Articles tagged with ‘Obese’

• 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

• 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

• 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

• Mark Pollard

  We met with Stealth magazine editor Mark Pollard in September of 2005. His knowledge, passion and diplomacy in discussing a huge variety of issues within and around Australian hip-hop was a demonstration of the crucial role he has played in fostering the culture. Mark spoke about his early teens, making tapes with friends in summer and doing gigs at under-18 shows around town. He spoke about he entry into the scene as an 18-year-old through the Cell Block Youth Centre and the 2ser radio program The Mothership Connection, which he took over from Miguel D’Souza. Mark talked about what he considered to be the most significant moments in Australian hip-hop in the last few years, including the solidification of Obese Records, triple j’s Hip-hop Show and the success of The Hilltop Hoods. Mark also had many salient points to make about identity and music, the issue of accent and American mimicry, over-ocker Australian vernacular and the connections between gansta rap and rural Aboriginal Australia. Mark also told us about the distribution of Stealth globally and the feedback he gets from kids in the country as well as the focus of giving coverage to little known scenes overseas.

  Tags: Indigenous hip-hop, Mark Pollard, Stealth magazine, triple j, politics, 2SER, Obese, Sydney, Hilltop Hoods, Interviews

• Muphin

  When Local Noise was in Melbourne we caught the train to Prahan to visit the Obese Records store, where we met up with Muphin and interviewed him in his lunch break. In a long discussion, Muph spoke about being on Obese, working in the store four days a week and seeing it’s growth from the inside. Muph also told us about his childhood in Eltham, the early influences of US hip-hop and being introduced to Australian scene through DJ FX. He talked about the influences of everyday conversation and experiences on his lyrical style, honesty in rapping, as well as the fight hip-hop has had to be accepted in Australia, and the misunderstanding of it by the industry. In a widely ranging interview, Muph also touched on the making if the video ‘Heaps Good’, graffiti culture in Melbourne, the TV show The Heavyweights on Channel 31 in Melbourne and the degeneration of the battling since the release of the Eminem film 8 Mile.

  Tags: Muphin, Muph n Plutonic, Plutonic Lab, The Heavyweights, battling, freestyling, Obese, Melbourne, graffiti, Interviews

• One Step Ahead (Review)

  A review of Reason’s LP One Step Ahead published in Music Forum

  Tags: multiculturalism, environment, Tony Mitchell, Music Forum reviews, masculinity, vernacular, Obese, politics, cultural identity, patriotism, Press & Media

• Reason

  Local Noise met up with Melbourne MC, Australian hip-hop stalwart, radio DJ and high school teacher Reason in Melbourne in 2004. In a long and in depth discussion, the voluble Reason touches on most of the central discussions surrounding Australian hip-hop, including identity, locality, women in hip-hop, indigenous hip-hop, the diversity of styles in Australian hip-hop and living it everyday. Reason also spoke about juggling hats of being both a teacher and a rapper. He also gave some great historical background to the Melbourne hip-hop scene, the key players in the early days, the origin of Obese Records as well as the relationships between the music industry and Australian hip-hop.

  Tags: community work, Reason, patriotism, politics, Obese, workshops, Interviews

• Terra Firma

  Another group we spoke to backstage during the Park Jam gig at Luna Park was Terra Firma, and their MC/producer Simplex and DJ Dyems. The guys spoke about their LP Waking The Past, and Dyems talked also about the Culture of Kings releases that he had compiled in conjunction with Obese, and what this did for Obese and the exposure of different parts of the scene. The both talked about Adelaide, the history and growth of the scene there, about its close-knit nature and some of the figures upon whom the scene was built.

  Tags: DJ Dyems, Adelaide, Culture of Kings, Simplex, Terra Firma, Obese, graffiti, Interviews

• The DIY Habitus of Australian Hip-hop: Embodied Histories, Community and Scene

  If habitus is regarded as ‘deep seated generative principles of thought, perception, appreciation, and action’, this ‘fit’ seems eminently applicable to the ‘embodied history’ of hip-hop subcultures and the expression of their ‘objectified history’ in practices such as recording, performing, internet interaction, music journalism, and independent radio and television broadcasting.

  This paper, originally published in Media International Australia, looks at the Australian hip-hop culture in terms of its do-it-yourself ethos, which is, in part, a result of a lack of support from the commerical record labels. Tony Mitchell here discusses the artists, groups and independent labels that have championed this DIY ethos and have built a community of practice outside the mainstream industry.

  Tags: localising hip-hop, community radio, authenticity, independent record labels, Tony Mitchell, Aboriginal language hip-hop, DIY ethos, Pegz, Elefant Traks, Obese, Hilltop Hoods, Koolism, Reason, Indigenous hip-hop, Conference Papers

• The Hard Road Restrung (Review)

  A review of the Hilltop Hoods collaboration with Adelaide Symphony Orchestra The Hard Road Restrung. Written by Tony Mitchell and published in Music Forum.

  Tags: Music Forum reviews, Tony Mitchell, Obese, Press & Media

• The Reography of Reason: Australian hip-hop as Experimental History and Pedagogy

  If habitus is regarded as ‘deep seated generative principles of thought, perception, appreciation, and action’, this ‘fit’ seems eminently applicable to the ‘embodied history’ of hip-hop subcultures and the expression of their ‘objectified history’ in practices such as recording, performing, internet interaction, music journalism, and independent radio and television broadcasting.

  This paper, originally published in Media International Australia, looks at the Australian hip-hop culture in terms of its do-it-yourself ethos, which is, in part, a result of a lack of support from the commercial record labels. Tony Mitchell here discusses the artists, groups and independent labels that have championed this DIY ethos and have built a community of practice outside the mainstream industry.

  Tags: Reason, education, localising hip-hop, globalisation, Tony Mitchell, environment, community work, patriotism, Melbourne, Obese, workshops, politics, ARIA, Conference Papers