Articles tagged with ‘Sydney’

• Peacefender – Video Bio

  A short video bio of Sydney artist Peacefender.

  Tags: Artist Bio, Peacefender, Sydney, Video

• Sydney-centrism, Parochialism and Popular Music Studies: a review of Ian Maxwell’s book “Phat Beats, Dope Rhymes”

  A review of Ian Maxwell’s book Phat Beats, Dope Rhymes: Hip-hop Down Under Comin’ Upper (Middletown, CT:Wesleyan University Press), 2003, 294 pp. ISBN 0-8195-6638-1), published in the UTS Cultural Studies Review.

  Tags: subcultural theory, Ian Maxwell, four elements, Tony Mitchell, Music Forum reviews, Place, localising hip-hop, hip-hop and academia, Sydney, Western Sydney, 2SER, cultural identity, self expression, masculinity, Press & Media

• Unkle Ho

  This 2005 interview with Elefant Traks co-administrator and The Herd producer Unkle Ho took place just after the release of his debut solo album Roads to Roma. Unkle Ho talks about his family history, his travels and its influence on his sampling, his method of music production and running of Elefant Traks in general.

  Tags: production, Unkle Ho, The Herd, instrumental hip-hop, Elefant Traks, sampling, Sydney, Interviews

• Urthboy & Ozi Batla

  Urthboy and Ozi Batla are two of The Herd’s MCs, and members of the Elefant Traks record label. They both have other endeavours, Urthboy with two solo albums so far (Distant Sense of Random Menace, 2004 and The Signal, 2007) and Ozi Batla with his group, Astronomy Class (Exit Strategy, 2006). In this interview, conducted in 2004, Urthboy and Batla talk about the reaction to The Herd’s second album, An Elephant Never Forgets, particularly the lucid, political tracks ‘77%’ and ‘Burn Down the Parliament’. They talked about their discomfort as being pigeonholed as straight-up political rappers, commenting on the innateness of politics in everyday life and the desire to express opinion and to encourage dialogue in art rather than engaging in polemics. They also talked about the way that The Herd and Elefant Traks work as collectives, and the idiosyncrasies of the Australian hip-hop scene: its fans, artists, styles and practices.

  Tags: Ozi Batla, Astronomy Class, hip-hop and folk music, authenticity, Urthboy, The Herd, Sydney, Elefant Traks, politics, Interviews

• Wire MC

  A fascinating discussion with the articulate, pugnacious and vibrant Wire MC. In the interview, Wire uses the lens of hip-hop to zoom in on Indigenous cultural practices, history and colonisation, identity and community and avoiding being a reconciliation poster boy – all from a relentlessly contemporary viewpoint.

  Tags: Redfern, Aboriginal language hip-hop, community work, Indigenous hip-hop, Sydney, workshops, Interviews

• Wire MC – Video Bio

  A short video bio of Sydney-based Wire MC.

  Tags: Artist Bio, Sydney, Wire MC, Video