One of the constant elements of Brisbane’s hip hop history, 750 Rebels have been flying the flag for boomtastic, raw, gritty beats for more than 15 years.
Now Lazy Grey, Jake Biz, DJ Dcide and Sean B return with a new 750 Rebels album, titled ‘Kold Heat’. We cornered DJ Decide and fired off the following questions.
The promo for this album labels 'Kold Heat' as 'grown-man hip hop' sound; do you feel you've changed a lot during your careers, and the music you're making now is your most polished?
Yes and no. Yes in the sense of we’re all older and wiser now with Lazy and me pushing up on 40, Jake’s approaching mid ‘30s and Sean is ahead of us all a couple of notches, so the content naturally reflects what we’re experiencing in life just as it did in our younger years of making music. As we’ve all been working together for well over a decade now it’s definitely allowed us to refine the sound and style we collaboratively produce. Polished in the sense of consistency and the bounce between us more so than sonically; yes I’d agree with that as we’re still fans and operators of the backyard funk, lo-fi studio sound as opposed to the glossy sound of a lot of today’s releases.
Work on this album... you spent three days at a house in the Mt Crosby area. How did this setting assist the recording process?
It was a great thing to do. As we’d all been starting work on various solo EPs etc the Kompound (name we dubbed the experience) was a way of putting us all in a short burst, pressure cooker situation to create without every day distractions. We had a production room setup where the producers were knockin’ out beats, a recording room setup as well as general spaces for the MCs to get some space to write. We recorded around eight tracks across the three days, which really help set the tone and creative direction for the record at the time.
From that platform, how did 'Kold Heat' involve?
We had a body of work we came home with, and then continued on the path of writing more tracks. Part of the journey included an idea for a new clip for Jake Biz to drop something as soon as possible. We wanted to work with Heata (Full Clip / Hired Goons) again who we’ve worked with many times in the past on our videos, and Josh Davis (Unkut) with whom Heata had began working with more and more. Once we began chats with the guys and sent a few tracks, the creative took off and bloomed into the concept of producing a short film/ extended video of sorts. As such, KOLD HEAT | BRING IT TO YA CITY was born and we began work on the film. We featured about five to seven tracks from the album work we had in the can at that time and dropped the DVD/ single in December 2013.
KOLD HEAT - Official Short Film from Nineteen Eighty Four Films on Vimeo.
Once this was out, we took a short break to recoup then went back to work in the studio. All in all we made well over 20 tracks for the album, but when it came time to piece it all together and formulate the final story for the album, we decided to leave a lot of those tracks off the record as we’d grown immensely since the DVD release with the last handful of songs made taking a slight turn in feel. The final 12 tracks (13 including the hidden track) are what we felt best enveloped the story of what we’d been through across the whole period, and gave us the most well-rounded journey through the topics and sounds we wanted to convey with the final album. As we do with every album, it all needs to sit together as a cohesive body of work, not sound like a compilation album in anyway. It’s a journey in its entirety, so attention must be paid to all the finer details of how each track flows with the next and where it sits in the big picture of it all.
How important is it to stay true to the old-school values of hip hop with your music?
It’s just as important as exploring new concepts and ideas, however as we’re all born and raised on traditional hip hop since we were kids of the ’80s era in hip-hop, our sound just naturally exudes those values and beliefs without really trying. It is who we are. Hip hop is ingrained in every inch of our mind, body and soul. We’re music lovers first and foremost too of course, so that’s not to say all we listen to is old-school, traditional rap music, but when it comes to making music, we make what naturally feels right. There are magic moments with our writing and production that occur from time to time where everything just clicks together with ease, and when it does it’s a beautiful thing. If the result comes through with a new-school sound or anything else for that matter, it’s somewhat irrelevant because it quite simply feels right in the moment. If we try to force a sound, or a style, it never works for us so we just don’t bother pushing at something that obviously isn’t meant to be, regardless of who loves the beat, or verses etc and who doesn’t.
Watching the six-part promo series for 'Kold Heat' online; there's obvious chemistry between all four members for this recording... does that come from the experience you've each amassed and the honesty you have with each other?
Absolutely. We’ve all grown up together in the hip hop scene as well as being friends from younger years. Sean B and myself spent seven years or so together hosting 4ZZZ’s Phattape Show, and Lazy and I have known each other since early high school days. Jake has been around us since he was 17 or so too, and friendships are paramount in this thing we do above all. We’ve been performing alongside one-another for 15 years plus now, so if we can’t be honest with each other then what’s the point of working together? It makes for some awesome tussles I must admit as there are no shrinking violets in the mix that’s for sure! Creativity is never a one-way street; it’s an evolutionary process and no one opinion is any more or less important than another. Having said that, we deliberately went into this album with a clear directive between us all of playing to our strengths individually since we all multi-skill and cross paths on all levels. The result of this fortunately is we all agree the final product reflects we made the right choice in this regard.
Sean B on the beats; Jake mentioned he amassed something like a 1,000 beats for this project... that's madness, right, having that many beats, or is that normal practice?
Well it sure felt like that to us. I mean straight up, Sean B is a weapon on the production steez. His digging knowledge and crates run deeper than most while his insatiable desire for making beats is unsurpassed in my opinion. He’s a beat-a-day kind of producer, and over the three years of making this album I’d say he definitely knocked out beats numbering in the high hundreds. As a production partner with Sean, my role is to take the ideas he sends through to us all and turn them into full-length songs with the MCs once they’ve chosen the beat to record to. So a lot of the beats coming through from Sean would be short sequences of ideas more than fully produced, three-minute beats. Employing this process allowed Sean to move fluidly through his creative process and not spend time working on sequences for beats that wouldn’t end up being chosen by the MCs. Not to mention the diversity of styles he can produce, sometimes Jake would love a beat and the rest of us not so much, and vice versa, so this process cut out unnecessary programming/ sequencing time in the long run allowing more focused creativity overall.
You have a number of collabs on the album; did you actively seek out the names that feature on 'Kold Heat'?
Indeed we did. No tracks are an accident with this record by any stretch. As certain songs would start to take shape, a name would pop into our heads as the right artist to work with for this joint. Bias B and Bigfoot are both long-term family to all of us so it goes without saying that those boys would be on the record. For that track it was more a case of what do we all want to talk about in this collab as we regularly make music together. Delta is an amazing MC and one of the most underrated and intelligent MCs in the country in my opinion, and Lazy had just worked with him on ‘Pyramid Schemes’, so the time was right to finally get Delta onboard for one of our own releases as we’d always hoped. Ciecmate is also extended Karsniogenics family, the stable master at Broken Tooth Entertainment and a brother we’ve spent a lot of time with for well over a decade knockin’ round states and stages with. He also shares very similar views on life’s workings that we do, and soon as we heard the beat for ‘False Idols’ the alarm bells went off in Jake’s head I believe, that we needed to get Ciecmate up on this joint for it to truly shine as our creative vision saw it. That only leaves Miss Brown who takes us home on the last song of the album, the amazing talent she is as both vocalist and MC, who we haven't had the blessing of since appearing on The Statesmen album in 2010. Of course, being my wonderful wifey and mother of our two crazy, cool boys helps sway my decision to work with her, but that doesn’t come into question ever given the outstanding performance she delivers every time.
Hooking up with Obese for the CD distro... was that a big step to achieve?
Not at all. Our label Karsniogenics has been distributed nationally by Obese for over four years now. We signed with them in 2010 for The Statesmen album ‘Drama To The Finish’ after our previous distributor, Shogun Distribution, folded late in 2009.
Has it ever bothered you that the 750s have released/ produced some high quality, Australian hip hop during the journey, yet mainstream/ commercial success has never followed?
No. Never. We are who we are, we make the music we want to make for ourselves, our friends and peers alike. If the mainstream audience wants to get amongst it then great, but we’re not ever going to change our creative direction to suit a mass-appeal yearning. That goes against everything we love about hip hop and why we contribute in any way to the culture that’s given us so much throughout our lives. We have pushed our records in front of some of these so-called controlling forces in the industry to no avail, and it doesn’t bother us one bit. We only did that to give them an opportunity to provide these seemingly influential fans an option of choice from the music they’re continually peddled in that market. We make hip hop music from Australia, and those entities appear to want only ‘rap-pop’ from Australia since that’s all they seem to be presenting to their audience. These two genres are not the same thing anymore, at least in my opinion anyway. This isn’t a diss to successful artists at all, but the music we hear being presented under the banner of ‘Oz hip hop’; when you strip it back a little, isn't hip hop at all. Just because there’s a rapper on a song doesn’t necessarily define it as hip hop by any means.
Live sightings of 750 Rebels aren't as common these days... plans to rock local stages this summer?
Hells yeah. We’re onstage in Adelaide 12 December for the Standup Festival alongside many of our good friends, and planning the ‘Kold Heat’ album tour right now. We’ve just needed some time to settle into the new tracks and work a whole new stage show together. With our days jobs and most of us have children to raise; time for music gets less and less every year nowadays so things tend to move a little slower than we’d like.
Is there a moment/ decision/ show/ tour you wish you could revisit and do it differently, knowing it would have had a major impact on your careers?
Nope, not one. We go into every show with the same energy and passion always. If some impacting moment didn’t happen at the time then it wasn’t meant to be. I wouldn’t (and I’m certain the crew feel the same) change a damn thing we’ve done to get where we are. It’s our music, our label, our passion, our lives. No one can take that away or tell us otherwise.
The Brisbane underground hip hop scene... how has it developed/ evolved in the last 10-15 years?
Ten, fifteen years is a long time particularly when it comes to speaking on the development and growth of the local hip hop scene, let alone the national scene. I hate the word scene by the way. Scene is only another name for a cultural phenomenon, just a poorly described one. Whatever the ‘name’, it’s exploded massively. In 1998-2000, hip hop was raw and untouched in this city, mostly around the country too. It was owned and run by foundation architect artists who paved the way for the artists of today, with that second gen of artists who shared their dream. Artists who did this shit for nothing but love, all against the grain of popular distaste about the native Australian accent portrayed. Yet it did not matter to these guys one iota. It did not deter them in any way, they didn't care, as they did not make this music for anyone but themselves and those who shared that raw passion of what was happening at the time. This story I could go back on a decade or more and some of course. I remember taking my wife Miss Brown to a show in ‘99 and it was like an awakening for her to witness something so honest and raw in a little-ass club like Ric’s Cafe, seen never before. I could go on for hours here about who did what at certain times in the game. I will say this though – without first-gen artists like Lazy Grey as an MC/ producer, and DJ/ producers like DJ Katch and Jigzaw Jeff of the Resin Dogs working as hard as they did consistently in those days of the ‘90s to breakdown barriers; the Brisbane hip hop scene would not be what it is today. Name after names per year and era I could continue sprucing here of course, but it must be known in a more simpler form. Respect the forefathers, for they all made sacrifices in their respective lives to pave a way for the generations who've come through since. As to where it is now in 2014, personally I feel Brisbane is the last unadulterated city left in Australian hip hop. We still somehow have maintained a relatively raw underground sound that still reflects the roots it’s come from. How long will it last… who knows.
There are a number of old-school groups/ DJs that are worthy of being labelled Godfathers of Bris hip hop; do you guys see yourselves in that light? Do you see us that way?
Damn hell no we don’t. Maybe for the younger generation of listeners and practitioners we may be out in that box, but we’re in no way a crew that rests on laurels. Hip hop for us is now, in the now, it’s our lives daily, jobs and kids aside we still live this. You’re only as young as you feel, and we feel great right now about hip hop, as we did last week, and last year and will do next year. Godfathers or not hip hop is what you make of it, it’s where we’re at, always.
The hip hop lifestyle... you guys obviously live and breathe it; is it simply a way of life for you know and you can see yourselves making music the rest of your days?
Without question, this isn’t some flash in the pan for us. We’ve been there, done that, and will do it all again hands down. It’s not something you can just stop doing by any stretch, just as the last song on the album conveys. To quote Lazy Grey: ‘I’m just signin' in, you the fuck that’s signing out’.
What's the feeling you experience when you hear a beat and know you can add one of your flows over the top and it's going sound the business?
Ha! It’s the best feeling ever! It feels like we’ve just discovered hip hop for the first time! Like I just watched ‘Style Wars’ or ‘Beat Street’ for the first time. And that’s what pushes you on and on once again. Like you’ve missed the boat and you jus don't care, because your gut tells you so. As the mighty MC KRS-One once said: “Rap is something you do… Hip hop is something you live”… One love.
‘Kold Heat’ is now available.
