Words by Declan Whelan // Images supplied

San Franciscan hip hop hero DUCKWRTH is coming back to Australia this month to rock Groovin the Moo and a string of sideshows with Danish pop polymath MØ.

The versatile rapper recently dropped a brand new single ‘UNSTATUS QUO’, while details around his mysterious forthcoming album Falling Man still very much lie in the cryptic category. Ahead of his return, we got DUCKWRTH on the phone to chop up Groovin the Moo, bars, fashion and much more. Check out the conversation below:

We’re excited to have you back in the country for Groovin the Moo. You played at the festival in Bunbury last year and they obviously liked you enough to get you back for all legs of the tour this time around. What did you take away from that show and the rest of your Australian tour?

Yeah it was crazy, to sum it up. It’s just crazy being where I’m from, to go to a burger joint in Melbourne and have people, like, with their faces pressed up against the windows waiting for me to come out just so they can talk to me. It made me feel like my existence means more, you know? For my music to reach that far, and not just reach that far but to actually have an influence – that just made me feel like I could do more.

The lineup for Groovin this year looks good. Are there any other artists on that bill that you’re keen to see?

Billie Eilish. 100%.

Another artist you should be seeing a lot of is MØ. You’re playing a couple of sideshows together which I think is a really interesting pairing. How do you think your music complements hers, and vice versa?

Man, I’m just bringing funk to it. Anytime they put me with somebody who is not particularly in my lane, I’m just like, “Hell yeah. I’m just gonna bring the funk,” that’s all.

If you could hand pick any other kind of artist or band to go on tour with outside of hip hop, who would that be?

Ho99o9, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Tame Impala or The Internet. That’s pretty much it. I mean there’s more, but those are the top ones.

Your most recent release [at time of writing], ‘Start A Riot’ came out on the Spiderman: Into The Spider-Verse Soundtrack. How did you get involved in that project?

I’ve got a good label. They were just like, “You’d be perfect for this because you’re hella animated,” and I was like, “Hell yeah. I would love to”. And then we just recorded it. It took a bunch of different takes. The one that came out is probably like the third, maybe the fourth version of the track. There was a good amount of them. But it was a challenge. It was a cool little challenge because it wasn’t just me playing to satisfy myself. To do a song that will amplify a whole film is crazy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNRC137o0j8

Is it something that you want to do more of?

I would love to score a film. But even before scoring the film I would love to continue making movie music. I wanna keep getting my music in movies. That’s amazing. Whether it’s 10 seconds or a minute, whatever people are doing to my music in that film, at that time . . . that’s orgasmic man. That shit’s insane. And then at the end of the film, like, seeing your name and everything is super crazy. So yeah, more movie music and then eventually scoring a film.

Like the RZA with Kill Bill.

Yeah exactly. For sure. Plus I’d be able to bring a team of different musicians as well as producers and arrange it all. Or even like Kendrick did with ‘Black Panther’ and the way they curated that whole project. That was insane. I could definitely do that.

A little while before that you also released your single ‘Soprano’, which is another really good example of your versatility and ability to chop up genres because you completely switch up around the 40 second mark. How did you arrive at this type of sound in terms of bending and reimagining genre boundaries?

System of a Down. They started off with some heavy shit and then they’d go all operatic for the bridge and with their backup. Not just System of a Down though, I say them first because they were one of the biggest innovators of that [sound] in modern music, I would say. But other than that, I just have a wide range of inspiration in music. I listen to a lot of different music. The only thing I don’t listen to probably is like country. Other than that I listen to everything so it’s not even intentional all the time but I like to let everything I listen to come out in my music. In every way possible. It’s kind of like collecting a bunch of marbles and then going somewhere and just releasing them all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdlW5IDBnTc

On that track you spit,“ACDC in the Summer, Killa Cam in the Winter”. There’s a little shout out to Australia in there which we appreciate, of course, but what were you getting at with those bars?

I’m pretty much just talking about myself and my punk, rock, metal background. I feel like that happened because I was a little bit restricted in what I was listening to when I was younger. So I went to like the heavier shit, because I couldn’t listen to R&B. You know what I’m saying? So yeah, I went to all these different darker and harder areas in music and they didn’t turn me into anybody like, bad. That whole moment was just saying that upbringing can affect an adult or a teenager in different ways, and that certain restrictions can definitely lead to extremes.

On Instagram recently you weighed in positively on the Gucci controversy by listing your favourite black owned clothing brands. Which of those are you wearing the most of right now?

I’m wearing Golf right now. I’m wearing this Golf polo shirt with a zipper neck and this crazy pattern. But yeah, Kids of Immigrants. They’re super innovative. Kids of Immigrants is tight because they take streetwear and they make it way more rebellious. They cut off the bottoms of their hoodies and I just like the way they print. I also went to college with one of the guys who makes it and he’s amazing. Carrots by Anwar are the homies too, so shout out to them. Those are like my favourites in that whole batch. I don’t really wear Off-White, but I had to give a shout out because of everything that Virgil is doing and I could put Kanye with Yeezy in that category, too.

And what about your label, B.O.Y?

B.O.Y for sure. I like it because I get to drop things whenever I please but I also think I’m gonna expand the brand. I’ve been working on branding and just figuring out what kind of garments I want to do and when I come back and start doing apparel again it’s going to be something tight with cut and sew pieces. It’s gonna be functional pieces. So, that’s my thing. I love apparel but I don’t wanna just follow fast fashion that ends up in landfills. It’s gotta be shit that people can actually use and wanna wear. Forever.

And going back to that post on Instagram. In the comments section you had this back and forth with people tagging black owned brands that they’re into, which is cool and kind of goes back to the intended use of social media in tearing down walls and connecting people. Is that something that you’re conscious of facilitating online?

Definitely man. You’ve gotta be able to use the tool in the right way. It’s really easy to misuse social media but if you use the tools in the right way, it has pretty cool benefits. So yeah, that’s one of my moves, just informing people, you know? And it’s great at the moment to give people something to rebel against. My homie just did a Gucci bonfire which is super tight, but it was more so the statement of letting go of our attachments that we have with these high end brands, and it’s a notion of investing in ourselves and not spending a rack on a Gucci belt. I was disappointed [in Gucci] at the time but I was also kind of hoping that something like this would happen so that this conversation could be brought up. It’s ridiculous, the generation right now, the Soundcloud generation and all the overly hype shit just puts too much attention on what you own. And that’s what the album I’m working on is about.

I’m glad you brought that up because you’ve been posting across socials about Falling Man. What can you tell us about that upcoming project?

It all centres on falling: falling in love, falling out of love, things falling out of place, the fallen angel, just falling, man, falling out of grace, falling to your death… It’s all about those moments of losing control. I wanted to make an album that someone could score to a Stanley Kubrick film. Like a hip hop or rap version of that. So that’s what Falling Man is.

Well we can’t wait to hear it. Before I let you go, the last time you were here, you took aim at a national treasure saying, “Vegemite ain’t right”. Can I let you in on a little secret? Less is more.

That makes sense. That makes so much sense. Definitely. I believe that. Thank you. I definitely need to learn to be a minimalist.

Catch DUCKWRTH on tour at everyones’ favourite regional Australian festival Groovin the Moo or get tickets to a sideshow with MØ via the link.