Congrats on the third album, Surrender to Victory. Up and coming producer, Cam Bluff, handled the entire production on the album. How did that collaboration come about?
He produced one beat for the last album, Alternative Energy. This time I was looking for a producer as I always am, looking for the right person with the right sound, and that was him. He sent me three beats to start with and they were all amazing. They were that impressive, they were that good. You know I have never worked with just one producer on an album before, it’s always been multiple producers. On my first album there were like five or six different producers, so for me to settle on one producer, he has to be pretty good, and have a lot of variety and girth to his sound, and Cam really has that. I really feel that Cam Bluff is going to be a force in Australian music in the years to come, not just Hip Hop but music in general, I think he is that good. Making music comes easy to him. Some of the beats he made were done so quickly and easily, he didn’t stress for months over a keyboard you know, he has a real gift, he’s a natural.
How did the process of the album unfold? Do you have any certain formulas or ways of approaching and constructing an album?
Every time I have had a process it has pretty much fallen apart. At the end of the day my skill is number one, picking a good beat, and number two, writing good lyrics and creating a song out of it. So all I can really do is try to find the best producer I can, and turn their beats or loops into songs. I don’t produce as I don’t sit down on pro tools and co-produce beats, [but] I do have ideas [of] where I want stuff to go. On this album I wrote a lot of the melodies for the singers for the choruses, so you know, when you hear Joyride singing or Ngaiire on ‘Bittersweet’, I had written those to sing to the singer. We would sing it back and forth until it was the way I wanted it. Obviously their singing voice is better than mine.
So I don’t really have a process. All I can say [is] somewhere along the lines of this album I decided that I was in a positive space [and] I wanted to make something that was uplifting. I wanted to bring Hip Hop back to that sense, that style that A Tribe Called Quest does, that style that De La soul does, that Hip Hop that is about informing and uplifting the listener rather than what a lot of Hip Hop is at the moment, which is, I’m better than you, let’s do drugs in the club, were popping bottles, were shooting these guys, you know what I mean. So much Hip Hop is dark, especially the big stuff. Even your Little Wayne and Rick Ross or any of that big American stuff is really dark. There’s not any upliftment and there is not a lot of message there. There’s not a lot of artists who are doing what Public Enemy was doing, you know, informing the youth. There’s not a lot of that going on, you don’t hear that on the radio, overseas or on Australian radio. I feel there is a lot of political silence going on, which isn’t healthy considering all the stuff that Australia is going through at the moment. I find it strange that the radio will not support artists that talk about that kind of stuff.
You know, Hip Hop is the voice of the youth and young people are concerned about the Great Barrier Reef getting destroyed, or they are concerned about schools not getting any funding, or they are concerned about alcohol related violence. There are a lot of issues that young people are facing today and yet a lot of the songs on the radio seem to be, you know, ‘The Waitress Song’, the ‘Hover Board’ song, ‘The Festival Song’. Like there is nothing wrong with those songs, but there needs to be some balance. So somewhere along the way that theme took hold of me, and I think that theme and those messages directed me when I started making the record.
Surrender To Victory has had some great reviews by the media. How does it feel to get such positive feedback after all the hard work?
It’s a great feeling. It’s a great feeling when somebody gets what you are trying to do. I wish that translated into more money, to be perfectly honest, because for some reason, great reviews don’t always translate into a lot of radio play in Australia, but it’s certainly very satisfying when somebody really gets it and they can put it into a few sentences summarising what you’re really trying to do. I guess being my third album, I have been asking myself a lot recently, why am I doing this, how much longer do I go on, can I keep doing this if I’m not making any money, what is my aim in music. I never really set out to make money from it or make a career from it. That would be nice if that happened, but I never set out to do that. What I set out to do was make music that people appreciate, enjoy and are effected by, that’s what I set out to do. So when I read a review and someone says this album made them feel good, or this album does something that no one else in Australian Hip Hop is doing, that really feels good, that is very satisfying.
You are an MC that came from the old skool battle scene, freestyle raps over beats. How do you feel about the acapella / pre-written battle scene of today?
The thing about Hip Hop is it’s always mutating, evolving and changing and becoming different things, so I’m not mad at anyone doing this new style of battling, but I don’t think knowing who you are going to battle a month in advance and being able to write lyrics about that person you know a month in advance, to me it’s not as impressive as someone who is put on the spot and it’s like, ok, you’re battling this guy, and then they tear that guy apart, that’s much more impressive. Freestyling to me is much more impressive than written when it comes to battling, but with that said, it’s just a different kind of skill because if you know who you battling a month in advance, and they know, well then it’s just another type of challenge, so I can see the appeal. But for me the freestyle will always be the true form of MC battles. If you know who you are battling in advance, it’s really just coming down to who does the best research and not necessarily who is the best rapper.
What is it like to be a part of the Elefant Traks family and being surrounded by such a diverse and talented roster?
It’s amazing. I wouldn’t want to be on any other label. Some of my favourite artists in Australian Hip Hop are my label mates. I think Horrorshow is amazing, I think Urthboy’s amazing, I think Skyhigh, Jim Blah, Last Kinection, Ozi Batla, Hermitude, I think they are all amazing. Probably one of favourite producers in Australia are Hermitude, so yeah I’m stoked man. I feel so proud and it is one of the great legacy’s in my life or memories I look back on that I was involved with Elefant Traks, it’s a beautiful thing. The difference between Elefant Traks and most labels is that the money that Elefant Traks invest into me, they could be pocketing. The money they spend on a Tongue album, that money has been raised by Horrorshow, Urthboy, Hermitude or whatever. They’re not wealthy people, they could be keeping that money for themselves but instead they are putting it into me, so I will always appreciate that, and respect that, and they have always believed in me and I can’t ask for anything more than that. Elefant Traks is always on something new, there is always something fresh. Urthboy is on the cutting edge, and he is not recycling old ideas.
Your home city of Sydney has been really churning out some quality over the years. Does having this constant quality make you feel like you’re falling behind if you’re not consistent or evolving as an artist?
No, I feel as if my albums are just as good as any of their albums. My first release came out in 2006, the Bad Education EP, and at that time I was one of the few Sydney solo rappers. Now there’s plenty of us. You have Dialectrix, Ellesquire, Tuka, they’re all great, they’re all my mates and we have come up through the music scene and Hip Hop together. We’re really tight, and that’s why Ellesquire and Jimmy from Spit Syndicate and the Thundamentals are on the album. They’re all my boys, it’s all love between us. In Sydney Hip Hop, there’s none of that really, not everyone is a fan of each other’s music, and they don’t have to be, but we are really supportive and we all go to each other’s shows and get on each other’s songs and everyone wants everyone else to succeed. So if the scene is healthy and the fans come to the shows we all win, we all profit from that, we will all do well. I have nothing but good things to say about all those guys, those are all my boys.
Community Radio, how important is it for up and coming artists and how has it played a role in your career thus far?
It’s hard to understate how important Community Radio has been for me. In Sydney we have a station called FBI radio, and they have featured both my latest album, Surrender to Victory, and my previous album, Alternative Energy, as Album Of The Week, which means it gets a thorough play and gets out there. This allows me to litery eat and put food on the table. That initial burst of support means so much, even in the same way that I was talking about the reviews. If Triple J isn’t playing your stuff, it’s easy to think radio doesn’t care about you. But FBI had my back and appreciated what I was doing. They are fans of what I’m doing. I feel that this is important to all musicians, we need to know that our music is having an effect and that it’s appreciated otherwise why should we do it. So I can’t say enough good things about Community Radio in terms of my career. It’s been extremely helpful, and also for discovering Australian Hip Hop. I’ve discovered my favourite acts through Community Radio.
The way music is purchased by the consumer has changed so much in the past five years. Do you think CDs will be no longer relevant in the next five years?
Look, CD sales are going down across the board. My personal feeling about this is that once something has become free, you can never really charge for it again, and the fact of the matter is that music has more or less become free. There are still people who will buy it and will support it, but an Australian Hip Hop release that comes out and sells 2000 to 4000 copies now, would have been around 20000 copies five or 10 years ago. But at the same time that the technology has come along and taken away the ability to sell, it also increases the opportunity to get your music out there easily and cheaply. I don’t think CDs will disappear completely because there is always that physcological thing because some people like the idea of the release in their hands. You cant do that with an MP3. My own way of consuming music, [and] just through convenience, [I’m] buying things online or downloading, putting it in my ipod and listening whilst I’m driving. The short answer is, no, I don’t think CDs will be around forever, but the slightly longer answer is I don’t think there will just be MP3s. I know that’s not a very helpful or specific answer but I think it may even be something else. You know the other thing is we can’t predict technology. Who knows, they might even just shoot the music into our brains.
You and DJ Skoobs have been rocking live shows for a long time. He is a funny and talented dude. What five words best describe DJ Skoobs?
Fun…Crazy…Talented…Loveable…Late…
Interviewer: OneMike
The Tongue performs at The Small Ballroom, Newcastle, on Saturday July 13, 2013.