In director Park Chan-wook’s 2003 neonoir thriller Oldboy, a man is held captive for 15 years sooner than being stuffed in a trunk and hauled out into an empty field, left alone to resolve the thriller of how he obtained there and why.
Two an extended time and 8,000km away, the individuals of high-octane hip-hop collective 1300 (pronounced one-three-hundred) easy down their collars, mess up their hair and assign their most productive impressions of the personality Oh Dae-su and the goons terrorising him for their single, moreover named Oldboy. However the assign Oh Dae-su stood alone, 1300 mob the digicam as a pack, grinning whereas rapping with about a of potentially the most spectacular supply considered in an Australian outfit in years.
1300 producer and singer Nerdie describes the impact of the movie – and South Korean culture broadly – on the music 1300 is now making in the suburbs of Sydney. “I watched replacement fucked-up movies as soon as I modified into as soon as a kid,” the 24-twelve months-former says. “I had free rein. My grandpa had a DVD retailer in the storage the assign you’d hire out, be pleased, bootleg DVDs. I simply watched all of this crazy shit. I watched iRobot on repeat for be pleased a week.”
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He and rapper Rako, moreover 24, are talking to Guardian Australia on a break from a day in the studio. They bolt a vape wait on and forth between them as they grab how they met their fellow band individuals – rappers Dali Hart, 23, and Goyo, 26, and producer Pokari.Sweat, 31 – in 2020, after noticing one but another floating across the Korean music community in Sydney. “It’s no longer a monumental scene,” Nerdie clarifies. “It’s simply be pleased about a of us.”
In early 2021, when they released their breakout single No Caller ID, it modified into as soon as sure 1300 had hit on a rare chemical response. “You don’t have to discuss the tongue to know here’s a banger,” Koolism’s Hau Latukefu, the host of Triple J’s devoted hip-hop repeat, wrote in a review.
1300 bend and meld Korean and English into their lyrics, whereas their manufacturing draws from each and each contemporary references – from SoundCloud rap to accommodate and hardstyle – and the emo and punk-pop they consumed as youth.
“All of us grew up being attentive to what youth would eavesdrop on in Australia,” Nerdie says, name-checking Fallout Boy, Panic! at the Disco and Linkin Park, alongside dance and US hip-hop. “Me and [Pokari.Sweat] are Australian, so there’s an extremely western impact on the manufacturing – I wager that’s why it may possibly perchance well feel rather numerous to Korean of us making western sounds in Korea.”
Rako’s journey modified into as soon as a diminutive numerous; he grew up in Perth, but nearly exclusively consumed music coming out of Korea. “Our 5 individuals’ music tastes [vary], and the volume of exposure to Korean culture is moreover numerous,” he says. Between them, they journey the spectrum “from non-Korean culture to very Korean culture – and we meet in the guts”.
On their debut mixtape International Language, 1300 truly flex their muscle tissue, refusing to sit down in a single residing for too lengthy. For every slick and orderly music be pleased Rocksta, there’s a tune be pleased Ralph – being attentive to it feels be pleased sticking your head in a pinball machine. Luxuriate in Oh Dae-su heaving himself out of the trunk, 1300 catapults you into the long trot and leaves you to possess in the blanks of the plot in which you obtained there.
They’re following up the discharge of the account with a string of are residing presentations, particularly a field at Splendour in the Grass and nationwide dates supporting Self assurance Man, after a pitstop at the Sydney Opera House as fragment of Shimmering.
It’s a significant repeat for a band who weren’t certain, a twelve months in the past, whether Australia had the abdominal for what they maintain been making ready.
“We under no circumstances thought that Australian music of us would capture our music up,” Rako says. “You realize, we write in Korean. We continually thought, the language barrier is a stunning monumental fence to head over.”
“It simply doesn’t exist to your mind, be pleased the chance that it may possibly perchance well work,” Nerdie consents. “True motive you’re a Korean kid. Making abnormal hip-hop music. In Australia. It simply doesn’t originate any sense, be pleased why would of us be pleased this? Come on!”
Over time, the boundaries round a genre be pleased Australian hip-hop – one which, for an extended time, handiest sounded and looked be pleased one ingredient – maintain approach down, and fresh voices maintain grown louder. “There’s two generations,” Nerdie says: “the total classics” he followed rising up, together with 360, Kerser and Hilltop Hoods, and “this form of most contemporary abilities of more numerous artists that are doing afrobeat and all kinds of numerous stuff” – among them Genesis Owusu, whose are residing presentations 1300 maintain supported, Agung Mango and Raj Mahal, each and each of whom feature on International Language.
“It’s simply been this form of shift in mindset,” Nerdie says, of how Australia’s love for 1300 has led him and his bandmates to capture what they are doing more severely. However he may well simply as with out considerations be talking relating to the years of slack, incremental alternate that maintain resulted in the level the assign 1300 are if fact be told, rising as potentially the most promising and dynamic act Australia has produced in years.
“We weren’t planning to be this monumental, to be this trendy. We didn’t mediate anybody would be pleased it, to be upright. However there’s no limit to the assign it’s going to bolt now.”
1300 are performing as fragment of Shimmering at the Sydney Opera House on 27 Can even. International Language is out now (ADA)