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NAME: Benevolent DOB: 30/3/88 HOMETOWN: Sydney INFLUENCES: TZU, Hilltop Hoods, Bliss n Eso, Horror Show, Urthboy, The Herd, The Tongue, Downsyde, 2Pac, Notorious B.I.G., NWA, Dr Dre, Will Smith, SOUNDS LIKE: Hip Hop with a very musical twist. Emphasis taken off the drums, and replaced by string lines, piano chords and brass sections, this is a refreshing take on an ever evolving genre. Benevolent began his love affair with hip hop began early in high school when he read one of his mates poems. Inspired, little Benny set about creating some works of his own. The typical thirteen year old sense of humor saw him writing of authority figures of all sorts, relishing in the embarrassing situations he would dream up for them. Having been a fan of hip hop, spitting along with with tracks by acts such as Tupac and Biggie, Dr Dre, NWA, Eazy E and Jurassic 5, but at the age of fourteen, young Benny had never heard of Aus Hip Hop, and never conceived the idea of spitting rhymes in his own accent. Introduced to the hip-hop forums by the same mate who inspired his poetic streak, Benny had found the place where he would begin his rhyme schooling. After assuming the alias "Benny Converse" and later "BCon" then "RoeHypnol" Benny drew on the same sense of humor that he had used to create his poems and begun to compete in text battles with other young emcees, mainly from the US and the UK. He lost most of his battles to begin with, but, not one to be dejected , he continued to give it his all and soon began to win a few. Gaining confidence, Benny begun to spend every possible moment on the forums battling, and when he couldn't do that he was writing rhymes on scraps of paper or in the back of school books, almost always in the style of a battle. Forum members often uploaded tracks that they had recorded at home, and audio battles were also quite common, but Benny, had never been able to master the American accent, therefore assuming that he was a terrible rapper and he never thought to do this himself. But one fine day when Benny was completing his work experience in year 10, he had an absolutely life changing moment. Having been payed $10 by his temporary boss for his weeks "work" Benny went straight to the shops and for the first time, bought a hip-hop magazine, which came with a free mixtape. The first track was Downsyd's Lesfortunate, the second was Muph n Plutonic's - Heaps Good. Benny's jaw dropped, he had hear Aus hip-hop for the first time and his eyes were opened to a brand new world. Immediately he began to write about situations unique to his life, and within minutes of hearing the CD for the first time, was trying to rhyme with his own accent. Experience and skill came slowly, but eventually BCon worked up the courage to record a track called "The Message", a song warning of the dangers of drugs- I think we can all see the irony there. The song was recorded with a microphone built into a computer moniter, with the beat playing through a speaker sitting on top of the screen... very lo-fi. Soon BCon begun competing in audio battles and quickly encountered a problem he did not expect... He was losing votes in battles simply because people did not like his accent. This only drove him to tweak his style until he had found a sound that worked for him. Luckily as BCon grew older, and slowly matured, so did his rhymes and his voice, and soon he had gained the respect of his peers. Having left school, Benny went though a number of jobs that he did not enjoy, and was not very enthusiastic about... He was fired from all of them. In late '06, Benny's drug addiction, developing since childhood and slowly getting the better of him. He spent the better part of six months in rehab. It was during this time that he decided to drop the RoeHypnol" alias and go for something a little more conservative. Thus, Benevolent was born. Now writing with a definite positive slant, Benevolent began to build his repertoire and to chase the dream of being a full time emcee. To help him in his efforts Benevolent enrolled into a music performance course at TAFE NSW, where he met other young musicians of all genres, working at fulfilling their dream. This course gave him the opportunity to collaborate with many different musicians of many different influence, and this truely shaped the way he viewed music and went about making his tracks. He knew then that he did not want to make your typical hip-hop. It was here that he met a young producer and recorded his first properly mixed track "Do A Burnout", written years before as a birthday present for a mates 21st, it went on to become his first cult hit, soon racking up over 30,000 plays on Myspace. Unhappy with the production on "Do a Burnout" and annoyed about his lack of input, Benevolent continued to search for a producer that would suit his requirements. After finding a producer, Julian, who was willing to work for free, (on the proviso of shared royalties), who's work he loved, and he recorded "Rollercoaster". Written in rehab, it told the story of his drug abuse and consequent clean time. But the clean time did not last long. Reluctantly, Benevolent stopped working with Julian due to the cast distance he had to travel to Julians studio. After much hunting, Benevolent found a producer who he could not only aford, but who completely understood his vision, Cl1max. The chemistry was instant and the pair had soon busted out a number of tracks, always beginning on a new idea before quite finishing the last one. Soon the two had a number of great sounding tracks, with a definite unique flavour. These tracks are what you are now listening to in his demo.