Reviewed onFriday September 9
It’s been a year since Goodgod closed up shop, and Plan B is a much smallerdeal. Sadly, as Ravin and Ata of arts collective Heaps Decent took to the stage, the whole damn club was near empty, with only a handful of punters soaking up the smooth flows of these young rappers.
The boys kept it to the stage, and though they had impeccable rhythm, they were drowned out by an overenthusiastic bass mix. Genesis Owusu fared better, bringing huge party energy to the little room. The Canberra MC got amongst it, leaping into the fray with rapid-fire bars that nodded towards London grime. When he wasn’t dancing like crazy, Owusu brought some emotion into the room too, taking time to drop a rest-in-peace song dedication.
Then the locals got fired up – Coda Conduct had been on the floor all night, giving the supports their full attention, and their loyalty was repaid as their extended families flooded the room. The fiery duo, dressed in blinding white matching tennis outfits, stepped up with bemused smiles. Their attitude is far from serious, but their rhymes mean business.
With guns akimbo they fired ceaselessly into the crowd. Sally Coleman and Erica Mallett have evidently been drinking that Canberra water, tapping into the same energy Owusu carried in with him. Opening with a friendly-fire rap battle, they built into their latest material with old favourites from Butter Side Up.
Hip hop is about community, and the duo brought theirs with them, bringing the citysiders seamlessly into the fold. Like Owusu, they spent a good deal of time on the floor with the rest of us, leading to a spectacularly awkward moment as Erica demanded that her brother “get his booty low” during the standout ‘Click Clack (Front N Back)’.
The tour was focused around new single ‘Usually I’m Cool’, but the real centrepiece was a moment outside their discog, when they freestyled over their favourite hip hop tracks. Yep, in an underpopulated small bar in Sydney, two local rappers dropped ‘Work It’, spitting the tune out with such lyrical prowess that Missy Elliot, on the other side of the world, must have gotten chills. That shit is going straight to the pool room.
