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PNC
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On his new LP, Bazooka Kid: 'I found myself listening to a lot of Phil Collins and Human League and that kind of stuff, so it just ends up working out like that.' The 1980s were a fascinating time for music. Whereas the '60s and '70s had been defined by the guitar, in the '80s it was the synthesiser's turn to dominate the sound of the pop charts. In the early part of the decade the British Musician's Union tried to have the new instrument banned because of the threat they perceived it posing to their rank and file. Such an absurd notion was struck down, but hip hop, for all its anti-establishment rhetoric, can be a very traditionalist form, and the same way rock musicians revere the guitar, New Zealand producers have long worshipped at the altar of the sampler. For PNC, the country's devotion to '90s East Coast-style boom bap rap was becoming a straitjacket, and for him to let his music be reflective of his own tastes and inclinations, it was one he needed to break. This meant unleashing the synthesiser in the most boundary-obliterating way. 'It was never like a set sit-down plan, like 'I want to do this type of music'. I guess it was just, like the producers were sending me the same sort of looped soul sound and I just knew that I had no inspiration to rap over those. 'I still like that music completely but it was just not personally inspiring me to rap to it. Then when I get the more synth-based beats with the more retro '80s feel it was gelling with the stuff I was trying to write. I was getting more into writing melodies with the music as opposed to straight rapping. So it just kind of went from there.' From there the Auckland-based rapper (the name PNC comes from Palmerston North City, his hometown, one which strongly shaped his iconoclastic approach) came up with a single called Take Me Home. The song signaled a sea change in sound for the rapper, with a bouncing, addictive drum sound coupled with over-driven guitars and a spectacular, filtered vocoder hook. The lyrics were typically smart and precise, detailing a messy affair which turns dangerous when the protagonist tries to break it off, and delivered in his trademark barrelling, momentous flow. But it was the production, the cohesive sound of the piece, which was most startling. It seemed a conscious reaction against the conservatism at the heart of New Zealand hip hop, one which was borne perhaps of an inferiority complex by comparison to its US parent, and there was an audacity, a true maverick spirit in the song which suggested PNC was not content to be another solid New Zealand rapper. 'It's just a lot of people think of it as if there's a set of rules,' he says wistfully. 'I know a lot of the dudes I first met in hip hop would be like 'you need to hold down your four elements and if you don't do that, that's not real hip hop'. I guess people would say that on records and they'd get it from that but really I've always thought hip hop is expressing how you feel through the music, however that is.' The album which would rise from that discontent is called Bazooka Kid, and represents a giant leap on from what was a very solid award wining debut in Rookie Card. Commencing with some life history 'No brother/ One Mother/ No Dad', before taking in the classic brag-rap of Tonight and the gut-wrenching tales of wasted lives on Gone with Che-Fu, the album is elevated by PNC's deft lyrical touch. Too often in New Zealand and elsewhere 'expressing how you feel through music' has been co-opted into generating an idealised image, a persona which can serve as reality in the place of truly opening up. This is most starkly realised on 1/2 Kast, which tells the story of PNC's identity, with an absent Samoan father, and raised by his European mother. It's a very New Zealand story, and the questions it raises are quintessentially of our culture and era, yet it has rarely been articulated so vividly. 'I've always embraced that I'm both, and especially being raised totally by my European side,' he says. 'It's fake for me to go 'I'm only Samoan.' Uhhh, yeah, nah, I'm a bit white, you know' That's what I am' I had a lot of friends growing up that would have problems with identity in that way. They didn't really know what they were or they felt like they identified with this one group but they looked like this group or something like that.' 1/2 Kast is but one part of Bazooka Kid, though. The title track is a stunning production, redolent of '80s niche genres like Latin Freestyle and Italo Disco, with brilliant punchline MCing, and it's this ability to embrace his multifaceted personality which sets him apart. He is the bar-room warrior, and the bedroom MC, obsessed with the sound and scale of the '80s but not above rapping over an acoustic guitar. Samoan and European, combative and reflective, of the city and the country. In Bazooka Kid he has made an album which embodies all those apparent contradictions, and does so over productions which don't so much rewrite the New Zealand hip hop rule book as turn a blowtorch on it. PNC (aka Sam Hansen) is today's most talked about up & coming artist in Aotearoa Hip-hop. His fluid flow has drawn comparisons to legends like Jay-Z and Notorious BIG but, don't get it twisted, his brand of Hip-hop is distinctly Aotearoa. Hailing from Palmerston North, PNC gained underground notoriety performing alongside Auckland's Breakin Wreckwordz. His unofficial single Day In The Life stayed at number one on the Bfm charts for three weeks and received serious radioplay. He followed that with appearances on P-Money's 321 Remix, Get Back and the NZ chart topping Stop The Music single from the Magic City album. His refreshing style has caught the attention of NZ Hip-hop's elite. At the age of 21 he had already worked with seminal NZ artists such as Scribe, DJ Sir-Vere, Frontline, Dawn Raid, Nesian Mystik, Che Fu and Chong Nee to name a few. His guest appearances alone have led people to credit him with arguably 'the best flow in New Zealand'. In 2006 he released his debut solo album Rookie Card which quickly garnered much critical acclaim. His singles Just Roll & PN Whoa were top 20 chart hits, and Who Betta Than This was an underground smash, propelled by the all-star remix. In 2007 he was nominated for 2 New Zealand Pacific Music Awards and 2 Australian Urban Music Awards. He won Best Hip-Hop Album at the prestigious Vodafone New Zealand Music Awards. Rookie Card was also named top 10 New Zealand Album of the Year by Yahoo! Xtra Music and received a five star rating from the Sunday Star Times PNC has also been consistently touring, supporting both Lupe Fiasco and Dizzee Rascal, and also sharing the stage on local tours with such peers as Young Sid, David Dallas, Chong Nee and Nesian Mystik. For information and press dealings, please contact ingrid@dirty.co.nz |
