Liones (Review)

Liones (aka Alana Smith) is a Brisbane-based MC, graffiti writer and B Girl with the Gravity Warriors, currently the third highest-ranked breakdance crew in Australia, and won the 2002 Queensland Down and out frestyle open mic championship. She also runs hip-hop workshops with Murri youth, and took part in the Peace Initiative Project in Brisbane, working with a group of 40 young people from indigenous, Sudanese and Polynesian backgrounds, producing a hip-hop track and video clip called ‘Peace Potion’, which was launched at the Brisbane Powerhouse. She has guested on Morganics’ Evolve, collaborated on a track with Maya Jupiter, and gave a blistering live performance, complete with film projections, at the second All the Ladies event at the Bar Broadway in Sydney last year.

Her debut 10 track album opens in an appealingly laid back and melodic mode, with keyboards and lush instrumental backing (including a cello on ‘Blind is the Dollar’) occasionally reminiscent of the Bristol trip hop sounds of Massive Attack and Tricky, becoming feistier and the more up-tempo in the second half, with the guitar-driven move-your-butt funk of ‘It’s the Way, the more aggressive ‘As I Escape’, about the on-the-street experience of graffiti writing, which samples Sydney MC Hyjack, and the pounding, Ser Reck-produced final track ‘Gravity Warriors’ about her eponymous break dance crew. Also backed by the scratches of her regular DJ Bacon and production team Mobius Cube, she alternates singing and a soft, melodic rap style on tracks such as the opening ‘Time to Myself’, a claim to privacy with references to ‘juniper berries and frangipani’, and ‘Ghosts of Poets’, which refers to her influences and inspirations as a rhymster. While sometimes straying into new age territory, with references to aromatherapy, she also delivers a laid-back form of conscious rap which attacks commercialisation. While too many tracks are self-reflexive, dealing with the experiences of writing and delivering rhymes and performing on stage, as well as participating in the other elements of hip-hop, this is a musically diverse release and a welcome addition to the steadily growing number of Australian hip-hop releases by women MCs.