In mid-2021, The Kid LAROI’s collaboration with Justin Bieber, “STAY”, topped charts around the world. It was, by far, the biggest song by an Australian hip-hop artist ever. It cemented his status as the first Australian hip-hop artist to really, properly make it overseas. And he wants to use his powers for good. “I think I’ve always wanted to be a leader,” The Kid LAROI, born Charlton Howard (his stage moniker comes from his Kamilaroi heritage), tells Apple Music. “I think by me doing what I’m doing now, I’m trying to help open the door for a lot of other Australians, too. I don’t want people from Australia to be going to America forever. I want this to be the place.” Like his own success, the growth of hip-hop in Australia didn’t happen overnight, and it didn’t happen easily. “I feel a tremendous amount of pride when I see artists like LAROI and Onefour and Sampa the Great,” Hau Latukefu tells Apple Music. One of the most well-known figures in Australian hip-hop, the rapper, producer, radio host and label founder, who now works with emerging local artists, has been around since the scene’s earliest days—and is a respected voice across every facet of the industry. “They’re not directly linked to a lot of the pioneers here, but they’re paving their own way.” Thanks to The Kid LAROI, there’s never been more interest in Australian hip-hop. But to understand how we got here, it’s important to step back and reflect on what came before. With help from Latukefu, here we look back on the development of hip-hop in Australia spanning four decades.

It may have taken a while for the Australian music industry—and the general public—to take notice, but that didn’t mean American hip-hop wasn’t making its mark early. For long-time fans like the Tongan Australian Latukefu, who grew up near Canberra, their introduction came via music TV shows. “I remember being transfixed by seeing the Rock Steady Crew on [Australian TV show] Countdown,” he recalls. “My sister went to the States and came back with tapes of LL Cool J, Beastie Boys, Whodini, the Fat Boys. We really took to it. Obviously, it was very American-influenced but very multicultural, too—it was mostly children of migrants.” Once people began discovering hip-hop, the next step, of course, was to start creating their own. “The ’90s were really about finding our own sound and, more importantly, finding our own identity on a global stage,” he says. “It was like, ‘Let’s just talk about where we’re from, our issues, our concerns, what’s happening in our lives, and talk about it in our natural accent.’” By the time Latukefu’s first tape came out in 1993, a small scene began to emerge. “Def Wish Cast, AKA Brothers,” he says. “People were releasing on tapes and vinyl, doing shows. It was an exciting time, and a dangerous one as well. Hip-hop was speaking to those from a certain background. But that’s what was exciting about it to us kids: It was rebellious music.” There were artists in Melbourne and Sydney talking about their areas, their demographics, even their train lines. “I saw [Sound Unlimited rapper] Rosano wearing a Sydney Kings T-shirt in a video,” he says. “After so many years of wearing LA Raiders and Kings, all these American teams, when I saw that, it was like, ‘Oh, shit, we can do that ourselves.’”

The turn of the millennium saw an uptick in awareness, popularity and, importantly, industry attention. Major labels had released a couple early compilations in the late ’90s—a way of “testing the waters,” Latukefu says. Music television shows like Soul Kitchen and Rage were playing hip-hop, but it was the emergence of independent record labels Elefant Traks and Obese Records—which first opened as a store in 1995 before launching as a label in 2002—that was exactly what the local scene needed: people who could not only provide everything that goes into releasing and distributing music beyond the music itself, but who also understood, and respected, the culture. Obese released early albums by Hilltop Hoods, Pegz, Drapht, Illy and many more, while Sydney-based Elefant Traks launched the careers of Horrorshow, Joelistics, Jimblah and The Herd, whose members Kenny Sabir (aka Traksewt) and Tim Levinson (aka Urthboy) founded and ran the label. “Melbourne, Sydneyand Brisbane had their own sounds. Brisbane was more vibrant in a way because they had sun pretty much all year, whereas Melbourne felt grittier and darker,” says Latukefu. The release of Adelaide group Hilltop Hoods’ third LP, 2003’s The Calling, was a watershed moment for the genre. It was the first Australian hip-hop release to genuinely break into the mainstream (and, in 2006, became the first to go platinum). A year earlier, 1200 Techniques had already become the first hip-hop group to win an ARIA Award (for Best Independent Release with their debut, Choose One), and in 2004, Latukefu’s group Koolism and their album Pt. 3 Random Thoughts won the inaugural award for Best Urban Release, marking the first official recognition of hip-hop.

A term had started emerging to define the sound, look and feel of the artists making it on the radio, receiving major-label support and finding mainstream audiences: “Aussie hip-hop”. But there was a problem with what it represented: whiteness. Despite groups like Koolism, Funkoars, Diafrix and 1200 Techniques repping diversity and migrant stories, almost every hip-hop artist really making it at the time was white—and so were their listeners. In some ways, that was the kick underground artists needed. “It almost forced people to create their own pockets,” Latukefu says. Enter Adam Briggs, the Shepparton-born Yorta Yorta man who Latukefu describes as “a very welcome change. Even within our hip-hop culture, there was still racism towards our Indigenous people here.” Briggs wasn’t the first First Nations rapper to come through, but he was the first to receive the platform he did, and he remains one of the country’s most outspoken, influential trailblazers. ”We needed our NWA, and he was it. He made people feel uncomfortable, but he forced a lot of conversations.” It took a while, but the floodgates started opening. More First Nations artists and others from immigrant backgrounds were being seen and heard. B Wise, REMI, Manu Crooks, Miracle, Baro, Citizen Kay, Diafrix and Midas Gold were among the rising generation of artists whose families had immigrated from places like Nigeria, Ghana and Eritrea, and they were bringing new sounds and stories to the forefront. “It had to happen,” says Latukefu. “It was the breath of fresh air that Australia needed.”

By the mid-2010s, what we know now as Australian hip-hop—Australian, not Aussie, that is—was finally taking shape. There was an explosion of versatile sounds, with artists taking influence from UK grime and drill, Atlanta trap, jazz and R&B, and the more melodic, Post Malone-style vibes. Artists of diverse cultural backgrounds, and women, were rising faster, receiving more radio play, more festival appearances, more label attention—and more opportunities and role models for younger artists. You had artists like Ghanaian Australian rappers Kwame, Manu Crooks and Miracle performing in clubs, and L-FRESH the LION, who embraced his Sikh faith and Punjabi heritage through his music. Women like Fijian Samoan Australian artist MC Trey and Mexican Australian rapper Maya Jupiter had been releasing music for years, but it was Zambian rapper Sampa the Great whose rise changed the game for a whole new era of female representation. In 2016, she opened for Kendrick Lamar in a Sydney stadium on his To Pimp a Butterfly tour. Her live act featured a jazz ensemble, her sound was as inspired by Lauryn Hill as it was her heritage and fierce femininity. And her debut LP, 2019’s The Return, cemented her as not only one of the country’s most talented and creative artists, but also one of the most important. In November 2016, A.B. Original (a duo consisting of Briggs and Trials—Ngarrindjeri rapper and producer Daniel Rankine, who’d come up with Funkoars) released Reclaim Australia, arguably the most important hip-hop album in Australian history. They left no stone unturned, slamming systemic racism, police brutality, addiction and First Nations deaths in custody. The song “January 26”, featuring Dan Sultan, was a landmark release, rallying against the national holiday held on the titular date and fighting to change it to a day that didn’t essentially glorify colonisation. “That was our Public Enemy moment,” Latukefu says of the album. Elsewhere, voices like Hurstville rapper Chillinit were bringing hard-hitting drill to Australian shores, and Campbelltown’s Kerser was releasing gritty gangsta rap to a constantly growing audience, despite zero radio or label support. New artists of Pasifika—Pacific Islander—heritage were causing a stir, too, and were about to rise on a national scale.

Looking at the rapid growth of Australian hip-hop from 2019 until now, you wouldn’t think a pandemic had shut the world down for more than half that time. “What’s happened since 2019 is crazy,” says Latukefu. “We talk about the cultural impact and influence like it was 10 years ago, but it was 2019.” Pacific Islander artists like Onefour, Hooligan Hefs, Day1, Hp Boyz, Lisi and Youngn Lipz started building names for themselves in their pockets of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane—with snarling drill beats and aggressive lyrics that told stories from streets and communities often ignored by the public. Against All Odds, the 2020 debut release by Mount Druitt’s Onefour, speaks of a community overrun by gang violence, crime and frequent incarceration, instigated as much by four-digit postcodes as by racial injustice and low socioeconomic backgrounds. Three of the group’s five members were imprisoned at the time and several verses were recorded behind bars. In 2019, the group were targeted by police, who forced the cancellation of live shows, citing safety concerns. Their lyrics were used in court to prosecute one member, YP. The spotlight on Onefour didn’t just elevate other Pasifika artists—it brought all their collaborators to the fore, including The Kid LAROI, who was always hanging out with them in the studio and featured on some Onefour tracks. “The first time I heard about him, he was around 12,” says Latukefu. “I remember walking into the room and there was a little kid there, and I went, ‘Oh, that’s cute. Someone brought their kid.’ But he was working, working, working. He was saying he wanted to do the same thing as Drake did for Toronto and for Canada as a whole,” says Latukefu. “He realised it was bigger than him.” LAROI first linked up with the late Juice WRLD towards the end of 2018 after opening for him on tour. From there, he connected with a plethora of artists and producers in the US, with whom he developed his emotive, melodic sound—one that earned him high-profile collaborations with Miley Cyrus, Fivio Foreign and Justin Bieber. While Onefour were bringing Pasifika stories to Australia, The Kid LAROI was taking Australia to the world. He’s made it a point of spreading the gospel of Onefour and other Australian acts whenever he’s in the studio overseas. “I’d play them, and people would just be tripping out, like, ‘Oh my god, what the hell is going on?’ I’m always trying to stress it: There’s endless talent out here, and it’s an honour to be able to do that.”