Top Aussie Hip Hop artists revealed as genre turns 50 ahead of ARIAs
As the ARIA Awards gear up to celebrate hip hop on its 50th anniversary, here are the artists who have dominated the genre in Australia.
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When Antony Attridge was a teenager growing up in Canberra in the early 2000s who loved hip hop music, he was treated as an outcast.
The future rapper Sensible Antixx, who has just released his Burn Gently documentary charting the evolution of Australian hip hop, remembered feeling frustrated that a style of music could be “tarnished with such a negative brush”.
“If you listened to hip hop, you were thought to be the kid that was disruptive in class, the kid smoking weed in the schoolyard, graffitiing desks, you were a troublemaker. You were made to feel an outcast, just by listening to the genre.”
As the genre celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, homegrown hip hop may still be the outlier. But its presence in the pop mainstream, both as a driver on the charts and at the concert box office and the national cultural conversation, is undeniable.
The Kid Laroi is a global superstar. Hilltop Hoods hold the record for the biggest arena crowds for any Australian artist. Briggs is curating sold-out festivals to spotlight First Nations artists. And a new wave of rappers, from Barkaa to Tasman Keith, are rapidly gaining momentum with their uncompromising songs.
Yet hip hop has always been held at arm’s length by the Australian music industry, even as the ARIA Awards prepare to celebrate the 50th anniversary with a tribute starring Bliss N Eso, Barkaa, 1200 Techniques, DJ Krissy and Sound Unlimited Posse featuring Kye.
Just as Elvis Presley’s gyrations at the birth of rock’n’roll incited fear and outrage from conservative quarters, the arrival of gangsta rap on Australian airwaves in the late 1980s was greeted with shock and disgust.
The banning of NWA’s incendiary F … Tha Police provoked a strike by Triple J staff in 1989 and in recent years, NSW Police have shut down shows by western Sydney drill group OneFour, who are nominated for Best Hip Hop Release at next week’s ARIA Awards.
But hip hop has become much bigger than those controversial subgenres, with acts like Laroi and the Hilltop Hoods becoming bona fide pop stars with their infectious melodies and relatable rhymes.
“For a country that’s so heavily built on something like rock and roll, of course it’s going to be polarising when this completely different sound comes in and starts taking over,” Attridge said.
“In Australia, where we didn’t have gang culture, where we didn’t necessarily have slums or any of the negative and really difficult circumstances that were being discussed in hip hop back then, it was going to be hard for people to listen to and for people to connect with.
“But for me, growing up in Canberra, hip hop offered a language and an opportunity not only for escapism, but to address all of the things that I was feeling about my community and society.”
Sydney trio Bliss N Eso have just celebrated the 15th anniversary of their breakthrough record Flying Colours, released eight years after they formed.
From the mid 2000s, Australian hip hop began to infiltrate the mainstream. The Hoods dominated, following their No. 1 smash hit album The Hard Road with a “Restrung” orchestral version which peaked in the top 10.
And local hip hop songs, from The Herd and Drapht, 360 to Seth Sentry, littered Triple J’s Hottest 100.
For Bliss N Eso, the moment they knew hip hop – and their own career – was exploding here was not only when the Flying Colours album breached the ARIA Top 10 but they graduated from the small theatres they had started playing to launch the record, to big arenas by the end of the year.
“It was a slow build. I remember Matt Gudinski, who signed us to his Illusive label, calling us when the second tour went on sale and telling me we’d sold 3000 tickets for the Hordern Pavilion show in the first 15 minutes. And it was the same for Melbourne’s Festival Hall,” Bliss said.
“And I was like floored. I was like “What just happened?’ I lived in my bubble in my bedroom studio in Cammeray and didn’t realise how much Triple J were playing us.”
Australian hip hop’s next frontier is the female voice. While Iggy Azalea conquered the world a decade ago, pursuing her rap dreams by relocating to its ancestral home in America, artists like Barkaa are determined for their voices to be heard loud and clear here.
The Malyangapa and Barkindji artist, also known as the Blak Matriarch of hip hop, just dropped her new track Division to address the result of the Voice to Parliament referendum.
As a kid who loved poetry, she has not only found empowerment in rapping but has become a role model for her community, a responsibility she is honoured to bear even if it sometimes overwhelms the mother of three children.
She said it took a lot of self-belief to break into the male-dominated genre and find champions to amplify her voice including Briggs, Nooky and Kobie Dee, rappers who were also looked up to by their communities.
“There were times in my teenage years where I would try and reach out to rappers in this industry and I wouldn’t hear back. Or I’d go to shows to try to give them my stuff and I had one guy, without naming names, tell me I was wack and a try-hard b…. and it wasn’t going to work out for me. Now I got more followers and more monthly listeners than him on Spotify,” she said.
Burn Gently is on SBS On Demand and the 2023 ARIA Awards will be broadcast from 5pm on Stan and 7.30pm on Nine.
The Australian Hip Hop Trailblazers
Hilltop Hoods
The Adelaide trio took Aussie hip hop to the mainstream pop charts with six albums reaching No.1. They hold box office records at local arenas for the biggest concert crowds for a local act.
Iggy Azalea
The first Aussie rapper to score Grammy nominations exploded on the global pop stage a decade ago with her debut single Work and then hit No. 1 in America with Fancy featuring Charli XCX.
The Kid Laroi
Is he hip hop, pop or hip pop? Whatever your take on the Kid, he is the second Australian rapper to hit No. 1 on the US album and singles chart.
Briggs
One of the most influential voices in the country as a solo artist, with A.B. Original also supports First Nations artists via his independent Bad Apples independent label.
Barkaa
This uncompromising Malyangapa and Barkindji rapper is at the vanguard of the new wave of female and non-binary hip hop artists kickstarted by Zambian artist Sampa The Great when she was based here., and Tkay Maidza.
Bliss N Eso
The Sydney trio just celebrated the 15th anniversary of their mainstream breakthrough record Flying Colours with a sold out tour, scoring three No. 1 and one No. 2 debut records since then.
1200 Techniques
N’fa Jones and DJ Peril preceded the Hoods onto the pop charts with their 2002 breakthrough single Karma (What Goes Around) and debut album Chosen One.
Sound Unlimited
The quartet fronted by brother and sister Rosano and Tina Martinez was the first Australian hip hop act to be signed by a major label in 1990.
Baker Boy
The quadruple threat – rapper, singer, dancer and didgeridoo player – swept the ARIA Awards last year with his debut album Gela.
Def Wish Cast
Widely acknowledged as one of the pioneers of Australian hip hop, the western Sydney group were among the first rappers to promote local culture in an unmistakably Aussie voice.
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