Music
The history of lad rap
The current sound of homegrown hip-hop evolved in part out of 'searcher' subculture, gutter rap and graffiti crews. Here, we take a deep dive into the history of a uniquely Australian style of music.
There’s no denying that Australian hip-hop has been revived by a gritty view of the suburban underside. But while the artists ruling 2020 are sonically in step with what’s coming out of the UK drill scene, trendsetters like OneFour and Hooligan Hefs actually cite Sydney rappers NTER and Kerser as original influences.
That reference point highlights the fact that their music remains entwined within a uniquely Australian context: the 'searcher' or 'earcher' subculture. This is the story of how that subculture gave rise to 'gutter rap', or 'lad rap', a style of hip-hop that voiced the frustrations and aspirations of those in public housing flats -- and influenced the direction of Australian hip-hop forever.
The origins of earching
The earcher or earching subculture, nowadays called 'lads', 'adlays' or 'eshays', originated in Sydney around suburbs like Waterloo, Redfern and Woolloomooloo in the 1980s. Earchers across Australia would speak in pig latin slang, carry boxcutter blades and dress in a distinctive mix of shoplifted brands like Ralph Lauren and Nautica—a look completed with Nike Air Max TN’s and Tailwinds.
Searchin’ is primarily about making money, originally slang for “break and enter” offences and taking the things you need to survive on the streets. Rapper NTER, whose moniker derives from break and enter crimes, was one of the first artists to represent the subculture in music when he began recording in 2005. “The definition of an earcher is someone who goes out to make money illegally,” explains NTER. “It’s about earching for money. You’re searching back rooms looking for tills, you’re doing ram raids, you’re doing anything to make money.”
Many people assume graffiti culture and earchers were intertwined but in the early days, the subcultures were distinct. The misconceptions revolve around the notorious HR and 210 crew. NTER asserts, “A lot of people mix them together and call them HR210; HR is a graffiti crew but 210 was a searching crew.”
Graffiti crews would shoplift from retail chains and department stores with a “steal from the rich” ethos. The attitude is an echo of the Lo-Life subculture, a street crew from Brooklyn who hijacked the preppy prestige of the Ralph Lauren brand in the 80s by churning it into a uniform for inner city delinquents.
Meanwhile, earchers were emulating their favourite rappers by shoplifting the brands they’d see in hip-hop magazines imported from the US. They racked posh brands like Polo, Nautica and Tommy Hilfiger, with crews eventually getting into offences more serious than shoplifting. Although crime became a survival mechanism for the subculture, the drive to have their name sprayed up and their lifestyle recognised was becoming more urgent.
“They started tagging their names up in places where they were making money,” explains NTER. “They would go to Melbourne and spray their names up. So it started shifting from the searcher scene into the graffiti scene.” Ever since, the searcher and graffiti identity among adlays and eshays has become difficult to distinguish.
In 2005, the two worlds became further enmeshed when the leader of HR, Soenz, introduced the rapper Sky’High to NTER’s brother Skeaz Lauren, who was ordained as the Polo King with the release of his 2016 track 'Rackin Polos'. (The Ralph Lauren reference was also celebrated in Melbourne by Smash Brothers with their iconic “Nike tick and Polo Horse” banger, 'Creepin'.) Together, Sky’High, Skeaz Lauren and NTER founded The Sydney Serchaz -- a group that would represent the earcher subculture under the banner of gutter rap, marking the birth of the genre.
In Sydney, gutter rap was heavily influenced by the gritty trap sound of Southern hip-hop artists like Pimp C, Bun B and Three Six Mafia. “The trap sound made sense for the world we grew up with because that’s what we were doing; we were trapping,” explains NTER. But in Melbourne the sound had a darker flavour, with artists like Tornts and Hired Goons opting for lyrical allusions and beats sampling horror soundtracks.
Rappers on both sides have attributed their respective styles to their city’s relationship to crime. In Sydney there was more bravado with shootings and trap houses operating in plain sight around commission housing, whereas in Melbourne the criminal underbelly operated in the shadows so rappers coded their lyrics with references for those in the know.
Graffiti, hip-hop and DIY
By the mid 2000s, the lines had completely blurred between graffiti, earchers and hip-hop. “When I was growing up the only people that listened to Aus rap were graffiti heads, 99% of the crowds at gigs were graffiti writers. Without graffiti, there was no hip-hop scene in Australia,” explains underground rapper Deposit. “You had to earn a name in the graffiti scene before you would get any credit in the rap scene. These days with social media it’s a lot easier to get your name out there.”
When I was growing up the only people that listened to Aus rap were graffiti heads. Without graffiti, there was no hip-hop scene in Australia
Deposit had a cult following in the underground Melbourne hip-hop scene for his affiliation with infamous graffiti crews, his brutal depictions of prison and tragic bars about his upbringing. “Rap kept me going as a kid, in a sense it saved my life, when my parents were off their faces or trying to kill each other I’d lock myself in my room and bump the early Eminem albums which made me feel like I wasn’t alone,” says Deposit.
“I’m a product of my environment. I did the stuff I rap about well before I ever thought about making tracks. I think that shines through and anybody who grew up on the train lines or in a broken home relates to it heavily.”
But gutter rap wasn’t just attracting people who were on the rough side of the train tracks. Chirstopher Kevin Au is the editor of Filter Zine and manages hip-hop artists TripleOne and Nerve. He remembers the early days. “I had some friends in high school who were into graffiti, rap, sneakers and all that. I remember they used to play Sydney Serchaz tracks on their phone and in the car.”
Christopher became absorbed in the gutter rap scene for its ethos: raw and unapologetic independent music. “The impact of graffiti on hip-hop has been huge … you can see it in the slang and style of dress,” he says. “Most importantly, I think that scene's DIY outlook has carried through to the artists of today. Some of the biggest current Australian hip-hop artists are independent and come from the underground. A lot of them started out by putting up videos on grassroots platforms like HustleHardTV, Body Bag Media or One Love Creations, and have kept that same mentality as their careers blow up.”
Throughout the mid 2000s, Victorian rapper Tornts’ aggressive sounds plagued the train lines throughout Melbourne. As both the producer and rapper of all his albums, Tornts laughs about the DIY nature of the early days. “I recorded my first album Adding Insult To Injury with Ciecmate in a grimy ass room in St Kilda. All we had was a mattress against the wall and an SM58 mic,” says Tornts. “They featured that track in Stealth, which was a graffiti and hip-hop magazine. And it went off.”
Graffiti and hip-hop were well connected by 2003, when Tornts released his debut. “When I first started rapping there were crews like the Hursty Boys, TSF, FMC and CKA. And they each had a couple of rappers who would be hanging around with them,” explains Tornts. “It was another way to mess with words and get your name up. Rap’s pretty rebellious and graffiti’s always been anti-establishment. I guess the base reasons are that they both tell a story.”
Rap’s pretty rebellious and graffiti’s always been anti-establishment. I guess the base reasons are that they both tell a story
For Tornts, the environment he wanted to capture wasn’t being represented in hip-hop. At the time, Melbourne was in the wake of a heroin epidemic and in the throes of a gangland war.
“In the 90s... there weren’t really any rappers for us to look up to,” he says. “The only stuff I’d heard was like Sound Unlimited Posse. And I liked this South African guy in Sydney called MC Raw from Cannibal Tribe. I was going to record with him but he ended up passing away.” So Tornts was left to carve out a sound of his own. His second album, Decimation Recordings, was loaded with vivid descriptions of violence set to the tune of panicked drums and David Lynch film samples.
“The Sydney sound was more trappy. Melbourne had the darker, harder and grittier sound,” explains Tornts. “We wore black TNs and big jackets ‘cause it was colder. A lot of work went into writing and trying to put words together in different ways. And it reflects the way the city looks, the way the city is put together. It’s like a grid. There’s nowhere to hide.”
For Tornts, these days rappers like HP Boyz and Posseshot are carrying the Melbourne baton; they reflect the harsh realities of the street in a form that’s unique and has cred. The Melbourne scene deviates from the overt “adlay” aesthetic but the roots of the earcher subculture remain embedded in the mood of the music.
The evolution of earching
The essence of earching was the subversion of social expectations. They were kids from the flats outsmarting tellers and breaking into safes. They were laughing in the face of the system by spraying their names on the walls of areas they had pillaged and by dressing-up in preppy brands that weren’t marketed for them.
Now that the style and sound has become a mainstream trend, the scene has become a counter-cultural uprising that certain authorities are aggressively trying to shut down. And with every new artist and every “eshay!” adlib, a problem for law enforcement has become an avenue of hope for those on the margins.
NTER remembers his first ever live performance in 2005 at Shore Shocked, a hip-hop and graffiti festival held in North Sydney Park once a year. “All the different graffiti crews from across Sydney would come together for the day. We actually headlined it,” says NTER. “That was my first time ever getting on stage. We look over the crowd and there's 300 people singing our songs word for word. You can’t describe that feeling you just have to live it.”
In 2019, NTER offered the stage at the Factory Theatre in Marrickville to OneFour where they played their first live show. “I looked at their DJ, Hau, and said, ‘this is going to be fucking huge, these boys are starting something special.’ When we started the whole eshay and adlay thing, we would get laughed at. Now everyones saying it in their songs and it’s cool to say it. It’s become a movement.”
Head here for a tour through the 20 essential lad rap songs.
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Mahmood Fazal is a writer from Melbourne. Follow him on Twitter