Tobias Broughton, Omni Anti

Tobias Broughton is the MC in Brisbane’s Omni Anti, who are a mini-orchestra playing jazzy hip hop.

Do you come from a musical family?

TOBIAS BROUGHTON: My grandfather was extremely musical. He was the head of music at Brisbane Boys Grammar for like 25 years and was at one point the head of Music, French and English. They used to do that kind of thing to people in those days, classes of 40 and all of that, but he was the Master of Music and he was the organ player for churches. He was the one who gave me piano lessons, which is why I can write with Johnno [Jonathan Bolt, keyboardist/saxophonist] musically, because he taught me how to do that so I guess he’s the biggest musical influence in my life. There’s one more, my grandmother who was a violin player. My sister’s inherited her violin and I’ve bought a viola and we just love the sound of it. She was a big influence, she was the opposite of my grandfather who was a stern cat. She played by ear, she never read music or anything. That’s more what I do I suppose. I really play by ear. Johnno’s the technician.

Your day job is as a teacher as well, just like your grandfather.

TB: Yeah, yeah, for the same reason you know. Either love or necessity and usually a good measure of both. Music’s necessary although there’s no filthy lucre in it, it’s not lucrative at all, not at this stage anyway in the really pointy end. We get riders and people being nice to us and getting to engage with cool people asking us questions.

The Alchemist

Alan Maman, a.k.a. The Alchemist, is a hip hop producer and rapper from Beverly Hills. He went from being an associate of Dilated Peoples to DJing for Eminem, straddling both sides of the conscious/street divide in hip hop.

Are you from a musical family?

Alan Maman: No, but I do remember my mother and father were definitely fans of music. I don’t know if they could sing. My dad was a good dancer, I guess. I don’t know. There’s some old footage of him doing boogies, doing the boogaloo. Other than that, there was not too much, yeah. They were into music, there was always music in the house.

Did you inherit your dad’s boogying ability?

AM: Yeah, I got some killer dance moves, I got some fancy footwork for the ladies. I got super-duper moves, man, let me tell you.

Do your parents listen to your music?

AM: At low volume. Very low, when they’re going through a carwash talking on the phone. Actually, this new album there are certain records on it that my mother and father both say they like a lot. That’s a first.

Purple Duck

Purple Duck is hard to describe. He raps and he sings singularly filthy songs and he produces skits about the Sex Falcon. Then he records a touching number called When A Woman Cries. He is a mystery wrapped in a mallard.

PURPLE DUCK: My dad and his friends used to gather around and sing filthy songs on the piano. Mum would send me upstairs, but I’d still be able to listen.

Was your dad a professional piano player?

PD: Dad was an opera singer, but he’s not any more. He still sings opera, but only on the toilet now. He can do the whole of La Traviata, it’s pretty good.

He must spend a long time on the toilet.

PD: You can tell because he’ll be, ‘Figaro figaro ... urrr!’

Suffa, Hilltop Hoods

Suffa provides half of the MCing and most of the production for Adelaide's Hilltop Hoods. His mum's only musical advice has apparently been, "You should not swear."

SUFFA: My brother’s a bass player and he was in a punk band called Capo F. Other brother’s a guitarist, the one that plays on the album. He was in a couple of bands, one of ’em was called the Undecided. My mum’s a music teacher, she teaches eurhythmics to little kids, which is music and movement. And my dad’s a massive record collector. He’s got a couple of thousand blues and jazz CDs and vinyl. So yeah, really musical family.

Has that been helpful then having especially your dad’s collection to dig through?

S: Yeah, that was super helpful. I mean The Calling, our third record, was made nearly solely off my dad’s record collection ’cause I couldn’t afford breaks. I mean it’s also helpful when you’re a kid and you’re growing up and from one room one of your brothers is listening to Bad Brains and Bob Marley and whatever and another brother’s listening to Cure and Siouxsie & The Banshees and your dad’s upstairs listening to, I dunno, blues, jazz, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie and that sort of thing and your mum’s teaching music and movement. You get everything and you sort of mish-mosh it into your taste, I guess. Especially from a producer’s point of view, who samples, I think that’s a really good place to come from.

Urthboy

Urthboy is both a solo MC and a member of The Herd. I spoke to him today, but asked THE QUESTION the previous time I interviewed him two years ago. This song is new, though.

URTHBOY: My dad was a big jazz fan, but I always used to think that was pretty daggy. He’d walk around the house scatting and stuff. My brother was a big influence, we shared a room and he was bigger than me so he was boss of the stereo. Whatever he wanted to listen to I had to listen to. He played Leonard Cohen till I liked it.

Rival MC, Impossible Odds

Impossible Odds won the JB Seed Grant to fund their self-titled debut EP of conscious Aussie hip hop.

“My dad always took us to church and my mum was always singing around the house. She sings in choirs and stuff and always had us in choirs.”

When was it you first got into hip hop?

“I was about 10. My cousins that are all 40 now would listen to everything. Grandmaster Flash, N.W.A., anything and everything, Public Enemy... They’d bring it home all the time and I’d hear it pumping in their cars. I thought ‘Ah, this sounds good!’ Then, not having much money growing up, I got into beatboxing. Been 17 years now that I’ve been beatboxing and that just came out of necessity because I didn’t have money to buy a Walkman. At the time they were like the state of the art. I didn’t have that luxury so I’d replicate the beats and walk around and beatbox to myself.”

MC Lars

MC Lars calls himself a post-punk laptop rapper. He'll rap about anything from Edgar Allan Poe to Guitar Hero.



“Yeah, my mom kind of played piano, but my dad was always playing like loud, rock stuff when I was a kid. I remember, some of my earliest, happiest memories were that he would play that Paul Simon record Graceland so much and I loved that record because I loved how it was -- I didn’t know it then, but it was that international sound and the amazing horns and like just the instrumentation, the basslines and the lyrics. And and my dad took me to my first concert, ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic when I was like 10 and basically my parents have really been supportive. I took guitar lessons for a long time and they were really supportive. I just remember being little and sitting next to the speakers at our house listening to the Graceland record and thinking this is so magical and awesome, you know?”

‘Weird Al’ Yankovic is a great first concert. Do you remember it well?

“Yeah, I do, I do. We were on the balcony looking down and I knew all the words, I was singing along and I remember, I was young, I’d never seen a mosh pit. I remember being kind of scared because I was just a kid, you know?”

Do your parents listen to your music?

“Yeah, my parents are incredibly supportive and they have gotten into more hip hop stuff. And my first tour in 2003, I went on tour in the UK and that was my first like international tour. My dad actually, we took trains and stuff, he was my tour manager. So that was really fun. I’ll always remember that.”