Montell puts Triple J on blast

Andrew Montell, the man behind Out4Fame, Acclaim Magazine and Solid State Recordings is mad as hell, and he isn’t going to take it any more. The problem is that Triple J has refused to add the new single from Justice & Kaos, “Turn It On”, and Montell has put JJJ music director Richard Kingsmill on blast in his MySpace blog.

The problem is the attitude of the programming manager who seems to add hip hop music based on a completely ignorant knowledge or taste for the genre. Or perhaps its the Triple J art-fag mentality of supporting the “underdog”. From where i stand you have to make hip hop that sounds like it was produced twenty years ago to get Triple J love. Make a record of an international standard and god forbid have an affiliation with a major label and you can almost certainly count yourself out of high rotation airplay.

Triple J’s playlisting of hip hop is certainly patchy and picky, but is Montell bashing his head against a brick wall? Justice and Kaos’ sound would fit better amidst the nighttime playlists on Nova (in some cities, at least), Sydney’s The Edge 96.1 and Perth’s Groove FM. Triple J clearly favours a specific sound, and it’s possible that Montell is overestimating the national youth broadcaster’s ability to influence sales anyway. Sure, the national exposure of a medium rotation slot on the Js isn’t going to hurt an artist, but it’s far from a free pass to mad loot.

Triple J adds 07.02.07

New hip hop being added to the national radio airwaves this week includes Busdriver’s “Casting Agent and Cowgirls” and K-Os’s “Sunday Morning”. The Busdriver jam is hot, but the last time I checked Canadian son-of-some-Jehovah’s Witnesses K-Os was 2004’s reasonably okay Joyful Rebellion which did an admirable if uneven job of channeling influences from Bowie to KRS. “Jane Fonda” by MySpace darling Mickey Avalon has also been added, but the less said about him the better.

Meanwhile both “The Punch” and “Bad Education” by The Tongue continue to receive a thorough flogging from the youf broadcaster. JPlay says “The Punch” is the fourth most-played joint on the Js for last week. Word!

Triple J Hottest 100 Results

The first hip hop entry in Triple J’s annual Hottest 100 poll is Jurassic 5’s execrable easy-listening collaboration with the Dave Matthews Band, “Work It Out” at Number 90.

At this stage, I’ll posit “The Hard Road” for the top 10, if not top 3. I’ll be back later to amend my prediction if it proves wrong.

Update: Kanye’s “Testify” lands at 88 86. Lets hope the L.V.D can keep it together when he learns that Justice vs Simian make the top 20 number 62.

Update: Butterfingers drag themselves out of the dirt at 83, Gnarls Barkley says goodbye to daddy with their Violent Femmes cover at 81, the Hoods make their first entry at 77 with “Recapture the Vibe”.

Update: Hoods again at 56 with “Stopping All Stations”. “The Hard Road” and “Clown Prince” sure to be top 20, if not top 10.

Update: The Herd stampede in at 52 with the multilingual “Unpredictable”, you can love or hate Lady Sovereign at 44, the Hoods continue their great day with “What A Great Night” at 41 and “Clown Prince” at 23. Lupe Fiasco kick, pushes his way into the top 20 at 19, and then Gnarls Barkley (who I admit were my pick for the top spot) lands at 6 with “Crazy”.

Finally, Suffa, Pressure and Debris make their final bow with “The Hard Road” at number 3, dashing my quiet hope that they’d take the top stop. That honour went to Augie March’s “One Crowded Hour”, with the new (and improved?) Eskimo Joe the runner up with their pseudo-goth anthem “Black Fingernails, Red Wine”.

Overall, a watershed for the deserving Hilltop Hoods and SFA for the rest of hip hop in general. Let it not be said that the lack of rap in the poll is reflective of JJJ’s attitude toward hip hop. Though they clearly exercise discretion, I’m confident in saying they play more real rap now than ever before even if the listeners in our rock-drenched land still needs their guitars. Robbie Buck’s year-long flogging of “Hand-Me-Downs” by Soul Position came to naught and even high rotation for The Roots, Ghostface Killah and Nas didn’t make an impact on the listening audience. I’d also hoped that The Tongue’s devastating “Bad Education” could have made a dent in the higher numbers, but ultimately Australia-at-large is still a one-hip-hop-act nation.

Rap dudes on televison

OK, so I’m not a Foxtel subscriber but word around town is that Sydney’s DJ Diaz (resident scratch monkey for Elefant Traks signee The Tongue and recent guest on the Overproof album) has scored himself a role in Fox8’s new locally-produced (and heavily-hyped) action vehicle Dangerous.

That’s all the info I’ve got (apart from the fact that his character is called ‘The Tipper’!), but it’s a good look nonetheless for Lil Diaz.  Seeing Melbourne gangsta ‘Big’ Phrase comparing rap anecdotes with ‘Keep It Real’ Kochy on Channel 7’s Sunrise was probably more impressive, but this is still cool.

As an aside, I’m not sure if Diaz shares any screentime with Dangerous starlet Brooke ‘Whoop That Trick’ Satchwell, but D, if you can shed some light on the Matthew Newton situation, holla at me mayne! I want details.

Obese trades CDs for votes

Let me get my Ralph Wiggum on for a second and freeze-frame the exact moment the Hilltop Hoods graduated from underground phenomenon to certified mainstream commodity: it had to be their unexpected ninth placing in Triple J’s Hottest 100 for 2003 with the skip-hop-meets-chipmunk-soul classic ‘The Nosebleed Section’. (For the trainspotters out there, the equally dope but slightly less catchy ‘Dumb Enough’ also fared well at number 44, as the meat in a Strokes/Perfect Circle sandwich.) From there on in, it was all champagne and caviar for the boys from Blackwood.

 It’s therefore no surprise that the Hoods’ parent label, Obese, are keen to maintain their standing in the national broadcaster’s influential countdown. To this end, they are offering fans who vote for at least three Obese-affiliated tracks in this year’s Hottest 100 the chance to win a CD prize pack – including a signed advance copy of local rap legend Bias B’s new disc Been There Done That, no less. One winner will be chosen from each state. To enter the draw, peep the news section on the Obese homepage.

 My vote for best Obese track of the year? It’s probably the Jase-Trace Elements collaboration ‘Runnin’ This Sh*t’, which was criminally left off the Melbourne beatsmith’s Jase Connection Volume 1 CD. However, you can peep this classic funk throwdown (featuring a rare verse from super-producer M-Phazes) on Trace Elements’ recently released Elevator Muzak mixtape, which is available for download here.

Triple J adds 10.01.07; Hottest 100 Voting

The first round of rotation for 2007 saw one hip hop track: Braintax’s Anti-Grey (featuring Dubbledge) added to light rotation, continuing a good run for UK rap on the Js – Mystro and Yungun both got play late last year.

Voting in Triple J’s annual Hottest 100 poll, the results of which are broadcast on Australia Day, has begun. Plenty of Aussie material on the poll, and the the voting list gives a good overview of what sort of rap is getting played on national radio. After the jump, a full list of international and local songs listed for voting this year.

Vote in Triple J’s Hottest 100.

New Stealth Magazine drops late January

The long awaited 14th issue of Australia’s best hip hop magazine, Stealth, will finally hit newsagents and record stores in the third or fourth week of January. With a massive Def Wish Cast feature, it also covers Funkoars, Astronomy Class, and Mr Thing, has a feature on Chuck Wilson’s Babygrande label and columns written by the likes of Braintax, Breeze Brewin (Juggaknots), Mystro and Ciecmate (Hospice Crew).

The mag has received a visual overhaul courtesy of pre-eminent hip-hop graphic designer April77 and if all goes according to plan we won’t have to wait quite as long for issue 15!

Stealth Forum
Stealth on MySpace

Where Macro’s killer tape at?

During summer programming, Triple J have been playing an entire classic album every weeknight at 9pm on the T&A (that’s Teri & Amy) Show. According to a post on OzHipHop, Macromantics chose tomorrow (Friday 22 December) night’s album, and it’s Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers). That’s a helluva record to spin in it’s entirety on national radio on a Friday night. Big up, Romy.

Human Nature perform Kanye West

This isn’t the sort of thing I ever intended to post here, but driving home from a hard day at the hip hop coalface and skipping through the radio dial, I was assaulted by the distressing sound of Australia’s favourite boy-band-turned-best-selling-Motown-imposters, Human Nature, performing an acapella version of Gold Digger. They were put up to this musical travesty by Hamish and Andy, who are syndicated on wack radio stations across the country. This shit is surely available on a podcast somewhere, but you don’t want to hear it. While they only half-murdered the Jamie Foxx element of the song, trust me when I say they have zero flow on the mic. I’m sure the idea was that it was supposed to be bad, but that doesn’t make it any better.

Triple J adds 13.12.06

The final round of Triple J adds for 2006 is bereft of hip hop, local or otherwise, rounding out a slow few months for rap on the Js. With the exception of Muph n Plutonic’s Silence the Sirens scoring feature album during Oz Music Month and Nas’ “Hip Hop Is Dead” getting a decent flogging, we’ve seen spot play for Rhymefest, Mystro and Yungun & Mr Thing in the last quarter. Before that, Astronomy Class got deserved love for “A Better Tomorrow” and Lupe’s “Kick Push” was ground into the asphalt. To the left, Macromantics’ Moments in Movements was also feature album and True Live’s “TV” was put to air in prime time. For consistency, Soul Position’s “Hand-Me-Downs” was the stayer of the year, getting repeated spins well into the second half of 2006, especially from Robbie Buck and Myf Warhurst.

On a related note, the following were selected as Triple J’s weekly feature album during 2006:
Muph n Plutonic Silence The Sirens 17.11.06
Lupe Fiasco Food and Liquor 20.10.06
Macromantics Moments in Movement 06.10.06
Ghostface Killah Fishscale 04.08.2006
Hilltop Hoods The Hard Road 23.03.2006
Koolism New Old Ground 17.02.06
Atmosphere You Can’t Imagine How Much Fun We’re Having 06.01.2006