Few Australian rappers can claim to have made nearly as big of an impact on the scene, and the Australian music industry in general, as Campbelltown MC Kerser. Jumping on the phone with him, he's in a good mood, because he's getting a pool installed in his backyard. Like a lot of things (including his plans to drop 10 albums in 10 years), the pool's installation was meant to happen last year, but it looks like a global pandemic caught up to the sickest MC in the country.
Speaking to Kerser, a couple of things are immediately apparent. Firstly, he's supremely confident in his position in the Australian rap landscape. Gone is the attitude of the past, where he felt he'd been shunned by the mainstream media. His latest single is called Winner, and you can hear his grin down the phone line - which brings us to point two. He's still as cheeky as ever. The topic of his long-term rap rival, 360, comes up, and the potential for a rematch of their legendary rap battle. He mentions that after he drops his 10th album, he'd be keen for a second time in the ring, because, as he puts it, "I can say a lot of things that I couldn't say back then".
Kerser's music appealed, and continues to appeal, to an audience that wasn't represented in Australian rap at the time of his emergence. Speaking about his battle with 360, he says it wasn't just the rappers battling, but the fans too. He says that at the time, it was a battle of the "lads versus the metro(sexuals)", a crude description of the war between "gutter" and "BBQ" rap. Of course, with the rise of grime/drill in Australia, these sub-genres feel less and less dominant in Australian hip-hop, but during the latter half of the last decade, these two types of Aussie rap were dominating. You had Kerser, Jay UF, and his brother Rates on one side, and artists like 360, Pez, Hilltop Hoods, Illy and others on the other.
2020 saw Kerser spend more time with his family than ever, a blessing for someone that spends so much time on the road. He has a four-year-old daughter, who he says has matured him, and is "the best thing that's happened to [him]". It's also helped him to maintain the hunger and drive to keep dropping music, something that he's been doing for a decade-plus. The fire is still in Kerser, but it's being fuelled by other things - rather than a hatred for those that doubted him, he's now looking to provide for his family.
His latest single, Winner, is the first taste of what he's been cooking up for his 10th album. He's firing salvos at the rest of Australian rap, but he's confident rather than bitter. He's "really enjoying [himself] a lot more now", which isn't always an easy feat. Part of that satisfaction comes from seeing the next generation of Australian rappers succeed. Artists like ChillinIT, Huskii and Rops1 can be seen as descendants of what Kerser was doing. He's happy with influencing those that have come after him, even if he doesn't get the deserved credit from it. "I did what I planned to do, and set a blueprint," he explains. He's described it as "Da Kers effect", which is apt. He says that he didn't feel the need to constantly be in the limelight, because "[he] felt like [his] music was saying what [he] had to say". If he "wanted to express an opinion", he had his wildly popular social media channels to communicate to his fans, rather than have his message potentially diluted by the media.
Of course, over the years Kerser's learnt a few tricks from the music industry. The music video for Winner is a long way away from his rough and ready clips of the past, where he'd only use "three or four takes". For the 10th album, he's planning to release four or so "big-budget" clips, using the same high-value production of Winner. He doesn't want to take a step back, because that's not who he is. He's always looking forward.
Kerser's always been comfortable in front of the camera, and he credits his time as one of Australia's biggest battle rappers with this. He says that, because of the a cappella delivery that's a staple of battle rap, he learnt to emphasise his movements when delivering music. The battle rap era of Australian rap feels like another time, but to this day, Kerser's got fans from that era. He'd pick the catchiest chorus he had at the time to play as a "10-second snippet" before his battles, and it converted people into fans, "even the ones that started as haters". He says, "I don't know if I would have made it without the battles. It was a very important time." Without battle rap, there is no Kerser - for better or for worse.
Kerser's heading out on tour soon, and the excitement in his voice when he talks about it is palpable. It's probably fair to say that Kerser lives for performing, and his fanbase sells out every tour. He hasn't played shows in two years (before the pandemic, the Australian bushfires hit Kerser's area on the South Coast hard), so he's had a long time to think about his setlist, and he thinks he's nailed it. "This time around, I've got a perfect set. New stuff, old classics that fans love, and I'm really keen to perform." He's got a few festivals that he'll be playing later this year, as well as his own tour, and he talks about it like a kid on Christmas Eve.
The Australian rap scene, by and large, got it wrong when it came to Kerser, and to an extent, they still do today. When most rappers brag about their influence on the scene, it's easy to dismiss it as braggadocio. When Kerser raps on Winner, "I should get an overall cut of what the scene's worth", it's hard to disagree. He's always been one or two steps ahead of the next trend, and he's always thinking about his legacy. He just wants people to look back on his career, and see it for what it was, because Kerser is a rapper that made the most of the cards he was dealt, and turned it into a winning hand.
