They are composed of about eight members, though the exact membership fluctuates frequently; these include Ishmael Morabe (vocals), Mark Heuvel (dance), Shaheen Ariefdien, Ramone and DJ Ready D. Their style uses elements of hip hop music, reggae and traditional African rhythms.
Their albums include Our World (1990), Boom Style (1992), Age of Truth (1993), Phunk Phlow (1994), Universal Souljaz (1995), and Ghetto Code (1997).
Although the production value was not exactly stellar it did attempt to interpret hiphop through their unique Cape Town influences and experiences (both musically and lyrically).
Lance, POC manager, set up Ku-shu shu Records and signed a distribution and marketing deal through Teal Trutone (Gallo subsidiary).
While Our World was rather innocent and daring for its time, Boom Style reflected the realities of operating within the music industry and the pressures of the market on POC.
In late 1993 POC was invited to perform in Denmark at the Visions of Africa music festival and also embarked on a national voter education tour, covering high schools, community centres and universities.
Mark Schwartz writes, "Times were good until one day in 1985 when tanks rolled down the main drag of Mitchell's Plain Township, and Ready and his homie Shaheen put down the vinyl and picked up bricks and gasoline bombs to hurl at apartheid's army.
For the next nine years, through a state of emergency, political upheaval, and economic turmoil, Ready, Shaheen and their posse Prophets of Da City persevered until finally they got to drop bombs at another revolution, as the only performers at the inauguration of South Africa's president Nelson Mandella".
Inspired by the production styles of the Bomb Squad (Public Enemy) and Boogiemen (Ice Cube), Age of Truth is arguably their most militant and musically daring album.
"The song is about empowering yourself as an individual and moving forward as a community" claims musician Ready D.[3] "Understand Where I'm Coming From" also appeared on the Tommy Boy Planet Rap album which featured 12 hip hop crews from around the world.
The head engineer at Bop Studios worked with POC before and offered them a deal to record an album at an extraordinary reduced rate.
POC found out that the aim behind Bop Studios was to entice big music stars to record there to legitimise Bophutatswana as a sovereign state.
[4] POC's gender politics on Age of Truth was first analysed in a 2001 article titled “Black Thing: Hip-Hop Nationalism, ‘Race’ and Gender in Prophets of da City and Brasse vannie Kaap” by Adam Haupt, who argued that some of the gender-based problems on this album could partly be explained by the crew's black nationalist politics.