After graduating from the bench to semi-pro status, Sydney emcee and latest Elefant Traks signee B-Wise’s plan to be the hip-hop answer to Neymar is in full effect.
According to the internet, 2016 has been a bit of a downer. We said goodbye to David Bowie, Alan Rickman, Harper Lee, Muhammad Ali, Phife Dawg and Prince. Pauline Hanson returned to the Senate. Britain voted for the Brexit, then immediately regretted it. Donald Trump won the USA Presidential Election. Kanye had a meltdown on tour confessing he would have voted for Trump, dashing all hopes for his 2020 campaign. Shapes tried to cancel their original flavours.
But for South Western Sydney African-Australian rapper, B-Wise, this year has been a triumph. “I seen that, people saying 2016’s shit,” the Elefant Traks signee chortles. “I was like, ‘Man, I hit my New Year’s Resolution by June!’ So I was fucking happy, bruh.”
Before the whistle blows on this year, it was still a victory lap that took years of independent grinding to reach. Before B-Wise lit up triple j’s charts with radio-hits Prince Akeem and Lately in 2015, along with a string of support slots for Tuka, Yelawolf and Freddie Gibbs, he was juggling music and working life with a marketing degree.
“I had to completely step back from music for like a year and a half before finishing uni. I’m not one of those people who can balance education and the lifestyle of recording as well, ’cause I record a lot late at night into the early morning. The two never went well. I even had to stop working at jobs, I was just a full-time student.
Then when I finished uni I was like, alright cool – now I can get back to this music thing. But to do music you need to fund it. No one’s gonna invest in you except yourself. So I had to get a job as well, and I was working and putting all my money into music just to get noticed.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CP4I1gaMq7I
Most musicians are used to the idea of taking whatever work they can find to support their creative lifestyle, and B-Wise was no exception. “I used to work at this crewing company. You set up events. We used to set up Ranwick Races. All these marquees,” he laughs. “I could still probably set up a marquee with my eyes closed; on my own.
“Working Disney on Ice, setting shit up. Just real tough gritty shit, taking down circuses. Real hard labour; 6am start. When you’re leaving, you’re on the first train at four in the morning in the cold; it’s just not a vibe at all, man.”
That hard work allowed B-Wise to gain the attention of Urthboy via Twitter and, despite the gloss of success, that streak hasn’t stopped. “Up to a point, I was pretty much an independent engine until I got signed. We still do things ourselves, but it’s a bit more of a comfortable situation now.
“It is tough to work and then do music. Coming off a tour, like last year, we toured with Yelawolf and then finished on a Friday or Saturday in Perth, and then I’m back at the work desk on Monday. That transition is not a vibe! It’s real hard, but you gotta do it until you can turn what you’re doing into a business. It’s a business decision.”
B-Wise is one of many faces touted as the new school of Australian hip-hop talent. With a momentum upheaval in both diversity and style, B-Wise says it simply comes down to the age of the internet opening up the viability and networks for people to spread and share their music. But in terms of the industry, there is a clear cause of the new school’s rise to prominence.
“The leaders in the Australian hip-hop scene that have already created their own platform, they’ve been the forefront for the past five to ten years. Instead of them shunning us, saying it’s too far left, it’s different to what we were trying to do, they’ve actually encouraged it and picked it up and said, ‘Yo, these are the newer guys coming out. And this is the new generation and the growth of our scene.’ And then taking us on tour, taking us on the road to increase the awareness.
“And that’s what I think has helped create the shift. For example I went on tour with Tuka and Citizen Kay toured with Seth Sentry. Without that happening, that wouldn’t have helped shift the culture a bit too.”
B-Wise suggests that there’s really no clear line between the ‘old’ and the ‘new’. “I think the media try to pin us up all against each other like, ‘This is the new wave, they’re different from these guys’. But at the end of the day we’ve got to give them some credit, they could easily say to their fan base, ‘Fuck these cunts!’ Excuse my language! ‘They’re too far left, they’re not representing us.’ Then that would just hurt. Them doing their thing it helped us to do our thing different.”
As well as progressing Australia sonically, B-Wise also represents the diversity and multiculturalism of this sun burnt land, being half African and half Caucasian. “Growing up in Sydney as an Afro Australian wasn’t the most common thing when you’re younger, as you got older depending on where you went to school or what area you lived in you started to see it as more of a community and link up with other people like yourself.
Earlier on it was mixed, so you relied on your parents’ social groups to engage with other Afro kids other than that you know it’d be Aussie kids or Asians and what not. It was cool growing up in Sydney. I grew up also in rural New South Wales, that was a bit quite different compared to when I was in Sydney. That was a bit harder ’cause you were the only one.”
But was B-Wise at least able to see himself in Australia’s popular sphere? “In Australian culture I don’t think multiculturalism was really represented at all. You can’t turn on Neighbours, Home and Away or anything like that and see anyone who looks like you. Even if you live in Sydney, especially if you’re in the South West, you know that’s not what you engage with or deal with.
“There’s nothing to identify with. We would identify with other things, American television shows like Fresh Prince of Bel Air. For example, my song ‘Prince Akeem’ – Coming to America was one of those things. Never look to the TV or magazines for that cause you’re not gonna find anything, and you kind of get used to it as well. You get older. You just think that’s the norm.”
It gives pause to think if Australia at large is apathetic to multicultural representation. “I think it’s being ignored. I did a degree in marketing, and I’m not gonna front, a lot of marketers market their product and brand on who they feel is their target audience in a sense of in this country. It depends on the product, but overall it would be Caucasian people.
“And I’m half white as well, I’m not saying I don’t relate to certain things, which I do, but it’s not always going to hit with me. I think that it is on purpose in the sense of… we’re going to do these things in order to focus on who we think is the greater majority in this country, and that’s what tends to happen. And some people might be like ‘oh well, the minority of the multicultural population, we don’t find it significant enough to represent them as much yet so we’re not gonna be the ones who make that effort first. We’ll see how other people do.’
“Some brands and products have been brave to put people of more colour and diversity on front of their billboards to show that they’re taking a more mature step or approach a step towards Multiculturalism in Australia and for their products and makes themselves leaders in that sense. So it’s getting better. The reality is we’re still a young country. We’ll take it one day at a time.”
With each step this country moves forward, does that progress unravel with the appointment of senators like Pauline Hanson? “Pauline, man. She’s a sad lady. She just needs dinner with a multicultural family. She needs a hug. She’s not a threat, man. She’s just old and confused, man. She just needs a hug bruh. Straight up.”
So apart from noticing a trend in a lack of multicultural representation, did B-Wise ever feel looked over due to his heritage? “There’s no complaints or anything. People say, ‘Ah, have you been held back because of the colour of your skin?’ I could sit here and cry and say maybe, but it’s about the work, man. Do the work and you get the results. That’s what I’m about.”
This ethic transported B-Wise from an emcee on the bench, waiting for his shot, to donning his Elefant Traks jersey, hungry to keep the ball rolling; a theme which informed his early The Benchmen mixtape series and now his debut EP, Semi-Pro.
With those sports analogies in mind, did an athletic career inform his current vocation? “I did play soccer quite competitively for 10 years before being into music. I do come from a sports background but I felt like The Benchmen, tying that in, sitting on the sideline, not being the first pick, always feeling like the underdog, that’s how I was feeling in music and in life up to that point.
“I always felt like I had to prove something to someone or to myself. So I went in with a more humble approach. Look, I’m gonna be the sideline guy but work as hard as anyone. And then Semi-Pro. I didn’t on purpose tie that in to The Benchmen, it just somehow did. It’s more of a progression. You graduated from being a The Benchmen to Semi-Pro, being semi-pro is like, you’re almost there. They’re at a level of professionalism. But you’re always willing to learn to be the best you can be.
“I’m not gonna put out an album that’s gonna be like, Pro or End-Pro; that saga’s done. But the era of Semi-Pro is gonna stick around for a bit cause it’s bigger than just an EP title. For me it’s like I have an ambition to continue to learn and grow and always do things with a professional behaviour but always treat it in a way where I’ve got room to move and grow.”
Next on the cards for the Semi-Pro era and capping off a big year is the upcoming headline show at Newtown Social Club on December 15, which is surely a little bit more nerve-inducing than playing off the bench.
“It’s more of an excitement than being nervous. Cause for support slots you want people to like you. You’re essentially performing to someone else’s crowd. You have to woe them and impress them. You have more to prove than anyone else there. You want to try and stand out with the time that you’re given. And you don’t really do the songs you want to do, you gotta try and keep it snappy and entertaining.”
So what will change now that he’s the main reason for buying a ticket? “I can perform longer. And I can do the songs that my fans and my listeners will be waiting for. I can come out and miss a couple words and know my audience is gonna pick em up and I can see them rapping and be like that’s where I was at, if that’s whatever happened but, I’m really keen for that
“I haven’t played my own show since last year which we did at Sydney at the spectrum, ya know smaller venue but that was a vibe, so I’m really excited to play Newtown Social. I’ve never played there before as well, I’ve heard good things. Churn out some of these new songs and some of the older ones as well to people that I know to people who will appreciate it.”
However for those who have caught B-Wise opening up for Illy or Horrorshow’s recent tour, courtesy of an arresting, unique set, it’s easy to forget who the headliner is. “I’m glad if that’s the way it came across cause that’s what we try to do without taking too much away from the main act. If you feel that it blends then that’s mission accomplished.”
Semi Pro is out now through Elefant Traks.
