It’s been just over a year since their last EP and Melbourne hip-hop group RaRa are finally blessing us with their next instalment, Planet2016. The foursome are known for their multidimensional approach to music and this EP is yet another example of how versatile they are. Planet2016 is a bit of a departure from last year’s Pink and Teal – taking a step back from the bangers and focussing more on melody, instrumentality, and personal lyrics, and making it a much more intimate sonic experience. It’s an impressive effort and cements RaRa’s place at the forefront of the evolving Australian music scene. Planet2016 is the perfect way to really get to know the four-piece, but we did manage to ask them a few questions about the new release, which you can check out below.
Planet2016 is available now via Zero Through Nine.
Who are you?
RaRa (LL’VO, The lovely me, River Deep & KL)
Where are you from?
PLANET2016 + PLANETEARTH
What is unique about your local music scene?
The mismatch of stylz and the freakiness that occurs at the cross-sections of supposed genres. Influx of musical influence is mad varied here, just like our people, yet we’re a tight knit community growing/learning/doing together.
Describe your sound in three words. Go!
Future Freaky HotBoi$hit
What makes you unique as an artist?
Our willingness to experiment with our sound. Tryin’ to make hip-hop/R&B that is influenced but not derivative. And our outright fear of being labeled as safe or mundane drives us to constantly evolve. We don’t make music coz we can, we make music coz we NEED 2.
Have you heard any new music lately? Got any recommendations?
Locally we been getting down to:
Milwaukee Banks – ‘Faded’
Sampa The Great – The Great Mixtape (F2B!)
friendships – ‘P2M//DSK’
Outside of our scene:
Travi$ Scott – Rodeo (whole joint is L.I.T)
Tell us a little about Planet2016 EP.
It’s personal music to each of us. We’ve taken our lives and mythologised them, as you do. It’s like instead of bottling it up, bottle rocket that love and fear and rage into a creative space and end up on a planet alienated from the present.
The project has a strong focus on melody and creating melodic hooks throughout. As well as a stricter focus on lyrics that allow for an understanding of the four contrasting characters that make up RaRa.
Every lyric and every sound that features on the EP was put under the microscope to ensure PLANET2016 is the most succinct piece of music we could’ve created. We feel we’ve managed to craft a multifaceted release and a more world-ready sound.
What inspired the artwork for the EP?
Our manager slash artist hedsbent is qooq’d as, let him explain:
‘Being a sort of concept record, PLANET2016 urges me to immerse myself in it and discern as with a movie. Like a proper deep arse movie though, one with layers but also the kind that you can simply appreciate for the pretty cinematography etc.. I reckon RaRa’s production and lyrics are like that. I started sampling images for this cover, treating it like a movie poster – where narrative is abstracted into icons, and they reflect the vibe. Hollywood examples are munted though. I was more on about some Polish poster art type action. My goal was to match the future intergalactic aesthetic without explicitly referencing or sampling from stuff like sci-fi or NASA’.
What else are you working on at the moment?
A PLANET2016 remixxx EP, as well as a string of PARTY BANGERZ TO DROP ON YOUR ASSEZ single at a time.
Do you have any shows coming up?
Tomorrow night we’re performing up in The Curtin bandroom with Curse Ov Dialect! Our EP launch takes place at Shebeen on the December 19. Check out Shebeen for tickets.
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