A few months ago I wrote an article titled
Sydney Serchaz, Smash Brothers and a tale of two cities. i talked about their contribution to their cities and also their cities contribution to their art. In this article I mainly want to focus on the current situation in both cities.
A lot has changed since the rise of both Smash Brothers and Sydney Serchaz, a lot. Im sorry to say but I don’t remember a time where Melbourne was so insignificant on the Australian stage, I also can’t remember a time where Sydney was so significant not just on the Australian stage, but on the global stage.
Apart from HP Boyz, there isn’t really any major artists coming out of Melbourne right now. In Sydney there are literally dozens of artists getting millions of views in all styles of hiphop. The work rate in Melbourne seems very slow compared to its sibling up north and I think I might know why. It definitely doesn’t have anything to do with the audience, Sydney artist have been putting on pretty big shows down in Melbourne for a few years now - Melbourne has just as many hiphop fans so there definitely isn’t a lack of demand. If you look back at Part 1 of this article you’ll know that I think Melbourne definitely has a higher respect for quality over quantity, so it could be that, but that doesn’t answer everything. In my opinion there are 3 main reasons why Sydney has moved so far ahead of Melbourne (As a Sydney Sider I’m trying not to be so bias) , they’re all kind of tied in together: Our mindset, the rise of Kerser and the ‘Poly rap’ movement.
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| HP BOYZ |
Ill start with the Kers effect. He started as a staple on Hustle Hard TV and quickly rose to be Australia’s biggest artist, with zero radio play. To list the accomplishments of Kerser would take up way too much time, but at this point he’s a cultural icon of West Sydney. This article isn’t really about Sydney vs Melbourne, Its about
West Sydney vs Melbourne, that’s where 90% of our artists come from. Kerser's embrace of adlay culture marked the start of a shift in Sydney hiphop and brought In a whole new group of people into the fold of hiphop in Sydney. This is definitely something I think Melbourne missed out on by not really having that ‘adlay’ styled rapper at the forefront of their scene (maybe apart from Flowz) at the end of the day hiphop is music for the working class and adlays are definitely a big part of the youth working class. If Sydney Serchaz showed lads that its ok to be themselves on a track, Kerser showed them they can make a living off it. Kerser really reinforced the Sydney mindset I talked about earlier about quantity over quality, that’s not to say that Kerser doesn’t respect quality, what Im trying to say is that Kersers format of releasing an album a year meant that his name never really dies (to this day) and his yearly releases are basically a part of life here in Sydney. Its obvious that artists like Kearve, Chillinit and Rops were definitely influenced by Kerser and his independent, stay consistent mindset.
This mindset has spread all over Sydney and I really can’t say the same thing for Melbourne right now.
Another huge development in Australian hiphop has been the poly rap movement, sometimes ignorantly known as the Australian drill movement (idk why).
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| BBG Smokey |
Since around 2017 Islander rappers in Australia have simply been on the up and up and I don’t really know if we have hit our peak just yet. They're currently the pride of the scene and their embrace of the Australian accent has probably been the biggest reason why. Before that, most Islanders like Hoolligan Hefs and Pistol Pete & Enzo
were still rapping in American accents similar to Scribe in NZ. All that’s changed and they have become a lot more relatable and local sounding, which is important in hiphop. -This one is simple, Sydney’s poly rap movement has been more successful than Melbourne’s because we have more Polynesian people. About 40% of Australian Polynesians live in NSW with another 35% living in Queensland. Theres obviously Polynesians in Melbourne, just not as many compared to Sydney or Brisbane. This leads me to an interesting point that I’ve talked about a lot on this blog. Although Melbourne isn’t, and probably never will be the epicentre of the Poly rap movement, there is a huge opportunity for it to be the centre of the African rap movement if/when they blow up. Just like the Polynesians of yesteryear the Africans are still rapping in American accents, in my opinion. Like the Polynesians I think Africans in Melbourne will find success in our hiphop scene when they start rapping in their natural accent and this may take a few years. The sad reality is that no one wants to listen to American hiphop from someone from outside of America, when they could just listen to one of the thousands of American rappers right now. Even now though, the most exciting hiphop coming from Melbourne apart from maybe HP Boyz
are African Australian artists like Eco System, BBG smokey and Gz Phantom. I think an explosion in African Australian hiphop is basically inevitable and when it happens Melbourne will be on the forefront of that movement. Until then though, Melbourne is still at the lowest I think its ever been, Brisbane is running laps around them, Melbourne is more comparable to Perth’s scene rather than Sydneys, which is crazy to me, it’s crazy to me that Sydney’s
main competitor, geographically speaking, is Brisbane.
At the end of the day though, when Sydney wins Australia wins. Geographical competition is a part of the culture and the sign of any healthy hiphop scene. That being said though, Australian hiphop is in the best place it has ever been and we can only hope Melbourne can return to its former glory.
