WHAT A LEGEND
He’s gone head-to-head with Kendrick Lamar, and now What So Not has his sights set on Hobart, as Kane Young reports
IF you were set to play at a major music festival, but superstar rapper Kendrick Lamar was scheduled to perform on a different stage at the exact same time, you’d probably be a bit concerned.
That’s the situation that faced Sydney DJ and producer What So Not — aka Emoh Instead (or just Chris Emerson to his mum) — in April, at the massive Coachella festival in California. As it turns out, there was nothing to worry about. “I’ve been touring the US for quite a few years and it’s really going from strength to strength,” Emoh told Pulse this week.
“I had the opportunity this year to close out one of the stages at Coachella. I was actually performing against Kendrick, which I was really kind of fearful of because I’m such a fan of his and he’d just dropped two albums.
“But nonetheless we had an entirely packed-out tent, with people really flooding out the sides and out the back, and we were so happy with that.
“All the work and ideas I’ve been putting into What So Not is definitely paying off.” Yeah, you could say that. What So Not actually started in 2011 as a duo, featuring Emoh and star Australian producer Flume. The pair released the EPs 7 Dollar Bill (2011) and The Quack (2013); put out popular singles such as Jaguar, High You Are and Tell Me; and remixed tracks for the likes of Major Lazer and Peking Duk together under the What So Not name, before Flume announced in early 2015 that he was quitting the project.
The third What So Not EP, Gemini, was an international hit and featured on various “best of 2015” lists, with the title track (featuring George Maple) voted into Triple J’s Hottest 100.
Soon after the Divide & Conquer EP followed in September last year, What So Not’s collaborative single with Skrillex and RL Grime, Waiting, became a festival anthem around the world, as Emoh appeared at events including Lollapalooza, Pukkelpop, Listen Out and the aforementioned Coachella.
What So Not’s Coachella set also featured the premiere of his latest single Better, which features US vocalist LPX — aka Lizzy Plapinger from New York indie-pop duo MS MR.
Emoh started writing Better on his tour bus as he crossed the US in September last year, but the track really came to life when LPX got involved during a record label “jungle retreat” in Nicaragua.
“I brought that production into the [Nicaragua] session and Lizzy and I just totally connected and vibed on this sound palette and direction,” he said. “She just brought an attitude to it that was absolutely incredible.
“That [track] is quite grungy, and I really love that. I have a few tracks in that sort of field, but had never really found someone who could catapult it to where it needs to go, and Lizzy was that. But there’s really a lot of variation coming with the next round of music that I’ve been working on.”
Emoh has also been busy lately working on the visual side of his act, spending countless hours producing music videos, planning lighting sequences and big-screen projections, and designing the new centrepiece of his live shows — an ostentatious, technicolour “Peacock Horse Monster Truck” stage set.
“For me the music was so important, and something that I really wanted to get to a certain level,” he explained.
“The music comes first, and anything else is an accentuation of that. You need to be putting out great music for people to want to come to the show. Then you can present them with an incredible show, after that point.
“[Earlier in my career] I couldn’t have facilitated it to the level I can now that things are much bigger.
“I’ve been doing things in order of what I think is of most importance, and now is the time to be rocking up to any city in any country and giving people this full audiovisual experience.”
Unfortunately, logisitical issues will prevent What So Not from bringing the monster rig to Hobart, where he’s performing for the very first time this weekend.
But he guarantees that his Hobart fans won’t be disappointed by the spectacle.
“I will have my incredible lighting and VJ, who will be putting on the full What So Not visual show,” he said.
“It’s still the show that we’ve been touring around the US and Europe, and I’m excited to bring it down to a much smaller scale in Tasmania and actually play my first show there. It’s gonna be really bright, very colourful, very big and bold in terms of audio, and hopefully it’s a bunch of songs you guys have heard across the last few years and are eager to see live for the first time.”
What So Not and local supports Close Counters, Sexy Lucy and Chris neoBi play in The Goods Shed (Macquarie Point) from 8pm on Saturday.
Tickets are $45.40, go to www.moshtix.com.au for bookings.