Foss: This is Oliver Foss of Vogue
Magazine and I am here with the esteemed Jonathan ‘Bliss’ Notley and Max ‘Eso’
Mackinnon, but all of you must know them as the iconic Australian hip-hop band
Bliss n Eso. Welcome guys.
Eso: Thanks for having us mate.
Bliss: Great to be here Oliver.
Foss: Well I know you lads have a lot going
on at the moment, so let’s just get started. Would you guys mind starting by
just introducing yourselves and how the amazing Bliss n Eso came to be?
Bliss: Well I’m Bliss.
Eso: And I’m Eso, and yo we’re just two
guys who do what we love. We met in high school along with our man Tarik and we
really just been chilling and making tunes ever since.
Foss: And Bliss, what would you say you
achieve through your music?
Bliss: Yo man, where do I begin? We love to
write our music on whatever bothers us. War, inequality, the importance of our
origins, Australian culture and community, government, politics, religion,
global warming. Anything really. But I think the predominant message that we
try to send to our audience is that it doesn’t matter where you come from; it
doesn’t matter where you grew up; it doesn’t matter what others try to tell
you, you can make it. We air this because we want others to make it like us.
Neither of us come from the best background, but we have both achieved success,
and the reality is that anyone can make it in today’s world. We no longer live
in a society where you follow the footsteps of others but you can make your own
prints, and we want people to know that.
Foss: Anything to add on the matter, Eso?
Eso: Well as Jono said, it’s about
opportunity. At the end of the day, “Everyday’s another chance to ignite” for
those who have heard Addicted. There are always gonna be downfalls and struggles
in your life, but you gotta bounce back, and that’s how you, or we succeed. Our
music inspires music, or more generally, stepping out of the comfort zone. No
one wants the next Tupac, the next Messi, the next Zuckerberg or the next Robin
Williams to be stuck in dead-end jobs where their talents are wasted because others
told them they couldn’t make it.
Foss: I couldn’t agree more. So you’d say
that the prominent theme of your songs is not giving up and doing what makes
you happy?
Bliss: Bloody oath. That’s the big picture.
Ya know, “tryna’ reach new heights like a bird in a spaceship”. That kinda
thing.
Eso: Haha, “Tryna’ see how far, on planet
earth we can take this”.
Foss: Couldn’t say it better myself. And is
there a certain kind of person that you wrote all these inspirational songs
for?
Bliss: Man there ain’t a certain kind of
person that doesn’t need to reach new heights. As hard as life gets, we want
everyone to get the best they can. That’s what everything comes down to in our
songs: the idea that we can all do it.
Eso: Exactly. I must say though, that I reckon
hip hop is a ripper way of getting this message across, especially considering
our use of language. Being popular with the younger generation who have their
entire lives ahead of them, we want to provide inspiration and self-belief to
those who need it both. We talk about some massive issues in our songs, and one
of them is school. Rather than schools creating lab rats, they need to be creating
individuals, you get me?
Foss: Mhmm.
Eso: Where schools point students to
typical accounting and engineering jobs, we want them to know just because you aren’t
the best in school, you can achieve whatever you’re willing to. Make sense?
Foss: Yeah, I understand. You said that
your language is popular to a younger audience. Why would you say this is?
Eso: Well, you know. Kids are unexplainably
attracted to swearing and slang. We don’t overcomplicate our vocab so that
everyone, no matter their age or academics, can understand what we’re trying to
tell them. The more people that can understand and easily relate to our songs,
the more people can take in the meaning and be inspired.
Foss: Well that’ll just about ‘rap’ it up
haha. It was great having both of you here and look forward to seeing you soon.
Bliss: Thanks for having us Oliver.
Eso: Great being here. Thanks mate.
Foss: This has been Oliver Foss of Vogue
Magazine with the aussie hip hop band Bliss n Eso. Thanks for watching.
Bliss n Eso is one of my favourite musical groups/artists and I feel a deep connection with several of their songs. Here is my favourite of them: House of Dreams. Look forward to further creative posts.
Great Job Buddy, I don't speak Australian so most of the content was way beyond my comprehension (Like a Net used to catch water). You seem to have a great understanding on how to write a terrible Interview ... jokes, in fact on the contrary your structure is clear and the content correlates directly to the given task. I would advise you to write about the actual language aspect more however this is not said in a didactic tone as were we all unaware of that part. Great Job Tenjamin Bhomson
ReplyDeleteNice blog Ben! Really interesting and impressive how much work you put into this. I really liked how you took the time to add in the Australian accent and way of speaking as much as you could to make the interview more realistic. Although you could have given a little more information in longer answers but otherwise well done.
ReplyDeleteGreat job Ben! You successfully incorporated a style of language that reflects the way your chosen artist would communicate. Although I am not familiar with the artist, your language was coherent and detailed, allowing me to follow the structure without difficulty. You could have concentrated more on the importance of language throughout their music and how this impacted their community. Overall, very well done :)
ReplyDeleteWell done, this was a pleasure to read. You do a great job capturing the voice of your selected artists and your interview progresses steadily. You clearly engaged with the prompt for this task as you included some attention to the significance of language in your interview. If you choose to develop this post for your written task you could easily expand on this.
ReplyDelete