Kenneth Spencer Sabir (born ca. 1975), is an Australian musician, computer programmer, record label founder and event organiser. In 1998 Sabir co-founded an independent record label,
Elefant Traks
Elefant Traks is a record label based in Sydney, Australia, that predominantly releases Australian hip hop music. The label is distributed in Australia by Inertia Distribution.
History
1998–2008: Formation, The Herd, Urthboy, Horrorshow
El ...
. In 2001, with his fellow label owners, he was an original member of hip-hop band,
The Herd and is their producer. As of August 2011, The Herd have released five studio albums including ''
Summerland'' (2008) which peaked at No. 7 on the
ARIA Albums Chart
The ARIA Charts are the main Australian music sales charts, issued weekly by the Australian Recording Industry Association. The charts are a record of the highest selling songs and albums in various genres in Australia. ARIA became the offici ...
and ''Future Shade'' (2011) which reached the top 30.
Sabir is a co-founder and former manager of the
Sound Summit, an independent electronic record labels conference in
Newcastle Newcastle usually refers to:
*Newcastle upon Tyne, a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England
*Newcastle-under-Lyme, a town in Staffordshire, England
*Newcastle, New South Wales, a metropolitan area in Australia, named after Newcastle ...
, as part of the annual
This Is Not Art
This Is Not Art (TiNA) is a national festival of new media and arts organized in Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia each year over the October long weekend since 1998. TiNA is dedicated to the work and ideas of artistic communities not genera ...
Festival. He was involved in the development and founding of the annual Freeplay Independent Games Festival. Sabir is a computer programmer, in 2000 he developed the DASE (Distributed Audio SEquencer) which allowed musicians to jam in near real time over the internet. He was a contributor to the development of the Open Source
OGRE Engine
An ogre ( feminine: ogress) is a legendary monster depicted as a large, hideous, man-like being that eats ordinary human beings, especially infants and children. Ogres frequently feature in mythology, folklore, and fiction throughout the wo ...
(Object-Oriented Graphics Rendering Engine).
Biography
Kenneth Spencer Sabir was born in about 1975 and grew up in Sydney.
Sabir started music lessons at the age of four, initially on a
quarter-sized violin, followed by piano at six years old.
Later he learned various instruments including accordion, clarinet, drums and guitar.
He attended
Cherrybrook Technology High School
Cherrybrook Technology High School is a purpose-built government technology high school located at 28–44 Purchase Road, Cherrybrook NSW, Australia. The school was built in the late 1980s to support the rapid growth of the north-west sector i ...
. After leaving school he played drums in a lo-fi rock band for a couple of years and studied a Bachelor of Computer Engineering at
University of Technology, Sydney
The University of Technology Sydney (UTS) is a public research university located in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Although its origins are said to trace back to the 1830s, the university was founded in its current form in 1988. As of 2021 ...
.
While performing with his rock band he became "frustrated though because I wasn't getting any input into the creative process, things like melody and chords so I thought 'hey, I can do all this myself'".
In 1998 Sabir founded a record label,
Elefant Traks
Elefant Traks is a record label based in Sydney, Australia, that predominantly releases Australian hip hop music. The label is distributed in Australia by Inertia Distribution.
History
1998–2008: Formation, The Herd, Urthboy, Horrorshow
El ...
, one of the first releases was by Richard Tamplenizza aka Sulo.
He enlisted friends to help with running the label including Tim Levinson (aka
Urthboy
Tim Levinson, better known by the stage name Urthboy, is an Australian hip hop MC and producer from New South Wales. He is widely known for his solo music under the moniker Urthboy, as a founding member of the hip-hop group The Herd, and for ...
). In 2000 he co-founded, with Sebastian Chan and
Marcus Westbury
Marcus Westbury (born 1974) is an Australian urbanist, festival director, TV presenter, writer and broadcaster. He is based in Melbourne, Australia where he filmed the TV series '' Not Quite Art''. for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation scre ...
, the
Sound Summit, an independent electronic record labels conference in
Newcastle Newcastle usually refers to:
*Newcastle upon Tyne, a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England
*Newcastle-under-Lyme, a town in Staffordshire, England
*Newcastle, New South Wales, a metropolitan area in Australia, named after Newcastle ...
, as part of the annual
This Is Not Art
This Is Not Art (TiNA) is a national festival of new media and arts organized in Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia each year over the October long weekend since 1998. TiNA is dedicated to the work and ideas of artistic communities not genera ...
Festival.
After the festival, with other attendees, Sabir tried collaborating on songwriting "that was me and Shannon
ennedy(Ozi Batla) at first. We sold the idea to a lot of artists we respected. We all shipped up our studio gear, computers and keyboards into a holiday house up there, and that’s how we started recording".
That same year Sabir developed the DASE (Distributed Audio Sequencer) which allowed musicians to jam in near real time over the internet.
With a collective, Dase Team 5000, he demonstrated the software at the
Australasian Computer Music Conference.
In 2001 Sabir, as Traksewt (on piano, accordion, clarinet, and beats), was a founding member of
The Herd in Sydney as an
Australian hip hop
Australian hip hop traces its origins to the early 1980s and is largely inspired by hip hop and other urban musical genres from the United States. As the form matured, Australian hip hop has become a commercially viable style of music which i ...
and rap group.
Other founders were Urthboy, Ozi Batla, and Berzerkatron (Simon Fellows) as MCs; Rok Poshtya (Dale Harrison) on bass guitar; Sulo on beats and guitar; Toe Fu (Byron Williams) on guitar; and Unkle Ho (Kaho Cheung) on beats.
As of August 2011, The Herd have released five studio albums including, ''
Summerland'' (2008), which peaked at No. 7 on the
ARIA Albums Chart
The ARIA Charts are the main Australian music sales charts, issued weekly by the Australian Recording Industry Association. The charts are a record of the highest selling songs and albums in various genres in Australia. ARIA became the offici ...
and ''Future Shade'' (2011) which reached the top 30.
Kenny wrote the music and produced four songs from ''Future Shade'' including one of the singles 'A Thousand Lives' that was a finalist in the International Songwriting Competition 2011, where it received an honourable mention.
References
External links
eLefant traksRecord Label
Sound Summit
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sabir, Kenny
Australian hip hop musicians
Australian computer programmers
Year of birth missing (living people)
Living people
Australian male rappers
University of Technology Sydney alumni