Style 43

The Australian Hip-Hop scene has been bursting with talent since the early 80’s but only in recent years has it defied a prominent Rock scene in Oz. Style43 caught up with Bliss, 1/3 of Sydney’s Hip-Hop trio Bliss & Eso to talk about the state of Hip-Hop, their records, the critics, and their plans for the future.

Australian groups like Hilltop Hoods have started touring and performing with overseas acts, do you see yourselves moving onto the international scene soon?

We actually just came back from the US and Canada doing a few shows which was great! We’re def keen to keep pushing at other territories. There are a lot of opportunities out there and we’ll be working hard over the next few years to make as many things happen as possible.

On the international scene, how was it to work with British Emcees on the latest album, like Mystro and Motley?

Working with featuring artists is always fun and is different every time. Mystro was great to connect with to kick some straight dope rhymes. He’s got crazy skill and lately has been making quite an impression on Oz soil. Motley on the other hand was just a lot of fun from beginning to end. The track “Party At My Place” really just grew to have a life of its own and shooting the video with Motley was just too perfect!

There was a long break between “Flowers in the pavement” and “Day Of the Dog.” What were some of the reasons for this? Your style has matured and become less “candy rap” as it was often described in the new record, especially with an introductory song like “It’s Working” obviously aimed directly at dismissing critics. Did you feel the criticism was something you were required to address?

“FITP” was a very free and artistic album. Many of the songs where actually based on freestyles and therefore most of the songs have a very free and loose structure to them. “Day of the Dog” however is a bit more refined and the tracks definitely speak more simply and directly to the listener. All artists evolve and I guess we just try not to think about it and just do our thing naturally as it comes, and people can label it however they want. We are happy with where we are at the moment and we have the fans to thank for that so we must be doing something right.

What led to remixing the Day Of The Dog album with M-Phazes?

He is a dope producer who did the beat on the original album for “That Feeling”. He called me out of the blue one day and was telling me he’d be keen to do some remixes for us some time. And I was like well why not remix the whole album? And he was like, hell yeah! You will def hear a lot more from M-Phazes on the new album. We have been working closely with him on a lot of the new beats for it and its sounding really solid.

Flowers In The Pavement made “Blissnesotericizm” well known after radio play for “This Is For You” and “Pigs In The Porn Trough.” Now how does it feel to walk into a club and hear “Party At My Place” being bumped?

It feels good! But its even better doing it live at a show when the entire audience is singing the words and jumping out of control! The industry has definitely changed since we put out FITP. The media is finally starting to recognise Australian Hip-Hop as a real genre of music, and therefore radio is starting to get on board which is only a good thing for everybody in the genre.

You’re known to comment on a lot of issues of stereotypes in rap in your rhymes, for example in “Nowhere But Up”; “We ain’t from life in the gutter, so they don’t feel our stuff……What we ain’t real enough / Cause we white from the suburbs…” What are some feelings and issues you would like to address within the hip hop culture?

We express our feelings and issues in our music, its up to the listener how they interpret it. There are great divides within the Australian Hip-Hop scene. There are ongoing accent debates, and debates about lyrical content etc, everyone has there own opinion on it but at the end of the day we make the music that we want to make and we hope that people out there like it for what it is.

You described Australia as being the ‘Land of Rock’, do you feel it’s particularly hard to make it as a successful hip-hop group in Australia?

Definitely. As an artist or band that is withing the Urban/Hip-Hop genre things are already going to be more difficult. There is less radio and TV support, less support from retailers. This in-turn limits your exposure to the public. Its a catch 22 when it comes to hip-hop and regular promotion and publicity. The lack of support within the music community has led to an increase in online promotion. Websites like MySpace and YouTube have really created an alternate way to exposure you music and product.

Do you ever feel you cop slack for being an American Emcee when you’re an “Aussie” group?

Not really. Ive grown up in the US and Australia. I may have been born in the states and visit there frequently but now I feel as Aussie as the bloke next door. Oz is my home now and fans respect that and show me love for it. Our cultural differences is part of the reason we consider ourselves unique. Not to mention our DJ is half Moroccan so we consider ourselves a multicultural group in a multicultural society.

Where do you see yourselves heading in your career as a group? Whats next on the agenda?

We are working on the new album at the moment, which should be ready for release later in the year, continuing to gig hard and we are about to head off to Africa to shoot a documentary on poverty and awareness with an MTV film crew.

Interview by Thomas Cameron. You can check out Bliss & Eso’s tracks by visiting their MySpace below. Their albums are available via their website.
www.blissneso.com.
www.myspace.com/blissneso