Last time I spoke on this I was angry and defensive; I wrote this track to get some shit off my chest and to cement the lessons I learned associating with DEMONS in the music scene. 

I have a lot of love and respect for the culture of Hip Hop. I’m realizing now that I had made the naïve assumption that everyone is basically in this for the same reasons and after a few years in the Melbourne scene I now understand that most of the scene is soft, dominated by disingenuous DEMONS with strategies of the average failed pick-up artist. 

I wrote with some of these guys and shared openly thinking it was love but there’s really people out here who are just using the craft of rap with no respect for the history and foundations of the culture. 

I’m an open book, I don’t have any issue being viewed as a flawed human being because I know that we all are. I discovered that most people don’t want to compete over skills in an organic meritocracy. Everyone says they believe in building community but what they really mean is they support their little nepotistic clicks to insulate each other from the storm and support their superficial ladder climbing ambitions. 

They don’t have love for the OG’s of this culture, to the point where they don’t even practice reciprocity for the artists who directly assist them with song writing and opportunities. 

Rappers act like they’re too pure or ‘positive’ to engage in the perceived negativity of battle rap and diss-tracks but what I see is that they’re softer than buttercups and they don’t have the confidence or self-belief to go up against an MC to put their skills to the test. 

I love battle rap because I see it as an equalizer, like MMA or boxing, the only places in life where merit and effort mean more than social hierarchy and popularity. 

Shameless scenesters are DEMONS, they are only interested in what they can leech from you. They don’t care about doing their best out of respect for the culture, DEMONS will put in minimal effort and even steal from other artists out of a craving for attention when they know they have nothing to offer. Image means everything to them because there is no substance to their foundations. 

They will use you for whatever they can, they will pose as ‘nice guys’ but once you scrape beneath the surface, you’ll soon discover they don’t give a fuck how you feel. They will learn the language of charisma and empathy, but DEMONS are only gathering information to use against you at a later date. Their MO is to compensate their lack of meaning with a sense of control in their numerous shallow relationships. 

I believe that people show their true character in times of adversity. It’s easy to get along when everyone happy, but do you still have love for your homie’s when they finally blow up after being gaslit by narcissistic manipulators for months? People show their capacity for realness when there is nothing for them to gain from perusing the truth at the core of an event. 

From my activist career to my recent ambitions in the music industry I’ve always shared my energy freely without consciously worrying about receiving it back. This is because I genuinely enjoy sharing my gifts with others and because I believe that if everyone worked together with open heart’s we could change the world dramatically in a relatively small amount of time. However, these experiences are teaching me to be more discerning and practice stronger boundaries. 

My instinct has always been to see the good in people but I’m learning to identify the DEMONS by being willing to recognize the realness in the human beings around me. 

Check out the new track DEMONS available on all platforms now!