Mad Decent

So we’ve been busy as hell in Sydney lately – Heaps Decent has really come into it’s own in the last few months – thanks largely to our new partners Fuzzy, who have provided us with financial and admin support, plus hooked us up with all the artists they bring out for their tours and festivals. Thanks Fuzzy!

We’ve been updating our website pretty heavily – make sure you check it out on the reg to stay up to scratch on what we’re up to. I thought I’d put up some highlights from the last week though…

Here’s our good Perth friends Tash and John modeling our brand new T-shirts. We gave them to volunteers who stood with us at the entry gates for the Parklife festivals in Brisbane and Perth, collecting donations from the VIPs for Heaps Decent. We’ll be doing the same this weekend in Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide – come and say hey at the gates!

Here we are inside Riverina Juvenile Justice Centre in Wagga Wagga, NSW. This is where we took Diplo in February 2007, which is what lead to Heaps Decent being born! As you can see in the picture, for our return to the centre we brought Fools Gold head honcho A-Trak.

We spent the day making beats and recording raps with the boys in the centre. A-Trak even opened the day with a trick set, which none of the boys had seen anything like before. The recordings sound fantastic, maybe the best we’ve ever done! Expect some new music from us soon!

Check out this video A-Trak recorded of two of the boys dancing for us to Baby Huey’s Pop Lock & Drop It. They’re wearing masks so we could show this to people while protecting their identities.

After leaving the centre we headed to Riverina Community College where our friend Thom runs an after school hip hop program.

A-Trak smashed some more routines, answered some questions asked by the kids and even had a jam with some young beatbox artists!

We were then presented with this amazing mural from the college – that’s me on the left, A-Trak in the middle and Nina on the right.

The next day Nina took The Cool Kids, Busy P and Tiga to Gadigal Recording Studios  where they joined Indigenous artists The Last Kinection, Radical Sun and Stunna Set, plus various managers from labels like Gadigal and Whichways for a panel discussing the potential new Indigenous Australian music has as an export in the international music market. To read more about this panel click here.

While Nina was at Gadigal, I took Lady Sovereign to Redfern Community Centre where our friends CuzCo run a program called On Track. What makes On Track unique is that it is comprised of young artists who have shown potential and dedication in other youth workshops run across NSW in the last few years by Wire and Choo Choo. On Track gives these artists the resources they need to record an EP and teaches them valuable lessons about the music industry.

Lady Sov listened to what the kids in the program had recorded so far, gave some feedback and shared stories on what being young and in the music industry is like. Before long everyone was sharing hilarious stories and taking dumb happy snaps.

And that was our week! Busy as hell – and we’ve still got the weekend to go! Thanks to all the artists and kids who were part of our workshops this week and to everyone at Fuzzy & Parklife. Keep checking our site for more updates!