While appearing on Maverick Carter’s The Shop: Uninterrupted, Masego confessed that he didn’t grow up listening to hip-hop or R&B.

“It’s almost my destiny to be a little left of center, because I didn’t discover hip-hop until I was 18,” he explained on the show.

Growing up in a household led by pastors, according to No Basic Girls Allowed, the “Mystery Lady” songbird only listened to gospel music.

“Not even R&B,” he added, to Carter’s shock.

 

“My mind was kind of skewed,” Masego shared regarding his perception of popular music. He said he thought gospel rappers were the only (and greatest) artists making rap music, not knowing that those rapper’s were pulling styles and techniques from artists like Nas, JAY-Z and other hip-hop greats.

“There was the gospel TI, the gospel Kanye,” he said with a laugh. “But then when you hear the people their imitating … like man, I didn’t know what I was talking about.”

Masego even thought his school chums were missing out.

“I used to go to school and put other people on to Christian rappers,” he said.

The singer shared a clip of him talking about his childhood and lack of music knowledge on Instagram.

“Please Drink Responsibly, otherwise you’ll end up telling stories from your childhood on camera,” he captioned the video, along with a laughing emoji.

Masego also opened up about where he got his stage name. The singer, who was born Micah Davis, grew up moving around a lot and living all over the world. He has South African roots and was born in Jamaica. Later, as a high school senior in Virginia, he found himself fascinated with African culture while he was searching for his artist name.

“I had to do a project on something for my senior class, and I just chose African culture,” he explained. “So I’m digging into my own roots looking at my mothers side, and I go to this name chart and then the name [Masego] pops out to me because it means blessing.”

It seemed to be the perfect fit. He was known in his church community as “little blessing,” and his parents “used to preach out blessings and prosperity a lot.”

 

 

 

“All of it just felt right,” he shared with a smile.