“I do think [hip hop] has changed in that I think maybe a couple of years ago there was definitely this obvious sound…it used to be referred to as ‘barbecue rap’,” recalls Jackie Onassis beat maker Raph Dixon. He’s sitting down to his first coffee of the day when he phones in from his back yard in Sydney’s inner-west, the lion’s den of Aussie hip hop. “I think a lot of people felt that the only way that anyone was going to listen to your music was to make a big, happy, silly song. There’s nothing wrong with that vibe…maybe people were only really trying to do that, and we were only really getting the same song again and again. I feel like at the moment it’s about doing what you want,” he notes.
Perhaps it’s having done exactly what they wanted which led to the duo’s recent success. “The whole Jackie Onassis thing really started I guess in November 2012 so it was a touch over a year ago. We were just…two guys who did it in a converted spare room of the house that I was living in at the time and we put [the EP] on the Net for free,” says Dixon. He’s completely unaffected when he describes their year as a bit of a haphazard affair. “We didn’t have any management or anything like that and fortunately triple j happened to pick [us] up and we were lucky enough through a series of weird events like when Zane Lowe on BBC Radio 1 gave…Crystal Ballin’ a few plays. Since then it’s been a bit of a wild ride.” Indeed, that wins understatement of the month as a string of local and national tours and festivals as well as a signing to Sony Music quickly followed.
Before Jackie Onassis’ eruption, Raph and Tan are self-proclaimed “…uni bums knocking about and scrounging things together.” The boys got to know each other having caught the same bus to high school. They drifted apart only to be reunited at uni where they both took the same Modern American History lecture. It was there that they bonded over a mutual love for Ms Jackie Onassis, adopted her name as their moniker and decided to make music together.
“When we released the [Holiday] EP it kind of came at a perfect time when we had part-time uni jobs and instead of getting serious and looking for a real job we had to tell ourselves ‘we’re going to be too busy with this music thing so we’d better keep the part-time jobs’,” says Dixon.
Proving that it takes more than spare time to succeed, a decent amount of hard work, talent and a good support network pay off as well. Jackie Onassis are the newest members of the One Day crew: A collective that includes acts such as Horrorshow, Joyride and Spit Syndicate. Raph explains joining the crew was a natural progression and wasn’t “…like signing a record deal or something where they make you sign some kind of deal into the collective.” Having been friends since the age of 13 they joined the One Day crew after talks about releasing an album and Raph jokes there weren’t any gang initiation ceremonies involved. “[There was] no weird cult-like chanting, more just as long as you knew how to play at gigs…and just be good blokes”.
Having practically grown up together lends itself to a group dynamic and writing style that Raph explains is completely organic. “Kai likes to write. Most of his lyrics are definitely about stuff he’s seen or things he’s been through and most of our music is really going for that vibe. We really try to talk about it a bunch, trying to capture something that people can get and apply to their own lives.”
Juliette, the title track for their latest EP, is exactly that. A melancholic track with synths aplenty it laments an ailing relationship and is the perfect example of the honesty that typifies Jackie Onassis. Although seemingly reluctant, Raph does admit: “Juliette is Kai’s story. Kai does the rapping and everything, but it comes from one of his stories and one of mine that I told him about.”
When it comes to work there’s an undeniable sense of hands-on focus and dedication that Raph describes as “control freaky”. Whilst filming a clip for Special Occasion he explains “…we [were] kind of there from the outset chucking around ideas and building [them] up and having input into different scenes and stuff like that. We’ll probably be there being insanely annoying and pedantic about the editing process and stuff so yeah we do force ourselves upon everything to do with us.”
With a fresh injection of mature sounds and slightly less hand raising Jackie Onassis are paving the way for a future of more freedom within the industry and a wider variety of beats. For Raph it’s simple: “Everyone’s kind of pushing the envelope in their own way but still having their own sounds. As long as you’re making good music it’ll get out there. You’re getting a different sound and if you want to make party bangers you can do that too.” Now that’s how you have your cake and eat it too.
BY ISABELLA UBALDI
