Brad Strut – “Monopoly” video

With almost 3000 views on YouTube in less than two weeks, chances are you’ve already seen this clip for the lead track from Brad Strut’s Legend: Official. Produced by Prowla, the beat’s got an early-RZA lilt to it and the flows show that Brad is one of the country’s most assured spitters. The album drops on 9 June.

Video: The Tongue – The Punch

Someone at Elefant Traks realises they better make the most of Triple J flogging the unintentional second single from The Tongue’s Bad Education EP, so this nifty little clip gets made, featuring a cameo from the mall where that one guy gave out a bunch of free hugs. Not bad!

Review: Jurassic 5 MySpace Secret Show, Brisbane

Don’t get it twisted: MySpace is the devil. However, the devil occasionally makes himself useful in the process of promoting his ‘brand’. So it was that Brisbane, the city voted most likely to miss out on sideshow gigs for any festival to come within 182 kilometres of its borders, was granted a free audience with the masters of modern throwback rap, Jurassic 5. True, feedback on their latest album (and first without Cut Chemist) has been lukewarm at best, but there’s never been any doubt that J5 could rock a show properly. All we had to do was line up for two hours along Ann St at 5pm on a Monday afternoon. With rumours that this could be their last tour as a group, we gambled that it would be worth the wait.

Following a warm up set from 2Dogz with assorted freestyles from DNO and Brisbane open mic mainstay Richie D, the LA happy rap crew hit the stage with practiced aplomb. With the Zoo at 500-head capacity, the crowd knew they were privileged to witness such an intimate performance, and J5 seemed genuinely happy to be rocking a club rather than a stadium. Chali 2na, Mark Seven, Soup and Akil laid down their flawless stage routine on what I imagine is a much smaller stage than they’ve been used to in recent years. DJ Numark got his couple of minutes to shine, marred only by a power cut to his handheld sampler. Otherwise, it was back-to-back feel good mic swapping. There were three or four songs I didn’t recognise, only one of which failed to capture the trademark Jurassic vibe. When they departed without performing the lacklustre Dave Matthews Band-guested single, it was obvious what the encore was going to be. However, even ‘Work It Out’ wasn’t all bad in the live context, and when they topped it off with a freestyle session over Pete Rock’s beat for Ghostface’s “Be Easy”, any easy listening indiscretions were forgiven.

J5 is one of the few hip hop crews I can envisage doing a reunion tour ten years down the track. They have finely crafted beats, don’t shy away from real lyricism and can still reach out to a general listening audience. When the 2016 Jurassic 5 reunion tour hits town, chances are all the people who really didn’t give a shit about music when they were 22 will be dragged along by friends with fond reminisces of a gig like this, and end up wondering why they spent the best years of their lives trying to pick up at clubs playing pusillanimous house music.

Mark Seven and Chali 2na hype the secret crowd.

Mark Seven freestyle over “Be Easy”

..and Justice for Oz: Scribble Jam 2005 gets local release

It’s been a minute coming, but the DVD of the 2005 Scribble Jam, featuring the MC battle won by Melbourne’s Justice, is finally hitting local shelves. The highlight is undoubtedly the MC battles, which find Justice evenly matched against the likes of Iron Solomon, H-Bomb and TheSaurus. The novelty of Justice being an Australian may have helped him secure what is a very close battle in the final round against Iron Solomon, but there’s no denying he brings an energy that’s lacking in his opponents. The rest of the DVD package is pretty tight, particuarly the mind- and back-bending b-boy competition, won by the Brickheadz. There’s also dope performances from Masta Ace and RA The Rugged Man, and Spankrock and Amanda Blank dish out a nice version of “Bump”, prior to it becoming a worldwide hipster favourite.

Check out this recent interview with Justice talking about his win and upcoming projects with Kaos.

…and here’s a clip of Justice battling The Tongue in Australian preliminaries for the 2005 SJ. Ironically, The Tongue threatens to send J’s ashes to Scribble Jam in an urn. Ha!

Delta studio footage at Overlooked

The heads behind Underrated magazine have got their own blog, the complementarily titled Overlooked and they’ve found a neat little clip of Delta in the studio, kicking a verse from ”The Lostralian” from the album of the same name.

Delta on MySpace

Video: Pegz – What Would Happen?

Here’s the Isore-directed clip for “What Would Happen?” from Pegz’ Axis. Isore also put together the clip for the Hilltop Hoods third single from The Hard Road, “What A Great Night” which debuted on Rage this weekend. Check out more of Isore’s work, including Funkoars’ “DuNaNa”, here.

Def Wish Cast live in Brisbane

Sydney’s Def Wish Cast bring their album launch tour to Queensland this weekend, with members of their Basic Equipment crew in tow. Last night’s Brisbane show was a little sparsely attended, but those who did show brought plenty of love for the b-boy originators. Scott Burns set it off with a short set that seemed largely off the cuff. Beatboxer Rivals stepped up and got busy with Brissy’s own Tom Thumb (aka Tommy Illfigga – album dropping early next year on United Notions) before being joined on stage by MC Immune, who had a tight show and a few songs that definitely deserve a closer listen.

The sound at the Columbian Bar is not brilliant, which is disappointing as the place is becoming the default venue for a lot of Australian hip hop. (The Living Room, across town in Paddington, has a better sound and a classier vibe, but is demand in across genres, so only the bigger events are getting in.) The first half of DWC’s set was marred by feedback that necessitated constant mic-swapping by Die-C and Def Wish, but by the last few songs all kinks were ironed out. DJ Murda 1’s ferocious cuts settled perfectly into the bombastic production and the three MCs maintained their energy throughout. Def Wish’s breakneck speed-spitting on older cuts They Will Not Last and AUST was unlike anything seen on Oz stages these days, Sereck gave us a brief handheld 808 workout, and the closing tracks – Knights of the Underground Table, Allstars and AUS Down – proved definitively that old kings never die.

Video: Def Wish Cast – Knights of the Underground Table – Live at the Columbian

Heeeere we go..

Def Wish Cast – Allstars clip