In Rotation: 1300

Very few hip-hop crews can claim an Australian Music Prize shortlist nod and a slot on a national New Year's Eve broadcast while rapping over blown-out electronic beats in two languages. 1300 is a Korean-Australian collective doing exactly that. Hip-hop has always been a sponge for regional club sounds. 1300 takes the frantic, bass-heavy electronic production of the Australian underground and laces it with bilingual bars. The drums hit like a busted speaker. Over top of that chaos, the vocalists trade verses heavily injected with dry humor. They switch flows rapidly, locking into the high BPMs with absolute precision. The global crossover machine usually scrubs the dirt off international rap acts to make them highly marketable. 1300 thrives precisely because they kept the raw energy of their sold-out national tours intact. That unpolished grit is exactly why Universal Music Korea just stepped in and signed them for a massive global push. The industry is simply catching up to what the fans down under already knew. I've had them rattling my car speakers all week. Hit play below.