James Brown, RIP.

The Godfather of Soul passes, Christmas Day 2006.

Review: Overproof – The High Life CD (Broken Tooth Entertainment)

Review by Chrispy

Overproof are helping to redefine the sound of Sydney hip-hop with their debut offering The High Life. Far from rehashing the tried and true b-boy beats and brag-and-boast rhymes of their Western Sydney counterparts, the trio of Swarmy, Abuse and Fame have forged their own path to deliver a polished effort characterised by crisp beats, thoughtful rhymes, strong concepts and plenty of personality.

Overproof are a seemingly incongruent trio – on paper, Swarmy’s deep-voiced bombast, Fame’s cocky Lil Wayne-esque swagger and Abuse’s deadpan delivery appear to be an unlikely mix. On wax, however, the three emcees’ varied styles combine to ensure (vocally at least) that there’s rarely a dull moment on this 17-tracker.

From the opening bars of the title track onwards, one thing becomes clearly apparent to the listener: in-house producer Fame’s beats are on some next shit. Taking a detour from the Aussie rap staples of straightforward kick-and-snare patterns and dusty loops, Fame has obviously studied the Just Blaze/Scott Storch manual and combines samples and synths to create a sound that is variously innovative, club-ready and riot-inducing. After some stellar work on 13th Son’s The Hero, The Trickster and Spit Syndicate’s The Future’s Bright mixtape, Fame ups the ante yet again to deliver some of the most world-class beats yet heard on these shores.

And while Fame is no slacker in the lyrical department, Swarmy is clearly the group’s star, hogging the limelight with taunts at ‘bed-wettin’ trendsetters who claim to stack the cheddar/but only got wet fetta’ on ‘Better Than You’ and telling lesser rappers to ‘bet your bottom bunk (cos) I’m on top of this’ on ‘Rock To This’. However, Abuse is never far behind, and although his monotone voice and flow appear to hint at Len One levels of vocal mediocrity, repeated listening reveals a dry sense of humour and some biting observations on life – The High Life, the low life and everything in between. (Plus any emcee with the good sense to rhyme ‘D cups’ with ‘deez nuts’ is alright by me.)

Overproof sum up their style on bangin’ cuts like ‘Get Ours’, ‘Takeover’ and the aforementioned ‘The High Life’, but manage to vary things up nicely with the reflective, string-laden ‘The Worst Things’ and the radio-ready ‘Sunshine’. ‘On The Set’, their ode to the adult entertainment industry, is a little too much for this reviewer to handle – the mental image of a naked, sweaty Swarmy gettin’ down and dirty with some nubile young beauties is not one that bears repeating – and the album tends to drag towards the third quarter, with repetitive production and some less-than-thrilling guest appearances blighting an otherwise entertaining debut.

Despite these minor missteps, though, The High Life is a great first attempt from Overproof: a quality product that offers a different spin on Aussie hip-hop amid a sea of carbon-copy crews. To paraphrase Abuse, you’d do a lot worse than to throw on your Bettina Liano and enjoy the luxurious pleasures of The High Life.

Overproof on MySpace
Broken Tooth Entertainment

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.

Big Right Hook show, Boxing Day, The Espy, Melbourne

If you’re in Melbourne on the day after Christmas, you could do much worse than get down to the Espy for this:

The mind-boggling line-up covers the spectrum of local hip hop from media darling Macromantics, to Triple J Unearthed faves Illzilla, to Melbourne stalwart Bias B (who has a new album droppig in the 07) to DJ sets from Dexter (Avalanches), Peril (1200 Techniques) and the grimy, guttery Opulent crew.

Bone Thugs, Kurupt, RBX, Roscoe to tour?

It is whispered that a tour dubbed America’s Most Wanted will hit Oz in February, with Bone Thugs n Harmony (quite popular around these parts, I’ve heard), Kurupt, RBX and Roscoe. The report I read claimed Rascoe (sic) was on the tour, but since Rasco (Cali Agents) doesn’t fit in with the rest of the bill, and Roscoe is Kurupt’s brother, I’ll assume a typo.

Bone Thugs’ Thug Stories dropped in Australia through Shock in October, but I suspect it flew under the radar of all but die hard fans. Could another tour go the way of Fabolous and Busta Rhymes due to poor ticket sales and outlandish artist demands?

Groundup launches Australian section

Groundup, a great site for news, gossip and general rap-related tidbits, has largely focussed on US stuff. Until now, that is. They’ve introduced a section just for Australian hip hop news. Check it.

Blaze’s 2006 round up

Sydney producer/DJ/commentator Blaze runs through a few of his favourite things from the last year, and includes a few blunt observations about hip hop’s flavour-of-the-month status.

Writin’ Exact’s Australian Top 5 for 2006

Here’s something I put together for my fortnightly column in Scene Magazine – five local releases that moved me in the oh-six. A full review of Astronomy Class is on its way.

Astronomy Class – Exit Strategy: Straight out of the Elefant enclosure, Astronomy Class is producers Sir Robbo and Chasm with The Herd’s Ozi Batla on the mic. The dub sensibility makes it a departure from the usual boom-bappery and gives it a welcome cohesiveness. From the frantic Art of War Part 3 to the radio friendly, and no less dope for it, A Brighter Tomorrow, Exit Strategy finds Ozi Batla at his best. He’s on the space rap tip, but his feet are firmly on Earth.

Def Wish Cast – The Legacy Continues…: After years of threats, the pioneers of real Aussie rap are back. With an arsenal of rhymes equally inspired by their b-boy and graf backgrounds and their sci-fi steez, Def Wish, Die-C and Sereck spit with unparalleled energy. And what does it mean that three aging b-boys who last dropped product together in 1993 put out the most sonically devastating and futuristically produced album of the year?

Hilltop Hoods – The Hard Road: Sweeping the DMAs, locking down the Urrghban and Independent ARIAs and scoring the J Award to top it off, it’s been the year of the Hoods. All sensible bets would have been on a Suffa/Pressure/Debris backlash right about now, but the trio stepped up their already tight game on their fourth LP. Who’s challenging the title track for pure banging hip hop that is just as palatable to the mainstream? No one, that’s who.

Low Budget – Magnasound: Melbourne represent! The surprise of the year comes from a young duo going by the names Genetik (on the mic) and Polarity (on the boards and decks). Lauded by everyone from Cyclic Defrost to Rolling Stone, they somehow captured the essence of early dusty 90s loops and laconic flows without sounding like they even tried. Don’t sleep. I’m particularly fond of the Ralph Steadman-esque artwork on this one.

Tornts – Decimation Recordings: Let’s face it, there aren’t many Australian emcees that really have an astounding lyrical style. You know, the type that gives you whiplash when you reach for the rewind button on some “I can’t believe he said that” isht. One who does? That’s Tornts. The ex-Tasmanian mic controller paints gritty pictures that make you flinch with each bar. If Charles Bukowski was a rapper from Australia, he’d spit something like this.

Also worth a shout: Muph n Plutonic’s Silence the Sirens, Overproof’s The High Life and Rainman’s Fire In The Belly. The Tongue’s Bad Education is the EP of the year. That title beat is fire!

If there’s something I’ve slept on, hit the comment section.

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

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.