Coco Solid is the New Zealand underground electro-rapper who’s seducing and shaking live crowds worldwide with her psychedelic raps, cut-throat style and lo-fi beats. The sound: a bossy 80’s electro rap, mixing a tough voice with a trademark wit.
“Like Peaches, but its far more clever and has a cheeky exuberance that most hip-hop of any flavour lacks. This shit is cool.” - Austin Chronicle (US)
"like any truly original record, Denim & Leather rewards with multiple listens and gradually gets under your skin. This is hip-hop with a difference and its kicking" TNT (UK)
“Smart as Stephen Hawking, sexy as Brigitte Bardot, full of monster techno riffs and truly seismic bass it’s the most exciting local album I’ve heard all year, and the funniest.” Grant Smithies, Sunday Star Times (NZ)
Princess Superstar has paid homage to COCO SOLID by covering a hook in recently released Monday Morning single, her youtube clip with Flight of the Conchords and Erik Ultimate has almost hit 500,000 views and she is currently recording an album with Denmark hip-hop producer Robin Hannibal (Owusu & Hannibal fame) after meeting him at the 2008 Red Bull Music Academy.
Alongside the original Malaysian gangsta DJ Han Baby, Coco is the musical shape-shifter. She has supported Girl Talk, Avenue D, The 5,6,7,8’s and King Brothers in NZ. Overseas she has rapped alongside Sway, TTC, O’mmas Keith from SA-RA, Spankrock and The Roger Sisters. In the London Time Out she was murkily likened to MIA and SXSW awarded her best lyricist of the festival in 2006. German crowds have packed out factories to hear her lo-fi ghetto-tech and she was a welcome addition to the LA art scene the following year which applauded her ‘droll lyrics’.
Back in NZ Coco Solid was named in the top 10 albums of 2005, 2006 and 2007 in the Sunday Star Times, The Listener and on Radio NZ. In 2008 alongside her favorite local rappers she played a packed MySpace Secret Show and sold out of her limited edition 12” release. This year she was featured at New York’s CMJ festival and has tracks released on Serato’s Whitelabel.net.
Online:
www.cocosolid.com
www.myspace.com/cocosolid
ROBIN HANNIBAL
“Some people say you can’t hear a difference of one dB. But I’d like to believe that you can.” Inarguable. And the kind of thesis that best reflects the curious, fine-tuned approach of Robin Braun, one half of Owusu & Hannibal. Having decided to make a track for the American MC Q-Tip (Robin says, “it’s a bit ambitious but you gotta try”), he and Phil Owusu created a bed for that Tip-ical flow with a shifting pattern of bass drums and floor toms. “We wanted to mix more of a real sound – we played real drums, and a lot of synths. It’s a very dark sound.” Taking a classic template and then vibing with it (or messing with it), seems to be an instinctive process for them. Robin didn’t start studying music theory until after high school, but Academy engineer Erik Breuer comments, “he can take any instrument and make it work.” Those inbuilt antennae came in useful recently when creating a soundtrack for a film about a disco-loving worm. The assignment was to recreate disco classics, which he completed diligently, all the way down to writing his own horn charts. “You learn a lot more about these songs, because you don’t usually listen to them in this analytical way. I took every little detail, like the way the drummer would play the high hat.” Although the project had its limitations, the OST format was appropriate for this producer, who says “I always loved epic or ethereal sounds. I like synthetic stuff: but I like when it’s played in a very classical manner. There’s a notion or a feeling of a soundtrack in some ways.” Robin is interested in the magic that can happen when seemingly mismatched elements come together. He says, “I’m looking forward to collaborating at the Academy on styles of music I haven’t really worked on before.” Like Morricone knocking spurs with cowboys: to stop making sense, never seemed so sensible.
