Yung Warriors launch their national tour tonight in Warrnambool, mixing hip hop with metal under a corroboree theme.
Australia’s fastest-rising indigenous hip hop artists Yung Warriors are taking on the country from the east coast to across the Nullarbor, starting with Warrnambool.
Beginning their Hip Hop Corroboree National Tour at The Loft tonight, the group, which has graced the stage with 50 Cent, Akon, The Game and D12, was recently recognised for its talent, named hip hop artist of the year at the 18th Annual Deadly Awards.
Yung Warriors have worked relentlessly on their latest album Standing Strong and as a result MC Tjimba Possum Burns said he and rap partner Danny Ramzan had reached a new level of recognition since its April release.
“Triple j has been backing us a lot and loving it, giving it rotation on the radio, so big ups to triple j,” he told Offbeat.
“People come up to us in a bar and say they heard us on triple j — it’s awesome.
“The difference is that instead of just the mob in my community we’ve had people of different race coming up saying ‘I love your tracks’.
“We had a gig in the city in Brunswick Street and a couple of Japanese kids came down for it. They said they saw us in newspaper and bought our CD.” Four years after releasing debut album Warriors 4 Life, Burns said the pair had truly grown up as musicians and writers.
“We’re thinking a bit more outside the box and having different projects on the side develops your producing,” Burns said.
“We’ve been messing and experimenting with different sounds.
“Sometimes you just sit there for an hour or 16 hours and in one of those hours you find something.
“It’s competitive with all these new rappers out there and a new sound coming out, so you’ve just got to compete with that too.
“Our first album was sort of a naive last-minute job, so on this one we were a bit more patient.” Burns said that his background as a heavy metal fan was evident in Yung Warriors’ live show.
“Danny Ramzan and I are switching it up with a DJ but we’ve also got a band behind us as well, with a guitar shredding it up a bit,” he said.
“I grew up with a bit of heavy metal so switching to a bit of that between songs is fun.
“The Beastie Boys did it good and Rage Against The Machine too.
“We’ve also got young Chrissie J coming with us, who’s a new up-and-coming singer, so there’s a few to check out with this tour.”