Matthew Levinson

D'Opus & Roshambo get nervous round girls

Published on 06/10/05
by matt

Every time I visited his Better Music shop in Canberra, local DJ and music technology brainiac D’Opus promised a 7″ slab of his-own funk was just around the corner. Second day back in Sydney I saw the hot new D’Opus & Roshambo CD single down at Elefant Traks’ studio in Enmore.

D’Opus is a great technician, he knows his way in, out, upside and beside all his equipment and there’s no doubt the production on this 12 minute debut is tight. Heavy syncopated breaks and warm drumbeats reverberate through my speakers, D’Opus’s cuts colour the grooves, plenty of MPC magic, plus rhymes from local hip hop head and radio presenter Roshambo (there’s even a shoutout to his show Holy Calamity and co-host Altree). Being from Canberra, Koolism is a big influence. And I mean big. Ro’s style has a bit of a handful of MCs – say Adelaide rapper Quro – but it’s almost all Hau, it’s in the commanding presence, the sense of humour and definitely the delivery. The beats too – you know the kind of syncopated hip hop that Danielsan’s perfected, though it lacks the Polynesian carnival Dan sqeezes into Koolism cuts.

The first tracks ‘Hotels on Mayfair’ and ‘The Question’ are pretty well developed, broken hip hop and big party breaks and Roshambo getting tight lyrically – I can see them picked up by a handful of Australian hip hop labels. But that’s not to say it’s great. The package isn’t finished – Roshambo’s rhymes could do with more work (though his delivery is pretty damn confident) and a little quality control (last track ‘Girls’ is awful). And even though D’Opus’s beats are already pretty adventurous and definitely effective, it’ll be good to see him really grow into his own sound.

Still, pretty impressive for a debut self-released single.

D’Opus took time off from DJing to get the album together – it’s set to come out before too long with Roshambo MCing on a handful of tracks, guest MCs on another couple of tracks and a few instrumentals. The single is really just promo, plus there’ll be a small run (300) of 7″ singles and a few gigs to promote the release.

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