Not a fan of Aussie hip hop? Well some of them don’t like you either! In particular, Melbourne MC Al Murray, better known as Illy, who has spoken out against mainstream naysayers of his genre in a recent interview.
Having recently wrapped up work on his forthcoming album, Bring It Back, the rapper’s third. Illy spoke to The Music‘s Drum Media about his rise to commercial success and some of the criticism he’s received for popular singles like ‘Pictures’, ‘It Can Wait’ and ‘Cigarettes’.
”I think, whatever backlash I encounter,” says the man born Al Murray, “it’s usually based on people only knowing a few big songs and having no fucking clue beyond that. Any time you hear something like, ‘Oh, Illy’s a fucking faggot,’ ‘Why?’ ‘Oh, because he’s got that fucking song.’ I have forty others that sound nothing like it.”
He laments that he’s often made a larger target for both hip hop purists and sceptical mainstream audiences for his outspoken personality. Speaking of the criticisms he says “there’s fuck all there to justify it,” adding that “I may have a couple of songs that have been on the radio, but anyone who has seen a live show knows that they’re hardly the crux of the set.”
Murray says that despite the commercial flak, he’s respected by his genre contemporaries, “you know, MCs and producers – that people giving me shit are probably massive fans of – are happy to work with me.” Adding that his latest album, the back-to-basics Bring It Back, “has some of Australia’s best MCs and best producers on it.”
The album is to feature Aussie hip-hop peers like Pez and Mantra, as well as collabs with M-Phazes, Trials (Funkoars) and Reason, while Illy is gearing up for a national tour in support of the album with dates throughout August and September.
That’s on top of his festival commitments for later in the year, where he was added to the recently announced Pyramid Rock Festival 2012 lineup while fans will also get a chance to see Illy strut his festival stuff live at Sprung, an exclusively hip hop festival for Brisbane, in November. The latter’s bill even includes many of Illy’s Bring It Back collaborators such as Pez and Mantra. Live crossover anyone?
