As time goes by the hunger, passion, determination and skill of Australian Hip Hop continues to grow. With each year another swag of releases drops, people debate the merit of each, tracks are dissected, beats discussed over blunts as fans do what they do best; search for something they love. At the heart of it all are the artists, those with the talent pouring in their passion, aggression, hard work, skill and in most cases their pay cheques, all searching for a creative outlet that can have an impression on others.
At ozhiphop.com we strive to create a place where people can talk and artists can build themselves to be the best they can be, in a year where we had a producer with a beat on a 2 million selling album, platinum records for some, gold for others, and hundreds of CDs still exchanged hand to hand, we are honoured to have hosted our 11th Annual Awards. It is now our pleasure to announce the OzHipHop Awards 2013 Winners, nominated and voted for by the people of the Australian hip hop community.
While we will honour the beats and the rhymes, we also give respect to the visual side of our culture. Deej has been smashing cover design for the SBX crew and Perth artists for years now and his artwork on Mr Grevis “My Escape” album is the winner of this years Best Cover Art.
With his art dominating the walls of the nation and a series of videos dropping peoples jaws with each panel of film the winner of Best Graffiti Writer goes to Sofles. With 8 million youtube views of his epic warehouse adventure “Limitless”, it’s no surprise that 2013 was his year, and if you peep the mans Instagram you might just get the feeling that 2014 will be too!
The Head of State Awards are for those people who have the biggest influence on the local scene they are involved in, promoters, radio hosts, journalists, super fans, workshop facilitators, the list goes on. This year due to limited nominations in some States, we chose not to send SA, TAS, ACT or the NT to the vote. We recognise and give massive props to the nominees, SkankOne for NT, Old School Al, Jam Natividad for ACT, Stray and Reflekt for TAS, Hilltop Hoods & Nick Strutton for SA, these peeps all put in work for their scene and are all deserving of the recognition. Moving forward for next year, in an OzHipHop Awards first, we will be awarding the Head Of State as an industry award, nominated and awarded by a panel of experts, as a recognition by peers.
Kicking of the winners though is our Head Of State QLD, DwizofOz. Dwiz had a massive year, from still being the leading player in the QLD battle scene he also found time to drop a long player and run the now touring Stand Up festival, he truly is the modern face of Brisbane hip hop and a deserved winner.
The Head Of State NSW winner is a man who needs no introduction, Hau. This man has the biggest influence on hip hop in Australian radio right now with his nationally broadcast show and unquestioned taste he is a deserved winner. This is his second in a row and chances are he may never be beaten, but we’re okay with that.
Moving to Head of State WA we have a man with his name all over everything in the past 12 months, Rob Shaker. A stalwart of the Perth scene behind the decks, completing his recording studio Shake Down, Rob offers state of the art facilities to the Perth community, guidance to many, he is an authority for production in Perth and the nation. It is our pleasure to give him his second straight Head Of State mantle.
Rounding out the winners is a man who is without question a king in the Australian scene, your Head Of State Victoria, Bias B. Although not found often behind the mic these days, Bias is the man behind the Robert Hunter Cup, the most important event in Australian Hip Hop annually. RIP Hunter.
They might have reached pop star status selling out tours and crushing festival stages, but the almighty Hilltop Hoods and their label Golden Era are still very much favourites on all levels nationwide. This year the GE crew scooped three awards; their annual Cypher taking out the Best Posse Track, the GE Mixtape taking out Best Free Release, and finally they took out the Best Crew award; with a roster including Funkoars, Briggs & Vents it should be no surprise to anyone that this label gets respect
Also included repping GE is K21, who this year takes out the Best EP for his Kid Sinatra drop. K21 gets better with each and every release and his affiliation with GE should see big things in his future.
Also making noise in 2013 was Melbourne’s own powerhouse crew, Crate Cartel, with their names once again all over the award winners list. First up is Best Film Clip, with the track itself featuring on the 2012 release Zero, the epic film clip for “Maundzilla” by Maundz which dropped in 2013 was an absolute beast of a clip.
Behind the boards it was Crate Cartel teaming with Pang Productions, with this year’s Best Beat going to a thumper from Must, on the track “Arrows” by Flu featuring Geko, from Flu’s “Flu Season”.
Best Wax appropriately goes to the crew which honours the medium, this years winner is Flu, with his album Flu Season, one of the years best drops and selling out in about 3 minutes for the wax release. Not content with multiple wins already, this massive year for the crew is capped with the all important Best Album award, being scooped by Flu’s “Flu Season”. Congratulations to Flu, it really was his season!
This year we also got to see some deeper thought provoking music specifically honoured across the Best Track and Best Verse categories. Long underrated by many, but unquestionably one of our finest MCs, Best Verse goes to Dialectrix for his layered words on “What Is This World Coming To”. First time winners, we are pleased to have Best Track category taken out by this duo, it is another track that doesn’t hit the hip hop stereotypes, but did hit home with the hip hop heads, congratulations to Horrorshow for the track “Unfair Lottery”.
Behind the boards but certainly not behind the scenes, with all spotlights being pointed at the man of a million breaks, M-Phazes has taken out Best Producer. With production credits on the latest Eminem album, remixes, releases, collaborations and creativity, M-Phazes is truly one of the best.
Off the back of the Head of State WA Award Rob Shaker has also taken out Best DJ, competing with some scratch heavy competition Rob Shaker is a slave to the decks.
This Award had been on hiatus for a few years but it’s with absolute delight to reintroduce it and it’s winner, Best Up and Comer, completing against 25 other nominees nationwide, is awarded to Complete. A hard working MC from WA, with a slightly outrageous social media voice, the MC has skills. Having won a support slot for Sprung festival, released a free full length, collaborated throughout Perth, supported Kerser on his national tour, Complete is a next generation MC that you’ll hear from with each passing year, if not each day.
With the Battle scene putting in major work for another twelve months you would find few people disagreeing with the winner for Best Battle MC, Greeley, from Tassie to Melbourne and from battles to the LMG studios, Greeley is playing a major role within the Australian Hip Hop scene.
Topping off the Awards we would like to honour our Best Male and Female MCs,Mantra & Layla. Mantra is often considered “your favourite rappers favourite rapper”, but the people have spoken and he’s taken out nationwide favourite rapper status. Mantra and Layla are names that spring to mind immediately when the prospect of awarding our best and they are both well deserving winners. Catch them live, on record, or spitting in a cypher with mates and you will be blown away, they are true performers and their body of work speaks for itself.
2013, it’s a wrap! We would like to extend our utmost congratulations to all the winners. Our deepest thanks to the voters, fans and casual observers, these Awards are built with the foundations of blood, sweat and beers, but most importantly they are run for the artists and voted for by fans and peers. See you all again next year for the 2014 OzHipHop Awards. Cheers!