No one soundchecks like Dazastah!! We are jumping up for a few tunes tonight at Subiaco Arts Centre….

No one soundchecks like Dazastah!! We are jumping up for a few tunes tonight at Subiaco Arts Centre. Huge project with Yirra Yaakin announced soon! MPC


Source: Downsyde on Facebook

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Getting busy!! Ableton & MPC / Dazastah & Optamus = DOWNSYDE production.

Getting busy!! Ableton & MPC / Dazastah & Optamus = DOWNSYDE production.


Source: Downsyde on Facebook

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GUESS WHAT? Our new single ‘Odds’ is dropping April 5th, feat Sam_nafie and new member Beni Bjah

GUESS WHAT? Our new single ‘Odds’ is dropping April 5th, feat Sam_nafie and new member Beni Bjah. Lets go!!!


Source: Downsyde on Facebook

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Downsyde hitting Karratha for “Beats in the Heat”

Downsyde hitting Karratha for “Beats in the Heat” December 8!! Going to be a huge party in the Wild West!! #beatsintheheat #karratha #westernaustralia


Source: Downsyde on Facebook

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Premiere: Downsyde take a trip down ‘Memory Lane’ in their excellent, feel-good new video

Downsyde

The WA hip hop heroes have a few big shows coming up to round out the year.

Last year saw the release of Perth hip hop legends Downsyde’s much-loved latest album, ClassicILL, and today we’re stoked to close out the loop by premiering the new video from its last single, Memory Lane. As the title suggests, the song is a fun, ubpeat look back on their storied 20 year career in Australia hip hop, a time that’s seen five acclaimed albums, a heap of awards, huge tours…the lot. And the video serves that time justice, featuring plenty of archival footage of the group’s good times over the past couple of decades.

You can celebrate with the fellas this Friday when they play a HUGE show at Jack Rabbit Slim’s joined by a massive cast of mates, along with a few other upcoming shows to round out the year – check out the full run below:

TOUR DATES:

Sat 13 Oct – Jack Rabbit Slim’s, Perth w/ Chisenga, The Manhattan Project, Call The Coroner, Bluntfield, Penny Purr (EP Launch), Modern Day Crisis, Lucid Reality, LAYBL, Audacious & Richo Kidd

Sat 20 Oct – Noisy Healer Festival, Muswellbrook w/ WAAX, Hockey Dad + more

Fri 16 Nov – Brisbane Hotel, Hobart (as part of SBX)

Sat 17 Nov – Zhivago, Adelaide (supporting Mad Child)

Follow Downsyde: FACEBOOK

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Downsyde – Tasmania – Swanfest

Tasmania it has been a long time between beers! Downsyde are back bringing along our legendary squad and some Tazzy kings too! Nov 17 Brisb Hotel. Feat @mr_grevis @bitterbelief @emjaysbx @mortarshell @robshakersbx @dunnfarkind @greelz1989 @bladel


Source: Downsyde on Facebook

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Local rapper Optamus gives back through hip-op rehabilitation at Casuarina Prison

Optamus - Downsyde
Scott ‘Optamus’ Griffiths – his MC name is about the positive and he also likes the Transformers. Picture: Jon Hewson.

HIP hop is about the downtrodden.

Through that sentiment, a local hip hop artist has turned it into a rehabilitative force for good for some of the most downtrodden and discarded members of our society: inmates at Casuarina Prison.

Scott ‘Optamus’ Griffiths has run a hip hop program at Casuarina for 15 inmates since the start of the year.

It is an accredited Tafe course that’s proving to be a powerful and healing tool for the rehabilitation of inmates.

“It’s about reflecting diverse voices and about making that positive,” he said.

“It’s based around lyric writing, narratives, the journey in and out of the prison system, talking about emotions and the music.

“It covers everything: sound production, mixing, lyric writing and song composition.”

Each inmate is allowed to use a laptop and set of headphones to create their own hip hop tunes.

Held every Wednesday, classes are started with a freestyling session where inmates have to improvise around a speaker.

“It’s quite challenging to get up in front of others but that breaks down the fear of performance,” Griffiths said. “It also builds self-esteem and creates a bond between myself and the guys.”

Griffiths did not fear going to the maximum-security prison.

“As a rapper walking into a class – it’s the same as walking into a class anywhere – there has to be a bond with the class from the start,” he said.

Dubbing it ‘hip hop pedagogy’ Griffiths said it had become a worldwide movement for dealing with prisoners.

“There is a real therapeutic value to lyric writing and beat work is a proven therapy,” he said.

“Studies have shown that the repetition of beat works with trauma therapy, along with the low bass tones of hip hop.

“One key thing is prevention and taking a three- pronged approach.

“Prevention, rehabilitation and release/re-integration, so they don’t fall into recidivism.

“People think just about the crime committed; there is always a bigger picture and a lot has to do with childhood trauma.

“Then these (human) time bombs are created.

“In the sober light of day, these guys want to do the right thing and they are very, very remorseful.

“The program helps break down the walls they normally face and gives them common ground.

“And it’s about having fun.”

Griffiths is one of the founding members of Australian hip hop band Downsyde.

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MEMORY LANE feat JSQUARED and CORTEX

Here’s the vid for Memory Lane feat JSQUARED and MOONDOG. Big ups to Cortext and Dom for the clip. #sharingiscaring

Source: Downsyde on Facebook

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dazastah

Listen to our friend Freddo the Frog, he knows what’s up! We play Sat night at Jack Rabbit Slim’s to launch Downsyde – Memory Lane Video Launch at Jack Rabbit Slim’s, so make sure you grab tickets here: https://heatseeker.oztix.com.au/outlet/event/ae7d49ef-375b-40cf-8caa-0f04d0678498 And Shake Down Records has a limited amount of our latest album ‘ClassicILL’ on vinyl left. https://www.shakedownrecords.com.au/product/downsyde-classic-ill/ #Downsyde #jackrabbitslims #shakedownrecordsdotcomdotau #freddo


#Downsyde #jackrabbitslims #shakedownrecordsdotcomdotau #freddo
Source: Downsyde on Facebook

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Australian Hip-Hop Icon Pegz Releases New Album ‘Equilibrium’ with Silent Titan

Melbourne’s Pegz has released a long-awaited new 9-track album with producer Silent Titan titled Equilibrium last week. The impressive 38-minute offering released on Brisbane’s legendary Hydrofunk Records (Resin Dogs, Blunted Stylus) features Jace XL, DJ Cost was long in the making and a somewhat unexpected release when it finally dropped. Silent Titan is a well-established, […]

The post Australian Hip-Hop Icon Pegz Releases New Album ‘Equilibrium’ with Silent Titan appeared first on The Source.

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Melbourne’s Pegz has released a long-awaited new 9-track album with producer Silent Titan titled Equilibrium last week. The impressive 38-minute offering released on Brisbane’s legendary Hydrofunk Records (Resin Dogs, Blunted Stylus) features Jace XL, DJ Cost was long in the making and a somewhat unexpected release when it finally dropped. Silent Titan is a well-established, talented producer / DJ from Australia having worked with Thundamentals, Prince Po of Organized Konfusion while Pegz is one of the most important figures in hip-hop to emerge from Australia yet.

Coming up as a young graffiti artist before beginning to rap in the early 90’s, Pegz then known as Pegasus had an early track featured on a release from the hugely influential Melbourne hip-hop label Nuffsaid Recordings. Upon starting to work at a then-emerging hip hop shop/record label called “Obese Records”, Pegz released his debut self-titled EP Pegasus in 2001 that really kick-started a prolific next decade that had not been seen before on such a scale.

Before Pegz released his classic debut album Capricorn Cat back in 2003, he had purchased the Obese Records shop he was working at and had continued to significantly develop the release side of the emerging business. With landmark, early releases from the likes of Brad Strut (Lyrical Commission / Unkut Recordings), Hilltop Hoods, Reason, Funkoars, Bias B, Hunter & Dazastah as well as the Culture of Kings compilation releases, Obese Records had positioned itself nationally as having a significant market reach at the time. Local Australian-made hip-hop at the time was just beginning to find a larger market audience and commercial acceptance off the back of Resin Dogs, Downsyde and 1200 Techniques influential local releases / festival appearances, and the Obese Records releases of Culture of Kings Volume 2 compilation and especially Hilltop Hoods’ The Calling smashed through the glass ceiling that appeared to exist then.

With Obese Records now on fire throughout the mid-2000’s with a string of quality releases, Pegz released his own acclaimed albums in “Axis” (2005) and “Burn City” (2007) to great success. The 14-track Axis features Hilltop Hoods, Hyjak N Torcha, Oregon’s Debaser, was largely produced by Plutonic Lab and certainly cemented Pegz in the scene as a talented emcee. His latter Burn City released in late-2007 featured Vents, Drapht, The Funkoars, Illy, Muph and Cali’s Planet Asia and proved to be commercially more successful peaking at #70 on the ARIA Album Chart, #10 on the ARIA Urban Album Chart and #4 on the ARIA Hitseekers Albums chart as the audience widened.

Following Burn City, Pegz developed a trio group called “Gully Platoon” with Joe New and Dialectrix (both formerly of Down Under Beats Crew). They dropped a 14-track album in mid-2009 on Obese Records called “The Great Divide” featuring DJ 2 Buck, Plutonic Lab, future members of the current award-winning group Remi and reached #5 on the local independent Top 20 Album charts and #18 on the ARIA Top 40 Urban Album charts. This period continued a string of successful and critically acclaimed releases on his Obese Records including Drapht “Brothers Grimm” (2008), Muph & Plutonic “…And Then Tomorrow Came” (2008), M-Phazes “Good Gracious” (2010), Mantra “Power Of The Spoken (2010) and Bias B “Biaslife” (2011) amongst others.

By the time Pegz’s fourth solo album perfectly titled as “Drama” dropped in 2011, Obese Records in retrospect had somewhat hit a high watermark. The leading group from Obese Records in Hilltop Hoods had left and gone independent forming Golden Era Records, the physical record pressing arm of the business had closed down and his large influence had led to some concerns of Obese monopolizing the rapidly developing local hip-hop market. “Drama” largely marked Pegz exit from hip-hop as an active rapper, leading him to focus more on the label aspect, management and distribution arms of Obese Records.

Pegz legacy as both an emcee and through Obese Records is of incredible importance to hip hop’s development and wider embracement it now enjoys throughout Australia. This recent EP drop with Silent Titan was more than a welcomed surprise and re-opens the door to continuing the Pegz story – or closes it again. Time will tell, but the messages touched on throughout Equilibrium are timely in a musical landscape that has changed so much in recent years. Stay tuned to The Source for an upcoming article on Obese Records – Australia’s most influential hip-hop record label to date.

Thanks Pegz.

Pegz & Silent Titan’s new Equilibrium album out now.

The post Australian Hip-Hop Icon Pegz Releases New Album ‘Equilibrium’ with Silent Titan appeared first on The Source.

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