“That was my most special moment of the year, but probably also of hip hop career as well,” says Pelsoczy. “Getting to do my own show at one of Hunter’s last shows was so amazing, I’m very glad to be able to say I’ve done that. He let me jump up on the stage and do a few short sets before he came up. It turned out that was actually one of his last ever sets, so that has been the best memory, doing that with Hunter. Apart from that, in the last two years I’ve been a hype man for Briggs and I’ve done the Rapunzel tour with Drapht. I also jumped on the Ice Cube and Ill Bill tours as well, I did that with Briggs. Then Pegz hit me up to see if I could be his hype man as well because he had that big 17-date tour for his Drama album, so once I finished up with Briggs I jumped onboard that. Pegz also so let me do some solo stuff before I hyped for him, which was great, and I got to do a solo Eloquor show at the St Kilda Festival as well.”
And that’s only set to increase, as Pelsoczy confirms, following the upcoming Eloquor EP launch this weekend. Not one to hog all the limelight, however, Pelsoczy says he’ll be sharing the stage with plenty of mates on the night, including Myspherical Entertainment’s In Good Company, who are also set to launch their own album on the night. It’ll be a double-bill that will also see three additional DJs join the party, Pelscozy claims, keeping the crowd on its toes for the entire night.
“The CEO of Myspherical is my manager and he’s also In Good Company’s manager, so we sort of said, ‘Well, we’re label-mates so I’m happy to share the love with them and make it a double launch’. We sort of agreed that it would be a pretty good showcase of Myspherical as well if we did it that way, and it’s always great to share anyway. I know those boys quite well, all the guys are pretty great. I’ve also got a special guest who is going to be one of my students, because I am a teacher, and I teach hip hop stuff as well. Anyway, I’ve taught this kid since he was 12 and he’s 18 now, so I’ve invited him to jump up on stage and do his thing, so he is pretty pumped about that! He’s really stoked! I really don’t think it’s going to be hard for him because he’s amazing at it and I know that opportunities are hard to come by especially when you’re a rookie – no-one wants to give you shows.”
Far from a rookie himself, Pelsoczy says he had the option of making Human Condition a full-length album, but in the end settled for a seven-track EP after taking up advice from Obese guru Pegz. ‘Quality over quantity’ were the wise words from the veteran rapper, and the best choice in the end, if the final result of the EP is anything to go by…
“I’ve done a mixtape before, I’ve done an EP years ago, then I did two albums as well,” lists Pelsoczy. “I was going for another album with this one too. What happened was, I was on tour with Pegz and I was writing it getting the beats together at the same time – I actually had 12 beats already purchased and ready to go for a full-length. I talked to Pegz and he said to me, ‘Bro, why don’t you just do an EP with about five tracks, and just make them the best tracks you can possibly put together? No fillers, just the best beats’. So I did. It ended up being a polished piece of work where I spent loads of time on each of the tracks, as opposed to sort of just going through 12 tracks. The whole topic was about the human condition and where we’re at, what it means to be human. We’ve all got the same problems and fears and issues at the end of the day, no matter how rich or poor we are, no matter what our background is.”
According to Pelsoczy, Pharoahe Monch’s latest album W.A.R. played a pretty significant part on Human Condition as far as inspiration went, as did last year’s Ghostface Killah album Apollo Kids.
“When Pharoahe Monch brought out that W.A.R. album I really loved it because it was dealing with issues that I care about as well – things like society and how humanity is at war with itself,” explains Pelsoczy. “It was really trying to break the mould, it was very inspirational for me because it was sticking to the same point but it was doing so by painting many very different little pictures. Like, the puzzle came together in the end – the different faces of the same issue. I was inspired by kind of taking little chapters to create a story, the big picture.”
While Human Condition features plenty of guests on both vocals and production – including Hilltop Hoods’ Suffa, Simplex, 76, Pokerbeats and Hattori Hanzo – Pelsoczy claims it was one man in particular that he had his heart set on tracking down: 2009 Red Bull Big Tune winner Frank Dukes.
“I was listening to Apollo Kids and his beats blew me away! I hit him up on MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, SoundCloud – everything you can imagine until I got a reply back. His beat wasn’t cheap but it’s about quality not quantity, right?”
