Players Club (Review)

2UP are MCs Breaker J and Maccy D along with Mez and DJ Diverse, a crew based in the Hills District of North West Sydney who first made an impact in 2000 when they sent an unreleased demo about the kids hanging out at the local Westfield to Triple J, Why Do I Try So Hard, which ended up getting regular airplay, and videoplay on Rage and Channel V. Originally they ran off 100 copies at the local disc emporium, then they were picked up by distributor Creative Vibes, although they retain their own label Village Idiot. They released an EP, Tastes Like Chicken, in 2003, and their track on the compilation Straight from the Art, If Rap was a Sport, included here in a ‘rematch’, offered a witty catalogue of Australian and world sports figures in a party rap vein, and defined the crew as self-consciously iconic and patriotic ‘suburban rappers’ with a touch of the novelty about them.  They are arguably at their best live - demonstrated here with the party vibe of the tack Making Moves - where front row audiences rap along to the lyrics of Why Do I Try So Hard. The album begins with The Gift, a cabaret-style introduction to the group with cheesy jazz piano and scratching, then segues into Club Shakers, an account of a trip to the local RSL club, celebrating bingo, lawn bowls, bad cover songs and 2Up on Anzac Day. F that S deplores hip-hop purism and celebrates daggy Australian-accented  hip-hop ‘spitting chips from Perth to Brisvegas’, even managing to rhyme ‘James’ (Brown)  and ‘freshly baked merengues’ to a springy stand-up bass (manned by Slap D, a distinctive feature throughout the album). It’s Alright boasts the group’s ‘light and breezy’ lyrics and their good-time dance vibe, Hardcore for Sure is a mock demonstration of the group’s ferocious boasting and tough gangsta flowing skills in the face of negative criticism from hip-hop gatekeepers, echoing the Wu-Tang Clan’s ‘don’t f- with the Wu-Tang Clan’ refrain. 2 Tense gets ‘straight to the point like an acupuncture pin’, associating Tom Jones with nursing homes, and has a big band jazz swing beat to it, while Arse Grabbin’ is reportedly one of the group’s live anthems, a slightly off comical cavalcade of  culos, which purports to be a parody of the US bling bling fixation with the female derriere, but revels in it as much as reviling it . Internal Combustion plays around with words starting with D – from dork to Donnie Darko – and rhymes ‘thumbtack’ and ‘bumcrack’, with DJ Diverse projecting  a series of verbal ripostes from his turntables to the jousting the MCs serve him. 2Up are a shining example of the do-it-yourself  ethos in Australian hip-hop and its self-consciously local flavour, and are refreshingly free of the biases, orthodoxies, rules and by-laws which mar a lot of hip-hop. Their RSL-flavoured raps are consistently clever, loose, light and full of local references, but they tend to wear a bit thin on repeated listenings.