Skip to content
Join our Newsletter

Passing with Flying Colours

Australian hip hop trio, Bliss N Eso, brings material from newest album to Whistler for two-night performance
1550bliss
Hip Hop Bliss The Australian hip hop trio of Bliss Eso and DJ Izm are headed to Garf's to perform back-to-back gigs

Who: Bliss N Eso

When: Sunday, Dec. 14 & Monday, Dec. 15, doors at 9 p.m.

Where: Garfinkel’s

Admission: Available in advance at Billabong and Clubzone.com

Jonathan Notley (Bliss), Max Mckinnon (Eso) and Tarik Ejjami (DJ Izm) are the men of the popular hip hop trio, Bliss N Eso, a group that has been on the forefront of the Australian hip hop scene since the before the genre was even really considered to be a genre.

The lyricists go way back to the ’90s, when Notley moved from America to Australia, and ended up attending Mckinnon’s high school.

“It was at a time in Australia when there was basically no hip hop, it was almost non-existent, so to find anyone even remotely into it was a rare thing, and we were the only two dudes in the school that were pretty much into hip hop, and we became friends,” Notley explained in a recent telephone interview, dodging cars on a busy L.A. street as he spoke.

What started out as a shared passion and hobby quickly evolved when they added Ejjami into the mix a few years later.

When they first started out, their recording processes were far more rudimentary compared to their recent efforts.

“We’ve got like a whole album we made on a cassette tape,” he recalled. “I’m talking our recording method was to get two boom boxes, and you know how you could talk into one of the speakers and record it? So we had the beat playing — we just stole someone else’s beat — and played the instrumental through one boom box while we rapped in between the two boom boxes, and then the other side picked it up. So it was the most ghetto way of recording, ever.”

No one was around to teach aspiring hip hop artists how the music industry ticked.

“There was no one to show us the ropes,” he said. “We had to figure all that out basically on our own. Whereas in America, they’d been going for so long, there was massive infrastructure.”

Though at the time, the obscurity of hip hop made their goals harder to attain, Notley said the obstacles they encountered probably helped the group, in the long run.

“If anything, it’s made us more hungry,” he reflected. “We had to fight very hard to be heard, and when we started, there was no infrastructure, there was no media that helped out or thought it was even a genre or an industry, basically.”

One of the side benefits from being one of the founding groups of Australian hip hop has been that they have a well-rounded, full understanding of all elements of their craft.

“You have to wear multiple hats and really learn many different facets of the industry.”

Bliss N Eso released their first EP in 2000, but it wasn’t until their first full-length album, Flowers In The Pavement , dropped four years later that the group really caught the eye of some big names in the industry — Jurassic Five, Naughty By Nature and Cypress Hill, to name a few.

That first full-length effort also garnered a number of award nominations.

“It was very well received, but at the same time, it was quite out there, so we had a great response, but at the same time, we felt that we had missed out on a lot of the listeners out there, because a lot of the rhymes were very dense and crazy and all over the place and abstract.”

Since then, they’ve released two more full length albums, with their most mature effort, Flying Colours , coming out earlier this year.

“If you look at the evolution of our albums, I’d say that Flying Colours is really a combination of Flowers in the Pavement and Day of the Dog . It’s kind of got a bit of both, with something new in it.”

On this album, they draw lyrical inspiration from just about everywhere. The end result is eclectic, observational and introspective.

“There are different elements in the music: there is social and environmental stuff, there’s more personal, introspective tracks, and then there are party bangers, which are a bit more lighthearted and just having fun,” Notley said. “The main thing is we like variety and life is full of that.”

Aside from the time they’re obviously devoting to their studio efforts, Bliss N Eso are still passionate about their live shows, where they started building their fan base. In 2006 alone, they played over 100 gigs. Now, they’re back on the road again, this time, promoting Flying Colours , and Whistler is on their map.

This isn’t their first time to town — they played a sold-out show here during the 2007 Telus World Ski and Snowboard Festival, packing the house with ex-pat Aussies and Canadians alike.

“That show in particular was very special for us, because… it sold out and it was incredible, the vibe was just nuts, and the coolest thing was there was a bit where we said, ‘How many Americans and Canadians are in here?’ and there was a massive roar. Then we said, ‘Alright, cool. How many Aussies are in here?’ and literally, the bars’ bottles were starting to shatter, it was that loud.”

They also recently had the opportunity to work with the 21-piece Zulu Connections Choir, and travel to South Africa to shoot a music video, make a documentary with MTV, and see firsthand what was going on in the country.

“We were thrust into the thick of it. It wasn’t like we were staying in Hiltons and stuff, we were sleeping on the ground on mats in mud huts… it was life-changing.”