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While some recording artists might be wary of possible competition and content not to share the spotlight, Australia’s Hilltop Hoods are actively working to foster and encourage emerging, homegrown hip-hop acts.
For the past four years, together with the Australasian Performing Right Association, the trio has awarded a $10,000 grant to a promising hip-hop artist to help put together an album of original songs. Previously only available to artists based in Southern Australia, where the Hoods are from, the initiative was expanded this year to include the whole country.
“Three of the four grant winners have released albums off the back of it (the grant) and are currently active in the Australian hip-hop scene, and getting good feedback for their albums and shows,” emcee Pressure (Daniel Smith) wrote in an email to The Question. “So far it’s been a success.”
Pressure said the Hilltop Hoods were helped out by an arts grant in 1999 when the group released its first record.
“What is good for the scene is good for us,” he said. “(The grant) was a great way for us to give back to the hip-hop community after our own continued success.”
The trio, made up of Pressure, emcee Suffa (Matt Lambert) and DJ Debris (Barry Francis), is considered to be the face of Australian hip-hop. But that doesn’t mean it’ll be all Aussies in the crowd when the Hoods return to Whistler for a show on Sunday (Feb. 7) at Garfinkel’s.
Pressure said at the Hoods’ previous two Whistler shows about half the audience was Australian and the rest were from all over the world.
“There is always a crazy buzz in the snow fields and it creates an awesome party vibe, so it goes down well,” he said.
The Hilltop Hoods pride themselves on a high-energy performance style that includes interaction with the crowd, he added.
Pressure and Suffa first met in the early 1990s at high school in Adelaide, South Australia. At first, the two “didn’t get along at all,” Pressure said. Eventually, they discovered through mutual friends that they shared a love of music and “the rest is history,” he said.
After starting with the first EP in 1997, the Hilltop Hoods have now released five full-length albums. Last year’s State of the Art is the most recent, with some critics heralding it as the trio’s best. The album earned the crew two wins and six nominations at the 2009 Australian Recording Industry Association awards.
“We couldn’t be happier with the feedback we have been getting from our latest album,” Pressure said.
While the group has been getting attention since the beginning with its “old-school boom-bap style of hip-hop,” the Hoods have earned a lot of respect over the years for remaining true to their roots and doing things their own way. Previously committed to distributing albums on an independent label, the Hoods recently launched their own label — Golden Era Records.
“We wanted to… make our own calls from start to finish,” Pressure said. “The idea is to sign a few local hip-hop artists and keep the label small and tight knit.”
The Hilltop Hoods have never tried to make music for the sake of selling records of getting airplay — “it’s that type of shit that sees an artist’s career end abruptly,” he said.
Experience authentic hip-hop with the Hilltop Hoods on Sunday (Feb. 7) at Garf’s. Advance tickets are $20 at Billabong and Katmandu.
