- by Bevan Jee
Warcry are a trio of rappers and DJ from The Gold Coast,
Queensland. The guys have just released a full CD 'The Art of
War'. There live performances are so energetic and hype that they
have been known to make the needles jump off the decks!
D: Donovon (Wishbone) S: Sab B: Firstly, tell the readers who the members of Warcry are and how the group was formed. D: There's Syke, Sabotage, Wishbone and Dee Jay Ray. Two Australians, Two New Zealander's. The group started in 91 and it wasn't until 93 that me, Sab and Jay started performing and doing the local and Brisbane scene. In late 94 Syke joined up with us. A year later we all put the CD together. B: How would you describe the tracks found on your CD? D: We really can't put it down as one distinct flavour. We always want something different or something new rather than follow a recipe. Each song is treated as an individual project so were not aiming to achieve something that's already been done before. B: Tell us your main musical influences and what stuff you listen to. D: I haven't got one specific area in hip-hop music that I like. New York Style, West Coast Style, European Style, I like it all. I just don't like the shit!, whatever's good I like. I try to keep it like that and not close my mind to anything new, that way I can always come up with something progressive and new. Take the best of everything and learn from it. S: Wu-Tang Clan, Hijack, Gunshot, all that English hardcore sound, House of Pain. I like a lot of other stuff as well.. Sepultra, Regurgitator, James Brown, Jimi Hendrix... B: Your debut CD 'The Art Of War' was released on the independent tip. Tell us a little about the CD and how it all came together. D: Basically Myself and Sab we 've wanted to do it for a long time. Syke came along and then we had three motivated heads. My brother Jay Ray joined us and laid down the cuts. S: We just wanted to get something together. We got tired of sitting around doing it on the 4 track. We saved up our cash and Don started buying a bit of equipment. We started progressing and found a mate that could give us a good studio rate. We were like, let's do it!! B: What other projects are you going to be working on in the future? D: Hardnuts, Upperkut, Wicked Diggers, Souls of Darkness, Speed and Groovalicious. Warcry will always be always our focal point whether or not the cash is coming. We'll be making hip-hop forever. S: We're always working on new material. We're trying to get other rappers to guest on our new stuff as well, not just us. B: You supported DJ Q-Bert in Brisbane, were you happy with the crowds reaction and enthusiasm to your performance? D: It was a really good crowd. There were no half steppers and fake wanna-bee's. Everyone that turned up for that were true hip-hop fans. Everyone respected each other, dug Q-Bert and really appreciated his performance. S: It was great, made me happy. People in the front row knowing your lyrics. That's pretty mad. There were people jumping around. B: I know that yourself and J-Ray used to B-Boy with the Smurfs from New Zealand. Are any of the members still active and breaking? D: We started the Smurfs in New Zealand in 82 as soon as we heard Planet Rock, everyone went crazy there. We left in 83 or 84 and came to Australia. We started the Smurfs over here as well. We were known as a pretty good breakdancing crew. As far as I know some of the members of the Smurfs in New Zealand started the Upperhut Posse and they're still going strong making a Cross between reggae and hip-hop music. B: What do you think about the current state of Brisbane Hip-Hop? D: It could blow up every single weekend. If someone does one good show and everyone turns up to it and everyone loves it, they'll go the next one regardless of who's putting it on... It's not a matter of that, eveyone's got to be open minded and get into it. You cant' get into a scene that puts on a show every second month. People have to be open minded there and help each other out. The talent of Australian hip-hop is just unbelievable compared to most countries outside of the U.S. B: Any last words and shout outs? D: Australian Hip-Hop's got the potential of being something major. To convince the major record labels and people with the power to put guys on, you've got to take it up with a more professional attitude. You can't be walking around with a bad attitude and be dissing each other. You gotta support each others group's and you have to promote the scene and not destroy it from within. American hip-hop has a lot of attitude in it and it's been misinterpreted here that you have to carry an attitude with you, and the attitude everyone want's to carry is the negative attitude.. but there's also a positive attitude. The positive attitude will get you there in the end I think. When it comes time to do the business, get the business done and do the partying afterwards.. Shoutouts firstly to all hip-hoppers in Australia and New Zeland, Hardnuts, Upperkut, Wicked Diggers, The Bomb Magazine, Untouchables, Groovalicious, Speed, Bevan, Fraze, DIA, Da Johnsta, and peace to everyone getting' down to the Warcry thang. S: Shout Out! to the Australian Hip-Hop massive. Just get out and do it! Don't sit around on your ass smoking grass! Warcry's debut CD 'The Art of War' is currently available at The Lounge Room and through The Australia Wide Bomb Mail Order Catalog. Support Australian Hip-Hop.
