I grew up in the tropics of North Queensland, Australia, in a coastal cane farming area. Most of my friends were Polynesian and when I would stay with them there was always singing and music. My own family were very musical and my mother in particular loved reggae, so in one form or another, I was always around it rhythmic music.
I understand that in the late 60's and 70's, the Jamaican Sound Systems spawned a new breed of vocal performer, usually the DJ, that would chant and rhyme over the loops and dubs he was playing to hype the crowd. This was called toasting.
In 1985, when I was in 5th grade, my mother bought a UB40 album called "Baggariddim". This wasn't like most of her other UB40 albums and she only played it once or twice and decided it was too experimental, she preferred Ali Campbell to croon over shit rather than what she was hearing on this album.
What she was hearing was the new wave of UK toasters including legends like Pato Banton and Dillinger doing their thing over UB40 riffs. I loved it, I thought these guys sounded heaps better than Ali over these tunes. The rhythm, the themes, everything was so fucking cool. Before I knew it I was singing "Hold your position" in my best, deepest 10 year old MC Stones voice and my mates were looking at me like I was talking Japanese.
I turned toward US Hip Hop in my teen years and was quite reluctant to embrace the new "techno" sounds coming out of the UK in the early 90's. I even performed and recorded Hiphop under the group Tactical Response in my late teens, we were terrible. Eventually someone took me to a rave and my attention was instantly on this guy shouting on a mic to "raise your hands" and "feel the ecstasy" or whatever. I thought it was a joke.
I remained unconvinced of the new dance culture's cred until I was played a "Jungle" tape by a few mates. The MC was saying stuff like "Run da riddim" "Badboy" "Rudeboy" "Rinsin tings" all that stuff and I stopped in my tracks. I knew this, I knew this stuff, I started singing Pato Banton's "King Step" over it and it fit perfectly. These guys nearly fell over backwards, they thought I was freestyling it. I had found where I could express myself musically and I asked them where I could get on a mic to this stuff.
Gravity it was, I think Splinky, Hutcho or someone was playing and my mate introduced me and they let me stand in line to have a go after an MC named, well, I'll not name him actually, but I remember trying to be friendly and said "Nice rhymes bro" or something shallow like that, and he come back with "Go grab me a drink and I'll give you some pointers." Shortly after that he yelled “Oooh, who knows this one!?†over the mic… right after the DJ dropped a dub plate.
Well MC Mellard, I wiped the floor with you that night bruz, because of that remark I decided to do more than that, and now I stand as Australia's first international MC touring overseas with legends like Bad Company, Teebee and Deiselboy, I have won Perth Dance Music Award for Best MC consecutively since 2001 undefeated and have 5 releases with the guy you wouldn't let me MC for that night, Greg Packer.
Lucky I never bought you that drink.
The rest is history and I'm still here, I need to thank my D&B family; Diamond "Daddy" D and my Loaded Dice crew, also MFI, Raggabone, Trafik, ATM, BBC 1XTRA (Bigups Bailey for feelin Landslide), Cymbalism, Jerona Fruits, NuUrban, Teknology Corps, Junglemania Taipei, Cloud 9 Hong Kong, Adelaide Crew, Teebee for not killing me for being drunk in Hong Kong on stage, Dieselboy for teaching me to stay human but project super-human, Stamina for being a mentor, a good mate and a genuine critic tellin you when it's phat and tellin you when it's shite, J Rippa for knocking me down a notch each time I got too comfortable (You are easily Australia's best D&B MC), Greg Packer and our secret ninjas, IC3 and GQ for bigging up the local MCs and remembering our names every time, we appreciate it every time, and there are heaps more people who I will add as they email me asking where the fuck they are in this list.
And that's that :)
Myspace Layouts - Myspace Editor - Image Hosting