“We’ve always been the kind of group that is just making the kind of music that we want to make. We’d never try and change it for a certain radio station or to fit the margins of a genre. To be rewarded for that, it’s the best feeling in the world.”
Kolawole’s already put the grant to good use, now in Europe for a run of dates. It’s a curious prospect as to how Australian hip hop’ll be received in a European context amid its own musical climate, but Kolawole maintains a faith in what he’s doing, despite being all too aware it’s a lot easier for international acts in Australia than it is for Australian acts internationally.
“A lot of us in hip hop don’t really have the opportunity to get out of here. It could be lack of funding, but there’s also a lack of a blog presence here as well. That seems to be a huge way of people being able to get out of their own country without any real promotion. Blogs seem to totally dictate that.”
There often appears to be a stigma attached to the realm of Australian hip hop itself; even within Australia, where talented artists with less recognition are tarred with the same brush as lesser-quality acts within the mainstream. Although he doesn’t weigh in on the matter directly, Kolawole’s adamant his music isn’t about to be lost in translation, either here or overseas.
“It comes down to people sticking to their own shit,” he muses. “Maybe earlier Australian hip hop didn’t speak to those people, but the glorification of the American lifestyle did. It’s hard for me to speculate, because I was never into Australian hip hop growing up. I wasn’t really exposed to it… Later, of course, I came to discover all of these incredible dudes with incredible skills. I’m hoping that, if there isa stigma, that’s still attached to this music, that we can break it.”
You may have noted Kolawole often uses ‘we’ as opposed to ‘I.’ He relegates this to the fact his work is a collaborative effort between himself and his production team of Sensible J and Dutch. Although they do not appear in photoshoots or within Kolawole’s mononymic project moniker, he’s quick to emphasise their importance to what he does.
“When we first started doing rap together – Sensible J, Dutch and myself – I was just doing mixtapes,” explains Kolawole. “Most of the stuff was over a variety of people’s beats. It would have been ridiculous to call it anything other than what it was. It was like, ‘What’s my rap name? Remi? Cool.’ So we did that when we put the mixtapes out. I produced one track on the first EP that we did, and then they produced the whole of my first album. From there, I was just so comfortable making music with J and Dutch, I didn’t feel any need to change it. The tracks may still be under my name, but I’ll always talk our music from a collaborative sense. We do everything together.”
BY DAVID JAMES YOUNG
