Interview Transcripts

• 13th Son & MC Brass

  We spoke to the Upshot MCs 13th Son and Brass backstage at the Parramatta Riverside Theatre. It was to be Upshot’s last show together, and Brass and 13th Son reflected back on their time as MCs in the live instrumental hip-hop set up of the band. Both MCs also talked a length about the personal hip-hop history; for 13th Son, the meeting of fellow hip-hop lovers through a concert band at the age of 12 which eventually grew into the group Fathom. For Brass, it was his connection with Def Wish Cast’s Sereck and the western Sydney scene, a connection which grew into Celsius (which is Sereck and Brass). Both spoke about the strength of the western Sydney scene and their identification with it.

  Tags: Western Sydney, Interviews

• A-Love

  In this 2005 interview, Melbourne-based FemC A-Love talks to Local Noise about her studies in anthropology and her ideas of hip-hop as mode of cultural and ethnic identification. The eloquent A-Love tells of the rise of females in Australian hip-hop as artists and as administrators, including her own seminal role in some of the first all-female hip-hop shows and displays in Australia.

  Tags: All The Ladies, Melbourne, women in hip-hop, Interviews

• Brethren

  Backstage at the Parramatta Riverside Theatre we spoke to Mistery and Wizdm, both long-serving hip-hop artists, community workers and dedicated (but not preaching) Christians. Mistery and Wizdm worked their memories hard to recall the early days of hip-hop in Australia in the 80s from Sydney (Mistery) and Adelaide (Wizdm). Having just released their first LP Beyond Underground after years of compilation tracks and EPs, they talked about the process of making the album. They also spoke about their faith in relation to hip-hop, and avoiding being pigeon-holed as ‘Christain rappers’. In a wide-ranging interview led mostly by the loquacious Mistery, almost all topics were touched on, including graffiti styles and working with local government as graffiti advisors, family heritage and locality, the influence of British MCs on the first Australian to rap ‘in accent’, the global nature of hip-hop, the music industry and hip-hop’s DIY answer to it, and being custodians of the culture.

  Tags: Christianity, graffiti, Western Sydney, Interviews

• Crytearia

  Crytearia is a producer and sample-based, instrumental hip-hop and electronic music artist who lives in Hobart, Tasmania. He has made two albums, Create (2003), and LandScrape (due to be released in late 2007). LandScrape features rhymes from Tasmanian MCs Tempest, Crixus and Thorts. In this interview, conducted by Tony Mitchell at Crytearia’s house in Hobart, Crytearia talks about getting into hip-hop via breakdancing at high school, the Hobart scene, crate-digging and beatmaking, his time in Italy and Italian hip-hop, and his love of the French language and French hip-hop.

  Tags: independent record labels, Hobart, multilingualism, breakdancing, sampling, instrumental hip-hop, Interviews

• Curse ov Dialect

  Curse ov Dialect is an experimental hip-hop group from Melbourne. Its live show is a more like an avant-garde theatre performance than a gig, with each of its five members dressed in elaborate costumes and engaging in on-stage histrionics. Musically, Curse describe themselves as ‘sonically utopian’, borrowing samples of folk music from around the world to create a richly layered sound. They are signed to the US label Mush, and have toured Australia, Japan and the US, where they played with other Mush and Anticon artists. In this interview, conducted on the ground at the noisy intersection of Abercrombie Street and Broadway in Chippendale, the Curse boys talked to Local Noise about their multi-faceted, globalised, anarchic philosophy of hip-hop, and their eclectic influences: from John Cage to tropicalia, Surrealism to Macedonian folk tunes.

  Tags: cultural identity, hip-hop and folk music, world music, sampling, Melbourne, Interviews

• Hermitude

  Hermitude are a two-piece instrumental hip-hop crew from the Blue Mountains, with Luke Dubs on keys and Elgusto on beats. They have performed with MCs such as Ozi Batla and Urthboy from The Herd, and Joelistics from TZU. Their style of production – passing old sounds through new technology – is richly layered and complex. This interview, conducted by Tony Mitchell, Nick Keys and Astrid Lorange at the Great Escape Festival in 2006, is a general catch-up before Hermitude headed off to play in Japan, Norway, the UK and the US for the first time.

  Tags: Elefant Traks, instrumental hip-hop, Sydney, Blue Mountains, sampling, Interviews

• Hyjak n Torcha

  Backstage at Luna Park for Park Jam, the first international hip-hop event of it’s kind in Australia, we caught up with Hyjak n Torcha. The conversation included their personal stories of getting into hip-hop, influences and inspirations and the process of making an album. They both also talked about some of the wider aspects surrounding Australian hip-hop, including its marginalisation by the music industry, its rise through a DIY ethic and what and who hip-hop represents.

  Tags: multilingualism, Sydney, Obese, Interviews

• Joelistics

  This 2005 interview with Melbourne-based TZU MC Joelistics took place in Sydney while he was taking part in a Sydney Festival hip-hop event bringing together artists from The Herd, The Bird, Resin Dogs and TZU. In a lengthy conversation, the ever-articulate Joelistics covered a huge range of issues. He spoke about the early influence of Eastern philosophy and its splicing with the influence of hip-hop and freestyle rapping. He also talked about hip-hop as a form given to political polemics and Empty shows (held in empty warehouse and industrial city spaces where artists would converge). Joelistics spoke of the influence of Terrence McKenna on his ideas about language, both in the way that the world forms language and how language forms and structures the world. He talked also of hip-hop workshops, the influence of Jack Kerouac, the orthodoxy of hip-hop and Curse ov Dialect, music labels and the industry, the history of hip-hop and appropriations of the form in terms of aesthetics, identity, place and self-pride.

  Tags: workshops, empty shows, politics, freestyling, language, Melbourne, philosophy, Interviews

• Josie Styles

  Local Noise spoke to DJ and hip-hop promoter Josie Styles in 2005 at UTS, just after her hip-hop show at 2ser and at a time when she had been offered a job with Shogun Distribution (based in Brisbane). The energetic Josie talked about her two-sided life, spread between her love of hip-hop and her work as a terristrial ecologist looking after an endangered Bell Frog population. She spoke about the early days of getting into hip-hop, early Australian hip-hop and its influence, tape culture and growing up loving hip-hop in the rock-centric mainstream. She talked of her beginnings as a DJ, crate digging and her current practice. She spoke about the relationship with Warner Music that yielded the two Australian hip-hop compilations Straight from the Art. This led to a long discussion about the history of major labels and hip-hop in Australia and working in the industry in general. Josie focuses on representing women in hip-hop, and understands the difficulties of being a woman artist, citing the examples of Canadian FemCee Eternia and Perth-based FemCee Layla as positive examples.

  Tags: Straight from the Art, Shogun, DJing, Sydney, women in hip-hop, Obese, Interviews

• Koolism

  This interview with Canberra-based stalwarts Koolism took place in late 2004, when they were up in Sydney to play at the Homebake festival. Daniel and Hau told stories of 12 years experiences of being Koolism, including the making of the video clip ‘The Season’, Daniel’s comments upon winning the ARIA and Kool Herc DJing at a party at Hau’s family home in Canberra. In a patchworked fashion, the history and character of Koolism emerges through the stories.

  Tags: cultural identity, Invader Records, Canberra, ARIA, Interviews

• K’naan

  K’naan is a Somali refugee who now lives in Canada. His family escaped Mogadishu on the last commercial flight to leave the capital before the airport shut in 1991. He got into hip-hop by memorising rhymes from records by Eric B and Rakim that were sent to him by his father from the US. He considers hip-hop to be the ‘poor people’s weapon’, an art form that is present where ever there is struggle and oppression. His lyrics deal with the superficial, glorified notion of the ‘gangster’, often contrasting the commerical image of the ‘gangster’ with the young people in Somalia who are the victims of extreme violence and bloodshed. In this interview, conducted at the Enmore Theatre cafe before he supported Xavier Rudd, he talked to Local Noise about the Somali tradition of poetry, the inherent connections between hip-hop and Africa, and his notion of the ‘dusty foot philosopher’.

  Tags: politics, Islam, multilingualism, refugee, Somalia, philosophy, Canada, Africa, Interviews

• Layla

  This 2005 discussion with Perth-based FemCee Layla took place at a community hip-hop event in Sydenham, where she was as part of a national tour on the back of her recently released album, Heretik. In a very frank and honest way, Layla talks about her life, the role of hip-hop in it, her influences and her struggles, her experiences and putting that down on record. The talk also covers issues of female role models in society, the sexualisation of children and also the wider scope of social injustice, which she saw from the inside during her time as a social worker.

  Tags: Obese, social work, women in hip-hop, Perth, Interviews

• Lazy Grey

  We caught up with Lazy Grey backstage at the Big Top in Luna Park, as part of the Park Jam hip-hop festival. Lazy was very welcoming and humble in his manner as he talked about his influences and growing up in the early days of the Brisbane scene, and the role of graffiti and breaking in this early gestation of hip-hop in Australia. His also spoke of tape culture and 80s influences from America. Whilst always humble, Lazy is also very much a straight talker, articulating excellently his views on the rise of Australian hip-hop, being a product of one’s environment and the different vernaculars in Australian cities. He touched on (of course) the accent debate, but also discussed the role of swearing in ordinary everyday language, hip-hop and masculinity, and the complexity and contradiction of patriotism and flag-waving in relationship to hip-hop. Having just released his first fully-fledged album, Banned in Queensland with Crookneck records, he talked about the making of the album.

  Tags: masculinity, vernacular, Ken Oath, Bias B, Brothers Stoney, patriotism, breakdancing, graffiti, Lazy Grey, Brisbane, Crookneck Records, Interviews

• Local Knowledge

  Local Knowledge, who have now split into two different groups [Street Warriors & Last Kinection], were for a time the strongest force in Indigenous Australian hip-hop. Local Knowledge spawned after the two Wright brothers, Predator and Wok, approached Weno, who was already into hip-hop at the same time as working as a health lecturer at the University of Newcastle. The raw passion and powerful stage presence saw them gain immediate attention. This interview, which took place backstage at the Manning bar before a gig with The Herd and TZU, covers everything from Local Knowledge’s beginnings to their ideas about representing Aboriginal issues and working with communities.

  Tags: Newcastle, DJJT, Indigenous hip-hop, health, community work, Predator, Wok, social work, workshops, Local Knowledge, Weno, Interviews

• Marcus Guitarkus

  We visited Marcus’ house for a quick interview on the way to interview Music vs Physics at the Evelyn Hotel. Marcus gave us a run down of the genesis of the Symbiotic collective, which emerged from a New Year’s Eve party in 1999 at the house of Pasobionic’s [producer and DJ for TZU and Curse ov Dialect] girlfriend. Marcus spoke of the nature of the way the collective functioned, pooling their diverse talents into shows and performances, often improvised. Marcus also spoke about other collective projects he has been involved in, which managed to incorporate people from the more mainstream hip-hop world. The discussion also covered the issues surrounding the term ‘hip-hop’, its contestation and the problems of limitation, especially in relation to a notions of authenticity and ownership. At the same time as resisting the puritan perspective, Marcus spoke about the ways in which he’s come to understand why the term ‘hip-hop’ is so crucial identity of people who believe they embody hip-hop as a lived reality. This developed into a discussion about the form itself, as a contemporary folk music, and the possibilities for the expression of street-level reality.

  Tags: production, battling, freestyling, instrumental hip-hop, Melbourne, sampling, Interviews