Tunz One

T: Tunz One
E: Erin (Tunz’s fiancée)
NK: Nick Keys

NK: OK, so tell me a story, tell me the Tunz Story – about a kid growing up and getting into hip-hop.

T: I started when I was ten, actually I was breaking when I was nine, but I didn’t get exposed until, probably when Beat Street came, which was I think about 83, when I was ten. And that exposed me to graffiti and that’s pretty much my saga. There’s a little story with that actually: I wanted Beat Street so bad and back then it was $2.99 for a new release, which was very expensive ‘cause we only got 99c for a week, you know, and you could get ten for like ten dollars, so I snuck a new release into the trolley and me dad paid for it, but then said as a point of fact that I couldn’t watch it because I was too sneaky, ‘Now, you’re just going to sit on the cupboard and you’re not going to watch it at all. And we’ll get your mother to take it back tomorrow and you’re not watching it’. I was shattered man. And when me dad got up early and went to work, me mum got me up as soon as me dad left and gave it to me and let me watch it.

NK: Oh, nice.

T: And then Newcastle hip-hop was born. That’s why I love mums, you know what I mean, that’s why I’ve got a mum tattoo, for mother nature and stuff, and I thank my mum, ‘cause that’s what exposed me to it. As a ten-year-old I just watched that movie and said ‘Look at these trains, this art on this train’. My number one dream was to go to New York City.

NK: So, you’ve obviously seen Wild Style and the trains back then?

T: It’s just incredible man, like when I went over to New York City and achieved what I achieved, ‘cause I achieved my dream to come to New York City and do what I had to do. It took me 16 years, but I achieved it, and by the time I’d realised what I’d done I turned around to look round behind me, and there’s a sea of people, you know, a whole generation, and they’re doing their thing. So yeah, to have lived that dream, and to live it and maintain it as it is now, to have Newcastle the way it is – like growing up in a white wall city, where as a kid catching a train, going along seeing if we can bomb, and I achieved that as well.

NK: Let’s keep it local, tell us about the development of the Newcastle scene.

T: OK, Newcastle itself. It’s really started to come along, like all Australian hip-hop, but we’ve got about six crews into the music, we’ve got Nameless crew, we’ve got Left of Centre, we’ve got Suicide Dreamers, we’ve got PX – who’ve been doing their stuff for probably the last six, seven, eight years – and there’s ourselves, Bric A Brac, and then there’s Blades of Hades. Blades have moved to Melbourne, they’re on their second album, so the Newcastle scene is looking pretty healthy. Nameless crew have got about six or seven tracks down, Left of Centre has got six or seven tracks down, Bric A Brac have got an EP coming out hopefully in March, April next year. So in the way of music, it’s very healthy, you’ve got mad DJs like DJ Scooby, who came second in the NSW DMC, you’ve got Mark Newlands, from his traditional hip-hop to his hardcore get up, that heavy industrial music that he does. There’s a lot of diversity in Newcastle. There’s Mathematics, who produces and DJs as well, and is also a b-boy. They are all real strong legs for hip-hop in Newcastle.

NK: And how does it all tie together, is there a hip-hop family?

T: Oh, definitely man, there’s a lot of unity, a lot. A lot of people feel that when they go to Sydney, it’s very separatist, but when you come to Newcastle, and a lot of crews come to Newcastle for the come together that we do have. So there is a lot of warmth for outsiders, people coming in, people from Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney. And people love it, and that’s why they come back.

NK: Yeah, because Trials [Adelaide MC from the crew the Funkoars] was saying at the meeting yesterday, or was it Reflux [DJ for Funkoars], anyway, one of them was saying how Adelaide was real close-knit, and it seems a bit similar here?

T: Very similar. I believe in being consistent enough to put on gigs and just being involved, in a proactive role, not a reactive role, to create what you want. You know what I mean, putting MC battles for new MCs that burst on to the scene when they’re 18, and new DJs as well. You know, it just keeps the momentum going, and you’ve got to look to just rejuvenate all the time, constantly. And from that MC battle I was talking about we got three crews, we got Nameless, Left of Centre and Suicide Dreamers. All of them came out of that. So you’ve got three crews of people from 18-23, from MCs to DJs to breakers to writers come together. So it’s nice. And collectively it’s very strong, ‘cause we’ve got across the board talent, and we all help each other. Whoever has the skills, we help develop the young person’s skills, like my role as youth worker. We use our skills in hip-hop as youth workers, and we use it to be the voice of the young people. We teach ‘em how to write raps, write beats, write lyrics, come up with songs, work on the accents, the deliveries, the performance approaches. Same with graff writers, we help them get CVs, we help them do commercial work, we help them go to uni or TAFE if they want to do fine arts degrees. Or just generally want to have a mentor as a young person coming through.

NK: What kind of support have you had in terms of venues, like pubs and clubs and putting on hip-hop, and other members of the community outside the family, helping you out. What’s that been like?

T: Well it’s been a bit of a struggle, but, you know, most successful things are. I’ve always said that if I can’t make it here, I can’t make it anywhere, and I really enjoy getting respect from my peers. But it’s the people who don’t have an understanding that need to be educated, or who have an inkling of an understanding, they’re the kind of people I want to reach, and they’re people that are mothers and fathers with kids, and they don’t understand, so it’s breaking down the barriers. So with pubs, in some places it’s well received, you know, there’s other elements that go with the running of a gig, or as a support, it’s about everyone coming together and finding a common goal, and a respect, you know, not tagging the toilets…

NK: Yeah, I was gonna say, bombing the toilets is always the big thing, hey?

T: Yeah, and we try, you know. Last night we did pretty well, we put something up on the wall, and we curbed it a little bit, you know, we didn’t stop it, but we curbed it, we slowed it, there was only a couple of tags behind the doors. And that’s what I’ve said, I can’t stop it, I can’t stop someone from doing that, but I can slow it down. So that’s normally the only reaction we get [from potential venues], ‘cause of graffiti, ‘cause most people just see it as scribble.

NK: What are you thoughts on bombing the toilets and stuff, do you think it’s part and parcel of hip-hop culture?

T: I say to them [venues] don’t complain about the graffiti in the toilets when you can buy a six dollar tin of paint from Mitre 10 and get one of the people you think of have done it to and nominate their time to come and do it, so you’re then able to claim labour hours. You know, what is it, six dollars for a tin of paint that will last a 12-week DJ comp or MC battle. You know what I mean, and we’ll try and curb it from that side as well. So, any objections thrown up we have an equal response for, to say ‘Where’s the problem? We’ve kept things up from here, to make it easier for yourself, we’ve said “Please don’t bomb the toilets” and put up the butcher’s paper in people’s face for ya’. So, it is part and parcel of hip-hop, I’ve done it before, I’ve been guilty of it many times. I think now that I’m getting older and promoting and trying to push things in other areas and, not trying to make hip-hop professional, but trying to be professional myself in hip-hop. Which is pretty important, you know, understanding who I am, where do I fit into things. And from that I’ve been able to say ‘OK, don’t need to do this, and don’t need to do that’, so my stance from a personal point of view is that I understand in the general sense why they do it, I’ve done it before, but as for me now, in a professional sense, as me knowing me, I don’t endorse it, I try to discourage it. I don’t try to stop it, just put things in place around it and say ‘This is hip-hop’, you know, I’m not trying to change the course of it. Just trying to improve it.

NK: I always think of it in terms of maturity I suppose, because in many ways Australian hip-hop has just matured, or is maturing, it’s blooming, it’s coming of age and with that coming of age comes other things, and perhaps moving on with bombing toilets is something that needs to be done.

T: I totally agree man, and it’s that thing of peer support, and now it’s the people from outside looking in going ‘Hey!’, where we never got that eyebrow rise before, ‘Wow, hip-hop, Aussie accented, there is such a thing?’ and where you looked at dumbfounded looks before, I don’t know, it’s actually become the slip stream, not the mainstream, and the progression of that, particularly in Newcastle, it’s very united, and now that support from all around Australia. Especially since Sound Summit which was in 99 I think, the crews have been coming here, whereas before they didn’t think about it. We’ve put ourselves in a position where we can’t be able to rest. We need to be plugged into it, because people are jack of it in Sydney and they just want to come to Newcastle and chill and relax. You know, that atmosphere in Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, but in Sydney, you know, it’s got that New York syndrome I think. You know, ‘I’m sitting at home eating an apple, what are you doing?’, ‘Oh, I’m busy’. Everyone’s about the greed and they’ve forgotten the reason why they are doing what they’re doing.

NK: Well, it’s partly the nature of Sydney itself, it’s so spread out, it’s really three cities in one, and that obviously effects the scene in a great deal of ways. One of the biggest problems being that there is enough hip-hop in Sydney easily, but there is no venue or person that will stand up and say ‘Right, let’s risk it for a biscuit’, and make a Sydney hip-hop house/place. That would be helpful I think.

T: Well, you know, back in the mid- to late-90s – 94, 95, 96, 97 and 98 – when Trey put on Urban Expressions, that kind of stuff was excellent. Through one force or another, it has seen about its own demise. It’s like a building that you know doesn’t work as a business but people keep going back to put a business in there, and it’s keep failing, the premises just keeps getting vacated and refilled, it’s like a turnover. I don’t know, that’s the only feeling I can put into words. There always enough people to fill it, but yet there’s still always this feeling of emptiness.

NK: Yeah, because it’s like people moving in from the inner west, or west whatever, and coming together for one gig, one venue, and then just leaving… I was going to throw up a proposition about hip-hop culture and challenging society and I understand if you want to let this one through to the keeper, so to speak. But, I feel personally, while bombing the toilets is not cool because that’s hurting hip-hop culture itself at the venues, ‘cause pubs won’t want you, but in terms of bombing trains and pushing the limits of what our society encroaches upon its citizens, surveillance cameras and so forth, I still really like the idea, from a personal political point of view of challenging the state, of jumping train fences and being out on train lines, and covering walls. Just ‘cause it says ‘Don’t do it’, that’s every reason to do it.

T: Yeah, I think that’s the start point, that’s the reason why. Your parents say ‘Don’t smoke’, so you go out and try it. Then you’re in habit and smoking all the time, and you forgot the reason why you did it in the first place. It takes on its own form, its own lifestyle, and that’s what graffiti lifestyle is. Next thing you know, you’re travelling down to Melbourne, next thing you’re overseas, making connections, videos. I totally agree, I love the whole fact of what hip-hop is, but if it keeps cruising along as it is now it will take on a new entity. It has to be maintained, it cannot go backwards. I don’t think hip-hop moves in such a way that it can, it may grow sideways, but it can’t go backwards, and I think that graffiti has to be taken other places. You know, you get the purist who says if you don’t do trains you’re not a graff writer, but that’s the purist. On the other side of things you’ve got people who’ve moved off trains, and are doing their own web design, and doing their own magazines, shirts, all that kind of stuff. That’s taken it’s own entity in a professional sense. I think that’s what I’m trying to say, being professional with what you do with your art.

NK: I totally agree. Anyone who stays in a concrete, firm, traditionalist frame of mind is always going to be left behind. And Australian hip-hop has been taken in so many interesting, diverse and different directions that tastes can never combine for. You know, people like Curse ov Dialect, and there’s even these Skip-Hop chicks in Sydney, and Morganics takes it to the theatre and goes out to Alice Springs and runs courses and that.

T: Yeah, and that’s the whole essence of hip-hop. It’s the essence of expression, and you being you, and thinking, ‘how does this work for me’ and pushing it, and believing in yourself like I did when I was a ten-year-old. And I don’t know if I would of got into hip-hop had my mum not shown me that video. I know where I started, and I remember the feelings that I got, and I remember what drove me to be what I wanted to be. I might have lost sight of where I wanted to be, but at the end of the day I knew why I was doing what I was doing. For me, I built what I have today through my insecurities, through my background and my situation and issues that came through for me. That was my outlet, it was my release, it was my presence, it was my beer, it was my smoke. ‘Cause I never drunk or smoked, you know, I just bombed trains, I did graffiti. And for me, I always say that’s such a positive thing and I received it in a positive way.

NK: One of the things that Tony is always talking about is that hip-hop is such a great agent of social identity, which is what you’re saying, through hip-hop you can find your own voice and you can find your own turf in society. In all societies, and Australia is no different, there are people who are marginalised and on the outer, and obviously the Indigenous Aborigines are the most prominent example, but it’s not just that, there’s plenty of disavowed middle-class white kids who don’t feel they have a voice within the footy/barbeque/beer culture. And then hip-hop becomes this outlet for those people, and that’s why people like yourself become so passionate about it, because that’s what it’s given you.

T: Definitely, especially being Anglo-Australian, I’ve always felt that as part of my culture, I’ve never had one until I met hip-hop. And it’s been going through the ages, we used to steal culture, we never really had our own culture, we probably made a culture out of stealing culture. So when hip-hop came along, for me, you know, I’ve always loved Aboriginal culture, I’ve always loved elements of Aboriginal culture, and when that [hip-hop] was exposed I couldn’t make the running comparisons, but then the penny just dropped. For years, from like the ages of five to seven, I used to go back with me chalk and draw things after school, like Aboriginal boomerangs and stuff. I used to stand there in front of a wall and draw animals, you know fully like Aboriginal paintings and stuff. I used to take that to school and get gold stars, and that was my motivation, art. I used to actually get marks! You know, I wasn’t much in the way of a studious person, but I had a good teacher in year two, actually I repeated year two, the first teacher was good and the second, not the best. But I used to do that kind of stuff, and she used to encourage it, which is really rare for school, ‘cause if I’m good at art, then you’ve got to sit there and do maths, and they didn’t enhance who I was, but this one teacher did and that helped my art come along, for what it was. I’m very passionate about what I do. You know, as a person with no culture growing up, or not what I would say as having culture, I know today there’s a culture. So my identity in Australian hip-hop as hip-hop firstly, I’m Australian, but more importantly I’m my own identity, because I don’t feel I have an identity only to myself, and if that means I have people that come around and follow me with what I do, fine, but you’re still your own entity, and you’ve got to realise that you do do your own thing. Hip-hop is a beautiful mass of people, you take one person out of that mass and it’s still a beautiful mass of people, to be treated on its merit.

NK: Yes, well these are all interesting things to talk about in terms of how do you define yourself as an individual, we’re talking multiple ones at the moment, the hip-hop identity and your individual identity and then this national identity. I feel the same way, when I was travelling overseas and running into hip-hop in other countries and all this culture you realise there’s something more than this national identity that Kerry Packer feeds me on Channel 9.

T: Yeah man, I think the best thing about being who I am today is that I do stand proud of what I’ve achieved and are achieving. Everyday’s a dream, I wake up with a smile, everyday is successful day for me. And anyone I can help pass on that dream, to a young person, well sure.

NK: Let’s talk about your generosity in being a youth worker, just give us the basics.

T: I am a qualified youth worker; I’ve got my Diploma in community service youth work. Basically what I do is drop-in stuff with young people at the centre. You know, I have a very informal approach. Then on the other side I’ve got my specialty, so a youth worker/hip-hop artist. I teach young people on Mondays to make beats and rap and project. And that’s where Nameless crew came from, and all those guys. We get anywhere from four to ten young people, male and female, coming in. And I’ve also got my graff, where I teach young people. I go to councils who have problems with graffiti, I identify the problem and put a program in place that identifies the young people and finds out what their needs are and put something in place.

NK: So do they contact you, these councils?

T: Oh definitely, yes. I set up the legal centre in Newcastle by myself, a company called Newcastle Street Art, back in 1991. I used to do big jobs, you know, jobs where they’d pay $500 or $600 plus paint, and the money left over I’d put into a big bag and on a Sunday I’d take it down to a park where there were all these houses that backed on to the park. And I’d just get the kids to turn up, there would be 10-15 kids turn up, just painting stuff and I’d help them paint.

NK: And that was when?

T: That was back in 94. I found that when I was doing the commission work that I was really getting into the money of it, and not the graffiti. So I was losing sight of what I wanted to do, so that’s what I did. I said, ‘I need to get back to the young people’, and that’s what I did. I asked five houses that backed onto a train line and into a park, so prime real estate. I just put a hundred dollars aside and all the tins left over and boom! There would probably be 40 or 50 tins every Sunday. And then young kids started bringing their own stuff, ‘cause they started working, and that park is still there today

NK: What’s it called?

T: It’s in Cardiff, right near Cardiff station, just a little park that I went to when I was younger and loved to paint the walls and watch the trains go by. And that’s where the legal scene started from. And then we did a play called Writing on the Wall which involved the mayor, real estate owners, police, the council and everyone which was put on to break down the stigma of graffiti artists and police and all that. And from that play came the legal scene, and from that we just forged on and here we are. I started working for the councils in about 96, and have ever since. I worked from everywhere up to Muswellbrook down to Warriewood. I also teach at schools, I actually teach in an outreach course in TAFE at the moment, for young people, using stencilling and graffiti art, and expression. I’ve just done another TAFE outreach called Voice the Voice, which was to help young people express themselves through poetry, acting, rapping, drama, with undertones of relationships and aggression management, stuff like that.

NK: They sound like really good initiatives.

T: Yeah, it’s good. What excites me is that I can actually fill up my diary with things that I like doing, and it’s not like going to work, like I used to do security. My diary is just chockers, I’ve got to paint, I’ve got to teach paint, I’ve got to go to the drop in centre. It’s just great. My partner Erin works very hard to be successful at what she does. You know, she’s very successful at what she does, but she says you know ‘How was your day’, and I’m like ‘Tired, I had to deal with people’s emotions but I’ve had a great time. Actually this one young kid did a piece, he’s never picked up a can in his life, and he’s ripping shit out’.

NK: What do you think about the whole hip-hop community thing, people helping each other out?

T: I reckon that’s beautiful man. It’s what makes hip-hop so great. Like if I go to Japan and I don’t know anyone there, I just go to a graffiti wall and just start painting, and I meet a Japanese graff writer and then straight away, boom! You know, we probably can’t talk or speak the same language, but we can spray the same expression. And that’s what I love about do-it-yourself, I put myself in that picture, like I went overseas and met so many friends and was sorted for like two and bit months, it’s just what hip-hop’s about, you know, people like yourself, you travel, you see the world that people have. It’s hard to explain, but the do-it-yourself [ethos] is central. For whatever reason you’re doing it, you’re doing it yourself. Even if you don’t know why, you’re inspired enough and even if you did the wackest tag the other day and thought ‘Fuck it, I’m giving up’ it’s like, ‘Nah, I’m not giving up, I’m not giving up’. And then you go out, and you do a nice piece and you’re like ‘Yeah, I’m taking this out so next time I can fuckin’ do it again’, and all of a sudden you turn around and you look, it’s six years later and you’re not thinking about the destination, just enjoying the journey.

NK: That’s the thing isn’t it; it’s a way of life.

T: It is. It sounds real cliché, but my day starts with hip-hop and ends with hip-hop, you know I can get my partner and my family a little bit frustrated, but the best thing I could ever give my daughters is expression. To never be afraid of how to use your expression and the feeling.

NK: Are you a father?

T: Yep, two girls. Prudence is six in December, and Tyler is four in May. They are very beautiful girls you know…

E: They are very influenced by your art…

T: That’s it, and I don’t force it on them, it’s back to DIY again, you know ‘What’s me course’, well I don’t know, I’m just living it. And they see, you know Prudence at the moment loves singing Scooby-Doo, and she just raps that out ‘Mum, can you put that on and let me rap it’.

E: And she’s a tagger…

T: Yeah, she loves to tag. I don’t know, I don’t discourage it or encourage it, I just take a neutral stance on it. ‘Cause when I was a child it was like force-fed stuff that I didn’t appreciate that I got from my parents. Best thing I could ever give them would be choice. And like I said at the meeting yesterday, if you don’t like graff, you can rap, you can DJ, if you don’t like DJing, then break, you know, there’s a choice. When people think they don’t have choice is when they realise they have choice, but they don’t know what to choose. So if you treat it with respect from the start and say, you know, ‘You do have a choice here, and whatever one you choose is good, and I’ll nurture it’. And they will learn to respect choice and they will make a sound decision based on how they feel, and that’s all there is to it, ‘Come here, tell me what you’re doing, this is consequences for this, and this is that’, you know what I mean. And we both try to encourage that, and I guess that’s a good example of how the culture kind of works, too.

NK: I was just about to say, that’s what I mean when I say it’s a way of life, it’s an embodied way of living that goes through generations, you can teach, perhaps we should put it in inverted commas, but you can teach a ‘hip-hop ethos’ to your children. And it’s a very valid one with so many valid things to say, and important things to teach them, like you say, the space for artistic creativity. One thing I saw last night [at TINA festival and Sound Summit in Newcastle], it was before the MC battle and there was one dude breaking, and then another guy came up and started taking the piss out of him and there was nearly a bit of a ruckus, which is standard, but then one of the family came in and went to both sides and had a chat and cooled things down, you know, and it was like well, there’s still this violence that’s definitely part of hip-hop, but there is an internal way of dealing with it, as part of a family. It’s like siblings fight each other and people come along and say ‘Chill out, we’re all part of the same crew, you break over there, you can listen to the rhymes over here, it’s all good’.

T: That’s how we move the culture. You know, back in New York in the late 60s where younger brothers and older brothers are getting killed because of biker gangs, it’s like ‘There must be a better way’, so we’ll just make up a beatbox [Tunz starts beatboxing], and then you start rapping. You know, it’s just the necessity stuff, just stuff that we have ourselves that we can do. So we started breaking, we started top-rockin’ on each other instead of fighting, and all of a sudden all these different aspects and elements just came together to from what we know today. It’s that positive battling.

NK: What did you think of the MC battle last night?

T: Yeah… well, you know, my first instinct is to always say good, you probably noticed that because I’m very positive and then sometimes I have to retract what I say, and think about what I say… It was very slow at some points, the talent was, yeah, across the board…

NK: The biggest concern for me, is that a lot of the conversation is about ‘dicks’ and ‘your mama’ and ‘suck my dick’ and all that, and I understand that MC battles have this history and that confrontation is part of it, but, if were talking about maturity in Australian hip-hop then aren’t we moving on beyond the subjects of dicks, getting past homophobia…

E: It just displays a lack of knowledge and use of the English language, you know, it’s just filling the space, and the art of freestyling and battling is to get it out, get the words out and use them, and don’t fill spaces with swearing, ‘cause everyone can use a swear word and put it anywhere, and I guess that’s the most disappointing about last night…

T: I thought the Newcastle guys held up their end well.

NK: Well yeah, Kid Lyrical was really good, and Risla was good, and Saul was really cool, ‘cause he was up against that guy who was really misogynist and had a better technique, but Saul had a smile on his face.

E: Yeah, he’s feel good.

T: Saul’s the guy I do a lot of the council work with. We do a graffiti program together which is called Do U Write Mate? and it’s really good because Saul brings a different dynamic. It’s like lack of, more of, put them together and it makes a partnership. He’s one of the first guys to bring out a seven-inch in Newcastle called Stuck in Stock and that was in 94 and we brought out our first tape at the end of 94.

NK: So the first Newcastle tape release was in 94.

T: Yep, 94. …

T: You know, I’ve always liked the unpredictable angle, and that’s my shirt label that I’ve got as well, with Bric A Brac. I just like to be unpredictable, so that people don’t know where I’m coming from, and it keeps people interested, especially as an entertainer.

NK: I’m totally for that of course. Hip-hop should be pushed in any direction that people choose, and no one likes everything, there’s lots of stuff that I think is wack, and no doubt you guys have your own opinions, but the point is that there is being stuff done and it’s growing in new areas. You want to respect the four pillars and where the whole culture comes from, but if you look at this history of it, with Kool Herc and stuff, it’s all hybrid from the start. You know, breakdancing is influenced by capoeria, and it’s all a mish-mash of early 70s South Bronx, which is all of course immigrants, so the whole roots of hip-hop have always been like a wave crashing.

T: And the progression of it should just be, you know, if it crumbles, it crumbles, and if it falls and lands and creates something else then whatever from there. That’s what I’ve been saying, you never believe your press to much. I love the hype, I love hyping, I love superbowling and hyperboling, everything, you know, but I quickly learned that I can’t believe my own press. I think the reason why I’ve been around so long is that I’ve moved with the times, and I haven’t just stuck in one form, I’ve always had my fingers in lots of pies, and just kept pushing those areas. ‘Cause personally, I didn’t know what I wanted to do, and even today, even though I have direction, I’m not even sure I worried about what I want to do, ‘cause I’ll treat it as a journey, and when it presents itself I’ll do it. And that’s it bro, you know, the whole evolution and progression of what we’re doing, and that’s probably the best way I can put it.