Koolta’s one of the more interesting blokes in Australian hip hop. Since winning the Hilltop Hoods initiative in 2011 he’s quietly gone about his business, consistently dropping quality music. After four mixtapes, a heap of production credits, 2012’s debut full-length album and over a decade as an Ozhiphop.com member in some shape or form, it was high time we got in touch for a proper interview. I had a chat with him for half an hour about his new single, new album, making beats, seeing Allday blow up and Farmer’s Union Iced Coffee.
Congratulations on the new single All Together, I’m a big fan of it and I’m glad Triple J jumped on it. I liked the way you took down the “she’ll be right mate” attitude to the casual xenophobia a lot of Australians have. Was there anything in particular that set the record in motion or was it just something you’d wanted to get off your chest? The idea had been floating around in my head for a while, but it was actually quite a while back when Andrew Bolt came out and had some blog post or something about Adam Goodes and how he should stop whining. I just thought “how can this bloke be trying to speak from the perspective of Adam Goodes?” You know, if he hasn’t been in that person’s position he has no right to really speak on those kind of things. I guess that’s what sparked the idea and then it just went from there.
You did a good job – not too preachy and it’s fairly lighthearted but it hits home well and cuts into it. Everybody knows people who are like that in Australia unfortunately. I’m glad you touched on that because it’s exactly what I was going for. I picked that kind of beat because I wanted it to be the kind of thing that’ll get the listeners heads nodding live. There’s a bit of a contrast with that kind of beat – it’s almost like your traditional kind of boom bap, p