Hilltop Hoods
It’s the mid-nineties in the hills of Adelaide and Matthew Lambert is one of several friends delving into hip hop. Among them are Dan Smith & Barry Francis. It is a different era for Australian hip hop.
“It was such a small sort of subculture,” Matt explains. “There was a strong Graff scene which gave a foundation for a hip hop scene. There weren’t many people doing it when we were.”
“I don’t think we ever had ‘what if we made it big’ in the backs of our minds. There was just no big scene for it back then. We were always pretty realistic about it. We always had our day job and did this as well.”
Fast forward to the resent day and Matt, Dan & Barry or better known as Suffa, Pressure & DJ Debris respectively have formed Australian hip hop’s most successful name: The Hilltop Hoods. The past decade has not only seen the trio build their own standing as artists, but has also blasted Australian hip hop into mainstream acknowledgement.
Their latest release, State of the Art, follows on from The Hard Road (2006) and it’s remixed release, The Hard Road Restrung (2007).
“Personally, I wanted to come out with something bigger, something heavier for this record.” explains Suffa. “With this one we used a lot more session musicians, members from Lowrider, members from string quartet, my brother on guitar. I probably made the most beats I ever have for any record.”
With their fan base consisting of both traditional hip hop fans and mainstream listeners, expectations on the next release from the Hoods have been high and varied. “I think when you’re recording or writing or producing that’s an unhealthy place to be. You’ve just got to make the music you want to make and hopefully other people appreciate that too.”
The album features legendary New York MC, Pharoahe Monch, on a 90s throwback to the era of hip hop which gave birth to the group. Suffa laughs off an insinuation of a secret plot to show up the heavyweight. “I don’t think either of us were thinking we were gonna overshadow Pharoahe Monch. Definitely not a fear of getting overshadowed by him – that’s why we want him on the record. We want him on there doing…just being amazing.”
The Hoods are storytellers. Their previous albums have featured tracks on insidious hip-hop bars, human desperation on Adelaide’s trains and a philosophical chat with Beelzebub himself. Their latest effort features a tale of surviving a zombie uprising. Yes. Zombies. “I’m just a massive zombie fan. It’s the way I want to die – I want to go out in a zombie attack. I just made a really heavy, dark beat and I sent it to Pressure and I was just like ‘Dude do you want to do a zombie fighting track over this?’ and he was like ‘Fuck yeah!’”
Other tracks, like She’s So Ugly, openly criticise the present-day state of music. In comparing Australian hip hop to its international counterpart, Suffa believes the local scene can take pride in its integrity. “There’s only a handful of artists that are trying to mimic that ‘blingy’ pop side of rap. When Pharoahe was here he was saying that the Australian scene reminds him of the New York scene in the 90s in that it’s a burgeoning young scene. It’s not tainted by commercialism so much.”
“Though, I don’t want to see it getting over-Americanised…at the same time I don’t like the sort of gimic-iness of the over-Australianised sort of stuff as well.”
Recently, Australian hip hop has been making headway overseas, with the Hilltop Hoods touring in both Europe and North America. However, the task of taking this brand of music to the world stage is not without its challenges. “Obviously the accent is an issue with some people. But, say in North America, where people love Aussie accents – it could be an advantage. I’ve always said good music will almost break through.”
“[Touring]’s different over there because we’re just building something up at the moment. It’s not like it is here where there’s big crowds and they sort of know our music. It’s different everywhere you go. You go to UK and you get a lot of ex-pats. We’ll play in Germany and trip out because you meet people who barely speak English who’ve been listening to your music for like eight years.”
If their music is anything to go by, the trio love their drinks. At times it seems that the offers by fans to shout the group speculates a long run of free booze. He laughs this off: “Nah we’re not some footy has-been that crawls from pub to pub just waiting for a free drink.”
As for the group’s weakest drinker: “That’s a tough call. I’ll say this… Debris drinks fast but not a lot. Pressure gets ‘paro’ more often.”
State of the Art is in stores now.
