Hilltop Hoods

Hilltop Hoods
Hilltop Hoods (2012)
General information
origin	Adelaide , Australia
Genre (s)	Hip hop
founding	1991
Website	www.hilltophoods.com
Current occupation
rap	Suffa
rap	Pressure
DJ	DJ Debris
former members
DJ	DJ Next

The Hilltop Hoods , HTH for short , are an Australian hip-hop group from Adelaide . Its members are MC Suffa, MC Pressure and DJ Debris. Since 2006 they have been one of the most successful hip-hop musicians and bands in their country.

history

Suffa MC (Matthew David Lambert) and Pressure (Daniel Howe Smith) met at Blackwood High School in Adelaide in the late 1980s, aged 11 and 12, respectively . They started rapping and formed the band in 1991 with DJ Next (Ben John Hare), whom they met through a friend. The Blackwood district , from which Suffa and Pressure come from, is also called "Hilltop Neighborhood", and from this they derived the band name.

In 1997 they released their first EP Back Once Again and two years later their debut album entitled A Matter of Time . After that, DJ Next left the band to start a solo career in Sydney . DJ Debris (Barry John M. Francis), who until then had mainly worked as a producer, became her new main DJ. Their first album together came out in 2001, the first major success came two years later with The Calling . Although it missed the Australian charts , it sold steadily and became the first domestic hip-hop record to receive a gold record . Above all, the songs The Nosebleed Section and Dumb Enough made them known: In the annual best list 2003 Hottest 100 of the station Triple J they took 9th and 44th respectively.

The breakthrough from 2006

With the single Clown Prince they placed in the top 50 of the charts for the first time in early 2006 and the accompanying album The Hard Road rose to number 1 two months later . It also went gold and won two awards at the national ARIA Awards : Best Urban Album and Best Independent Release . In addition, the Hilltop Hoods were nominated in the newcomer category. At another award show they performed with a string quartet and it worked so well that they repeatedly took classical musicians on stage when they performed. The Adelaide Symphony Orchestra became aware of this and offered them to record the album again in a classical crossover version. With The Hard Road Restrung they won the ARIA Award for Best Urban Album again in 2007 .

Until then, they had released on Obese Records , but their success enabled them to found their own label called Golden Era Records . The State of the Art album was released there in 2009 . For the second time they went to number 1 and with the single release Chase That Feeling they had their first top 10 hit in the single charts. The album and single went platinum. ARIA Awards they received the award again in the Urban category and another went to DJ Debris for the technical processing of the album. Although they were nominated in the categories of Band of the Year and Single of the Year, they received nothing. In the same year they also went on tour in Europe for the first time.

The next highlight at the end of 2011 was the collaboration with the internationally successful Australian Sia Furler . The joint single I Love It was another top 10 hit and brought them triple platinum for the first time. In addition, they were also successful in the charts outside of Australia in neighboring New Zealand for the first time. This also affected the next album, Drinking from the Sun , which also hit the New Zealand charts . In addition to the song with Sia, the album also contained collaborations with the US rappers Black Thought from the Roots and Chali 2na from Jurassic 5 . In Australia it again reached number 1 with platinum and the fourth Urban ARIA Award. Once again, they were left with nothing in the main categories for band and single.

Rise to one of the most successful Australian bands

While they were successful with their new albums, interest in their older releases also remained high. The 2003 album The Calling hit the charts for the first time with Drinking from the Sun in 2012 and further platinum awards for singles and albums were added. The English rapper Maverick Saber then supported her in 2014 with the pre-single Won't Let You Down for the eighth album Walking Under Stars . For the third time in a row they climbed to number 1 and like the two predecessors it reached double platinum after a while. It stayed in the Australian charts for over a year, making it the trio's most successful album to date. It was even released in Europe, in Switzerland - and only there - it also made it into the charts and reached number 19 on the hit parade . With Cosby Sweater , it also contained the most successful song, which made it to number 4 in the Australian single charts and five times platinum.

Next, the Hilltop Hoods repeated their foray into classical music and in 2016 a second “Restrung” album was released, this time with songs from the two previous albums and again with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. This album brought them another number one position, but it contained two new songs with Higher and 1955 , which made it into the top 10 of the singles charts, with number 2 for 1955 they even reached a new high.

After this album, the Hilltop Hoods took another three years before a new release. Album number 10 The Great Expanse was released in early 2019 and brought them to the top of the album charts for the sixth time. This made them the most successful Australian music group in the charts, only three solo musicians from Down Under had achieved even more top positions. The album was again in the top 20 in Switzerland.

Discography

Albums

year	title	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes)			Remarks
		CH	NZ	AU
2006	The Hard Road	-	-	AU1 platinum (17 weeks)AU	2 ARIA Awards (Urban Album, Independent Release)
2007	The Hard Road: Restrung	-	-	AU8th gold (11 weeks)AU	New recording with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra ARIA Award (Urban Album)
2009	State of the art	-	-	AU1 × 2 Double platinum (26 weeks)AU	ARIA Award (Urban Album)
2012	The calling	-	-	AU50 platinum (1 week)AU	First published: 2003
	Drinking from the Sun	-	NZ37 (1 week) NZ	AU1 × 2 Double platinum (38 weeks)AU	ARIA Award (Urban Album)
2014	Walking Under Stars	CH19 (2 weeks) CH	NZ23 (1 week) NZ	AU1 × 2 Double platinum (59 weeks)AU	ARIA Award (Urban Album)
2016	Drinking from the Sun, Walking Under Stars - Restrung	CH50 (1 week) CH	-	AU1 platinum (35 weeks)AU
2019	The Great Expanse	CH18 (1 week) CH	-	AU1 gold (31 weeks)AU

More albums

• 1999: A Matter of Time
• 2001: Left Foot, Right Foot

Singles

year	Title album	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, album , rankings, weeks, awards, notes)			Remarks
		CH	NZ	AU
2006	Clown Prince The Hard Road	-	-	AU30 (8 weeks) AU
2009	Chase That Feeling State of the Art	-	-	AU8th × 4 Quadruple platinum (28 weeks)AU
	Still standing state of the art	-	-	AU34 platinum (6 weeks)AU
2011	I Love It Drinking from the Sun	-	NZ13 (9 weeks) NZ	AU6th × 6 Six-fold platinum (20 weeks)AU	feat. Sia
2014	Won't Let You Down Walking Under Stars	-	-	AU17th platinum (9 weeks)AU	feat. Maverick Saber
	Pyramid Building Walking Under Stars	-	-	AU42 (1 week) AU
	Cosby Sweater Walking Under Stars	-	-	AU4th × 7 Seven times platinum (27 weeks)AU
2015	Live and Let Go Walking Under Stars	-	-	AU42 platinum (1 week)AU	feat. Maverick Saber & Brother Ali
	Higher Drinking from the Sun, Walking Under Stars - Restrung	-	-	AU9 × 2 Double platinum (12 weeks)AU	feat. James Chatburn
2016	1955 Drinking from the Sun, Walking Under Stars - Restrung	-	-	AU2 × 7 Seven times platinum (28 weeks)AU	feat. Montaigne & Tom Thum
2018	Clark Griswold The Great Expanse	-	-	AU48 gold (2 weeks)AU	feat. Adrian Eagle
	Leave Me Lonely The Great Expanse	-	-	AU11 × 3 Triple platinum (18 weeks)AU
2019	Exit Sign The Great Expanse	-	-	AU16 × 3 Triple platinum (20 weeks)AU	feat. Illy & Ecca Vandal
2020	I'm good?	-	-	AU41 (... weeks) AU

More singles

• 2003: The Nosebleed Section (AU:× 5Quintuple platinum )
• 2012: Speaking in Tongues (AU:gold)
• 2012: Rattling the Keys to the Kingdom (AU:gold)
• 2014: Walking Under Stars (AU:gold)

Video albums

• 2012: Parade of the Dead (AU:platinum)

Awards

The band received a nomination for Best Hip Hop Artist at the 3D World Dance Music Awards in 2001 and 2002 . In 2002 the band members won the APRA Award in the Best Emerging South Australian Band category .

ARIA Awards

• 2006: Best Urban Album for The Hard Road
• 2006: Best Independent Release for The Hard Road
• 2007: Best Urban Album for The Hard Road Restrung
• 2009: Best Urban Album for State of the Art
• 2009: Engineer of the Year for DJ Debris (for the State of the Art album )
• 2012: Best Urban Album for Drinking from the Sun
• 2014: Best Urban Album for Walking Under Stars
• 2016: Best Australian Live Act for the Restrung Tour
• Further nominations:
  • 2006: Breakthrough Artist , Best Music DVD
  • 2007: Best Cover Art , Best Independent Release
  • 2008: Best Music DVD
  • 2009: Best Group , Single / Song of the Year , Hightest Selling Album , Producer of the Year (Suffa), Best Music DVD
  • 2012: Best Group , Single / Song of the Year , Best Australian Live Act , Best Video
  • 2014: Best Group , Engineer of the Year (Suffa & Debris)
  • 2015: Best Australian Live Act
  • 2016: Single / Song of the Year , Best Australian Live Act , Best Video

useful information

Hilltop Hoods Initiative

In 2005 the initiative was founded in cooperation with Arts SA. It enables young Australian hip-hop artists to record their own CD for AU $ 10,000.

swell

1. ^ "Far away from the rest of the world" , Kaspar Enz (interview), Tagblatt, July 13, 2009
2. ↑ Hottest 100 2003 , Triple J / ABC, archive retrieved on March 8, 2019
3. ↑ Hilltop Hoods make ARIA Charts history with The Great Expanse , ARIA, March 2, 2019
4. ↑ ^{a b} Chart sources: Australia - New Zealand - Switzerland
5. ↑ ^{a b} Gold / Platinum Certifications from ARIA (Australia)
6. ↑ Blackwood's Hilltop Hoods hop to No.1 on ARIA album charts and multiple awards , AdelaideAZ, accessed March 8, 2019
7. ↑ Hilltop Hoods in Trove (National Library of Australia), accessed March 8, 2019
8. ↑ Awards and nominations from the Hilltop Hoods at the ARIA Awards
9. ↑ $ 10,000 grant on offer for aspiring hip hop and soul artists with the 2017 Hilltop Hoods Initiative , Zaya Altangerel, The AU Review, February 15, 2017

Web links

• Official website
• Hilltop Hoods at SoundCloud
• Hilltop Hood's video interview in Berlin
• Hilltop Hoods at Allmusic (English)
• Hilltop Hoods at laut.de
• Hilltop Hoods at Discogs (English)