One of the founding fathers of Crate Cartel, emcee and producer Fluent Form shows us that ‘underground’ doesn’t mean ‘under appreciated’.
“I think it's great to see Sprung Festival honing some of the more underground independent artists. I think it's really good to see that it’s not just all the radio hits that gets the radio push and the media push. For us doing it independently down the bottom, to have the opportunity to get on Sprung and really showcase our abilities to a big crowd that probably would never have heard of us before is huge. I'm definitely looking forward to it. It should be good to see how our music's received. It'll be good.”
Fluent sees the hip hop music industry as being split into two coexisting worlds: the commercial and the underground.
“Everyone's trying to better their last album so you're competing with yourself and you're also competing with other artists to keep pushing the envelope, so to speak, and keep raising the bar. You've got the underground and then you've got the more commercial acts and they're all competing with themselves with the radio push, and we're all competing with ourselves in the underground with our approach to lyricism and staying original and keeping up our style.”
The arrival of his daughter has led to a host of changes in Fluent’s life, not least his music.
“It's influenced a lot of my new album which comes out in about five weeks. Before that, I was doing a lot of the aggressive, darker stuff. I've relaxed a lot more now. Having a child does influence you because you grow up as a man, which then obviously starts reflecting in your music.”
Surrounded by music at his day job at a record store during the week, Fluent makes sure he balances life as a father and an artist.
“I only do [tours] on the weekends. I make sure I only book shows on the weekends so I have all week to be home and then off I go next weekend to the next show.”
Crate Cartel play Sprung Brisbane at Victoria Park Saturday September 21. Fluent Form’s ‘Fluseason’ is released Aug 2.
