“The label and the fans were all like ‘When’s the new album out?’ and they were all really keen,” Chapman says. “I was keeping up a front for a while saying it wouldn’t be long when really I hadn’t written a thing. It all kind of hit me that I had to make an album and there was expectation around it and it was like taking baby steps again, trying to remember how to write properly. After a while, I got back into the swing of things and really started to enjoy it all. I’m pretty much finishing it now, over the next month or so.”
Chapman explains that he felt he needed to learn how to rap, write, and perform again. The latter lesson, though, was one he needed to embark on for quite some time. His audience would’ve never guessed it, but Chapman used to hate getting up on stage. “Putting myself out there has always been a pretty scary thing for me – especially performing; I used to hate it,” he admits. “When The Festival Song took off, suddenly I was in front of thousands of people. Instead of being really excited, living the dream and thinking ‘Yeah, I’ve fucking made it’, I was terrified every time I had to perform and just before I’d go out there the last thought in my head was always ‘I wish I could just go home.’ I guess my instinct was to get shitfaced to go out there but I really wanted to get over that. I didn’t want to rely on that to have a good time and I wanted to conquer all of those fears and actually enjoy it. Now I’m at a point that I finally love performing and I finally understand what people were talking about when they would say performing is the best drug in the world.”
Chapman has been on a long journey to this point and while some may have given up on music and even themselves when faced with an exhausting road to recovery, the Melbourne rapper has been able to escape the emotional trappings of hip hop. “I think the beauty of it all is that it helped me separate from all that ego shit,” he says. “I think there’s way too much ego in rap to begin with. There’s so much identity invested in music and I think after that happened a lot of that had fallen away for me. When you’re writing deeper music you start to realise that a lot of it is coming from a place beyond you and you’re more of a vehicle for it. It stops that whole attitude of ‘Yeah, I’m the sickest rapper out’ and all that stupid shit. It was weird ‘cause I lost the plot for a while but it was also a cleansing experience. You come out the other side and start to see the beauty in it all and you see what music is really about which is expression and wanting to do something good with it. There’s no need to add to the countless records out there that are ego-based.”
Chapman is currently finishing up his new album, The Game, and while a release date is yet to be confirmed, it will arrive this year and only time will tell whether the Pez audience will embrace his new musical direction. “I was in a dark place for a bit and I kind of stalled on writing because I didn’t want to just… well Eminem is renowned for doing this, just telling you what’s going on at every point in your life on every album,” he explains. “It’s like therapy in music and I didn’t want to make an album where I was doing that shit and just repeating myself. I wanted a bit of balance where whatever mood you’re in you can put the album on and get something out of it. It’s a journey and it’s about coming out the other side,” he continues, hinting a little at what can be expected. “There’s a song with Paul Kelly that I’m pretty excited about, I’m just finishing it at the moment but, yeah, I don’t know how much more informationI’m allowed to give away. I’ll stop now.”
BY KRISSI WEISS
