, and could dance better than most people when it came to moves created for amapiano beats and songs.

His iTunes bio described Costa’s music as a “dance-friendly iteration of hip-hop that taps into South Africa’s rich cultural landscape with deft flow in isiZulu, Sesotho, English and Afrikaans”.

He was accused of cultural appropriation by other people but that didn’t stop his shine. Earlier this year, he received a major co-sign from Senegalese-American musician Akon, who praised him and predicted he would be “a game changer”.

Later, Costa announced he had signed a global deal with Akon’s record label, Konvict Kulture, and they would be teaming up for the Big Flexa remix.

They even performed together at this year’s Cotton Fest.

Meanwhile, tributes pour in for rapper Costa Titch following his untimely death.

The death of multi-award winning Costa, real name Constantinos Tsobanoglou, has sent shock waves through Mzansi.

His close friend Junior de Rocka was among the first people to take to social media to pay tribute to him, in a since-deleted Instagram story, where wrote: “RIP Bro”.

EFF leader and supporter of the entertainment industry, Julius Malema posted Titch’s name with a heartbroken emoji on Twitter. Rapper and reality TV star, Da L.E.S shared that the young talented artist was taken too soon.

“RIP Costa Titch.

“Great talent gone too soon.” he tweeted. Presenter and actress Pearl Thusi has been left in disbelief over Titch’s passing and wrote on her Instagram stories they had made plans. — sowetan.