Emph N Treats have been a household name on the Gold Coast for years and have constantly wowed crowds with their unique and innovative hip-hop style. Emma Whines caught up with the duo over the phone to discuss their recent gig at Pizzey Skate Park, their love of the GC hip-hop scene and some new music that’s on the horizon.
It’s nice to catch up again! How have you guys been?
Ah, we’re both a bit hoarse at the moment. We’ve done heaps of festivals since the skate park opening, Treatsy went down to Rabbits Eat Lettuce and performed at a big Hip-Hop showcase and did a few solo tracks with some of the Brissy Crew. Then we had Pizzey Skate Park opening and then Earth Frequency, so we’ve just been nuts at the moment.
How was playing the opening of the Pizzey Skate Park?
Honestly, it was a dream. I mean, we’ve been skating since we were both like 11, so that's close to 23 years. We’ve been on the Goldie for more than ten years now, and we’ve always skated Pizzey. We were watching it get fixed up, and we were like, ‘how cool would it be to play the grand opening’, and somehow it manifested!
Do you think that skate culture has influenced you creatively?
Definitely! They go hand in hand, and both influence each other. We were skating before we were making music and we were kind of introduced to hip-hop through skating. All the old skate videos used to have cool, old-school hip-hip tracks behind them, and back in VCR days, they had this thing called the 411 Video Magazine, and that was like the skater's Bible, and there were heaps of hip-hop music on there. We've also tried to always incorporate skating into our video clips as well, and Pizzey has featured a number of times.
The skater mentality is also great for struggling musos who are always on the grid. Like that idea that you get knocked down, and then you get back up, cause you know you’re gonna do this one way or the other.
Really, we just love skating and music, and when the two cultures combine, it is just a dream come true. That’s why Pizzey was so great because it was like a bucket list item for us. Now we’re manifesting playing the Olympics there!
What goes into planning a set like Pizzey? What gets you guys ready, and what's the priority when creating a set?
The first thing we did was choose the tracks we wanted. We knew there were gonna be a lot of families there, so making sure that we were choosing cool, upbeat tracks was important. Plus, we wanted skating orientated tracks as well. We always try and play to the crowd, so depending on the venue, the set that you'd get at an all-age event is completely different to one that you might get at Earth Frequency. We like to be versatile enough that you could book us for a kid's party or book us for a rave, and you’ll get a good show either way. We’re pretty good at on-the-spot thinking from years of playing shows and freestyling a lot.
Do you guys try and incorporate freestyling into all your shows?
Again, it depends on the crowd, but we do like to incorporate it cause it's good for interaction with the crowd, and it's such an authentic display of hip-hop. Plus, it blows people away when you get the crowd to give you a word, and you make a rhyme out of it. Some people just have never seen art displayed in that way.
Is it different playing a hip-hop show on the GC compared to Brisbane, Sydney or Melbourne?
Definitely, I mean, the GC scene is a lot smaller, even compared to Brissy. There are just more shows happening up there. We understand that hip-hop isn’t for everyone, but we love changing people’s minds, not just of us but of hip-hop in general. I think when people find out they have artists like us in their own backyard talking about skating and being big advocates of the scene, it surprises them. Often the biggest compliment we can get is that someone has changed their mind about hip-hop as a genre after listening to our music.
Any new music coming out this year?
We’re actually sitting in the Emph N Treats shed studio/creation lab at the moment and putting a plan together for the EP. So, there is definitely new music on the way! I think the biggest problem for us is that we make so much music and have so many half-finished songs that only need one thing changed to make it ready for release, but we never get around to it. We need to learn how to finish things but we're definitely aiming to get some new content up on the majors like Spotify and Apple Music soon because too many people are hitting us up for it!
Follow the guys @emphntreats and hit them up on Spotify.