INTERVIEW: SYDNEY RAPPER TUKA PERSONIFIES HIS SOUNDSCAPE WITH HIS NEW ALBUM ‘NOTHING IN COMMON BUT US’
Pictured: Sydney rapper Tuka breaks genre boundaries with his new album, Nothing In Common But Us
Image: Supplied
For those who are accustomed to the Australian hip-hop scene, the name Tuka would almost be synonymous with Blue Mountains hip-hop trio, Thundamentals. Iconic moments for the hip-hop group like their 2012 cover of Brother by Matt Corby for Triple J’s Like a Version segment (amassing over 4.9 million views) may also spring to mind, as well as their popular light-hearted tune Sally. Tuka is one third of that trio, and is hoping to define himself as a solo artist with his new album, Nothing In Common But Us.
In the last five years, Tuka had a semi-hiatus from his solo career, making two albums with Thundamentals and subsequently touring those albums. A major defining moment in that five year period for Tuka was a relationship which influenced a large part of his work.
“Nothing In Common But Us is from my perspective, it’s about personifying a relationship into the one character,” he said.
“I definitely got the idea for the album from spending a lot of time with someone and them uprooting a lot of things that I didn’t know about myself.”
Listeners are greeted by tracks such as the first single from the album, Wish I Knew, which was co-written with The Presets’ Julian Hamilton, and premiered on Triple J’s Good Nights. Tuka is renowned for his warmth when it comes to hip-hop songwriting, however this track finds him experimenting with deep house influences and breaking down the barriers of conventional genres.
“I guess the sonic soundscape was a victim to whatever I found exciting, that didn’t put me in the box of being a hip hop artist - I wanted to be an artist in general for this one,” he said.
“Dropping a genre or trying to create my own genre was the objective, there really weren't any rules.”
Nothing In Common But Us expands upon hip-hop more broadly and invites the listener to sit with a wide spectrum of emotions, with Tuka including spoken word poet Anne Casey to explore these feelings and as an ode to his relationship with poetry. “When I saw Anne perform it just hit me right in the head because it’s what I was writing about, and she actually coined the phrase ‘Nothing In Common But Us’, within that poem,” he said.
“...and so afterwards I talked to her on the side of the stage and we had big chats, and I asked her if I could use that line and she was so cool about everything I asked her.” Oftentimes, you can catch Tuka heading to Glebe in Sydney to share wine with friends and listen in adoration to poets who grace the stage.
“You just watch all of these people come out of the woodwork, they’ve had this whole life of experience, and they’ve put a lot of effort into writing a piece of poetry about their perspective and a lot of the time it’s just so beautiful,” he said.
Tuka also collaborated with rising Brisbane indie-pop star Sycco (the brainchild of Sasha McLeod), who features on his track Click Bang.
“Oh my god, she’s a genius! When I sent it to her I didn’t send her any harmonies or anything, but I just sent her a lead,” he said.
“She got it first try, I didn’t even give her any notes. She just came back with her own take on it and I loved everything about it.”
It’s hard to tell what’s in store for the rest of the year for Tuka, as the live music scene is on halt due to COVID-19, but Tuka assured us that it’ll be full of the thing he loves most: writing music.
“All I have to do is write music, and if I told myself that when I was a 17-year-old kid when I started this, I would have been elated! And I am, I am very happy - I’m in a super privileged position where I can wake up and I write a song and that’s my responsibility for the day – and that’s absurd.”
“I’m using COVID to just do a proper reset and hopefully write some of the best music of my life that will be relevant when I go to play it live, whenever that is.”