Hoods out to reclaim hip-hop hilltop on 2022 Show Business tour

For more than a decade, Hilltop Hoods have guarded the throne when it comes to touring Australian hip-hop acts.

Hilltop Hoods in the studio, L-R: Barry Francis (DJ Debris), Matthew Lambert (Suffa) and Daniel Smith (Pressure). Picture: Roy Van Der Vegt

For more than a decade, Hilltop Hoods have guarded the throne when it comes to touring Australian hip-hop acts.

Selling out arena shows across the nation, both with and without orchestral accompaniment? No worries.

The chart-topping trio’s last run in 2019, in support of its eighth album The Great Expanse, saw it play to more than 80,000 fans across seven shows.

Those are Jimmy Barnes-level touring numbers for the group, which has long since crossed over from niche to mainstream while leading the charge for its peers in what was once an underground genre.

Starting on Saturday in Hobart, Hilltop Hoods are again preparing for a series of six major shows, with dates in Brisbane, Melbourne and their hometown of Adelaide each sold out.

One major change to the touring landscape since the trio last hit the road pre-pandemic is that another significant box office force has swept not only the nation but the world: Sydney-raised hip-hop artist The Kid Laroi, whose run of homecoming shows saw the 18-year-old selling out arenas across Australia a few months ago. As far as Laroi’s artistic forebears are concerned, that rising tide lifts all boats.

“I think across the board, it’s good for everyone,” Daniel Smith, aka Pressure, told The Australian. “We’re selling out arenas, and so’s he – and hopefully there’s more (artists) to come.”

“I think what we do is very different to what he does; it’s almost comparing apples and oranges,” said Matthew Lambert, aka Suffa. “We’re much more a ‘boom-bap’ style of hip-hop, or maybe a bit more progressive than that; it’s sort of two different worlds. But from seeing the music’s journey in this country, that it’s come from clubs and bars to arenas? That’s huge,” he said.

At this, the group’s softly spoken DJ Debris, aka Barry Francis, chipped in with some sage words: “It’s not a competition.”

Since forming in 1996, Hilltop Hoods have become one of the most bankable acts in any genre, racking up 10 ARIA Awards, six No.1 albums and more than 60 platinum accreditations, while also polling as the most-streamed Australian artist on Spotify for two years running.

While their chosen genre is known for big-noting lyrical braggadocio, the group is long since past the point of needing to talk itself up; by now, the facts speak for themselves.

“I don’t even think of myself as an elder statesman,” said Smith. “I’m proud that we have been a significant part in the rise of hip-hop in Australia – but there’s so many other people and factors out there that don’t always get the credit that they should.”

Currently between albums, with a ninth release planned for next year, the trio’s Show Business tour begins in Hobart at the weekend, starting a string of six Saturday night shows that ends in Adelaide on September 24.