For anyone who grew up a little outside the mainstream, anyone who spent their youth causing havok, racking stuff, having fun, this guy’s for you.
In case you haven’t heard of him (because obviously you live under a rock or in a cabin in the woods with only your handmade puppets for company) Seth Sentry is an incredibly talented, humble and just a bit cheeky rapper who broke in to the Melbourne live hip hop scene in 2003. After posting several of his own songs to the triple J unearthed website, he was selected by Steph Hughes to become an “Unearthed Feature Artist”, only to have his contribution become the most downloaded track on the unearthed website followed by the success of “The Waitress Song” hitting number 31 in 2009 Hottest 100.
Seth is now accustom to the scene and like a fine wine, is getting better with age. With the release of his new single “Run” he is currently touring the country with Coin Banks and Citizen Kay. I had the opportunity to catch up with Seth to talk music, breakfast and fitting in.
His new single ‘Run’ really feels like summer, it feels like being 15, it feels like ducking under fences and jumping over hedges and sitting under bridges counting all of the candy you fit in your pockets. It’s a warm reminder of a simpler time when you could do anything and if you got caught? well…all you had to do was run. This unique sound, this warm hug of nostalgia comes straight from a man who when asked his main goal with making music replies with “I only have two goals…firstly…do I think it’s dope…and secondly..do my friends think it’s dope”, and that exactly how you feel when you listen to his music, you feel lke you’re listening to a friend, like this relatable soul grew up next door to you and was there for all of your crazy adventures.
With his new album he is redescovering his roots, straying from the current ‘poppy’ trend of rap music and focusing more on, in his own words “ Everyone thought I was going to go the real poppy route but I kinda just wanted to go the other way, make it a real rap album, so it’s using alot of samples and stripping all the beats back. I wanted to capture that feeling that I used to get in the nineties when I first started listening to a whole bunch of rap music”.
Now Seth isn’t a newbie when it comes to realism, although he may have several light hearted, chirpy songs to sing along to, he also manages to convey messages through these songs and touches on topics such as war,love, science, society and above all being true to yourself. In his song ‘My Scene” there is a line that reads “Maybe I’m a weirdo or maybe they’re the weird ones or maybe I don’t even really need one”, now this line referred to finding just where you belong in a word where everyone has their own little boxes and conveys this message throughout the song in such a way as while you listen to this Seth tell his story of trying to fit in he realises that maybe,just maybe he doesn’t even need too.
When asked if he has any advice for any readers struggling with trying to fit in he replied “Don’t try! You don’t need to fit in, that is the whole point of the song, it’s a big myth. Just be you, Just do you man” and we’re all glad he chose to ‘do him’ because when asked if he ever had another passion he let on that he always wanted to be a cartoonist and publish his own comic book (which we bet would be amazing).
So wether he is making you cringe about your housemates, tugging at your heart strings pining over a certain waitress, pulling the wool off your eyes about the “wash, rinse, repeat” society we live in or just being a mate telling you to ‘run’ it’s easy to see the world is much more than a fishbowl to this young mc from Melbourne.
