Downsyde are 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 ...

group from

Perth Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth is ...

, Western Australia. The group is composed of three members,

Optamus Scott Griffiths, better known by the stage name Optamus, is one of the MCs of the Perth-based Australian hip-hop group Downsyde and member of WA's Syllabolix Crew. Optamus is also the name of Griffiths' solo project. Music career Downsyde Gri ...

, Dazastah and Dyna-Mikes. The group has performed alongside groups including

Jurassic 5 Jurassic 5 is an American alternative hip hop group formed in 1994 by rappers Charles Stewart (Chali 2na), Dante Givens (Akil), Courtenay Henderson (Soup aka Zaakir), Marc Stuart (Marc 7); and disc jockeys Mark Potsic ( DJ Nu-Mark) and Lucas Ma ...

Cypress Hill Cypress Hill is an American hip hop group from South Gate, California. They have sold over 20 million albums worldwide and have multi-platinum and platinum albums. They are considered to be among the main progenitors of West Coast and 1990 ...

Grandmaster Flash Joseph Saddler (born January 1, 1958), popularly known by his stage name Grandmaster Flash, is an American DJ and rapper. He is considered to be one of the pioneers of Hip Hop DJing, cutting, scratching and mixing. Grandmaster Flash and the ...

The Black Eyed Peas Black Eyed Peas (also known as The Black Eyed Peas) is an American musical group consisting of rappers will.i.am, apl.de.ap, Taboo (rapper), Taboo. The group's line-up during the height of their popularity in the 2000s featured Fergie (singer ...

, and

The Roots The Roots are an American hip hop band formed in 1987 by Tariq "Black Thought" Trotter and Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. The Roots serve as the house band on NBC's ''The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy F ...

. They also performed with Australian acts like

Hilltop Hoods Hilltop Hoods is an Australian hip hop group that formed in 1996 in Blackwood, Adelaide, South Australia. They are regarded as pioneers of the " larrikin-like" style of Australian hip hop. The group was founded by Suffa (Matthew David Lambert ...

Resin Dogs Resin Dogs is an Australian hip hop group, formed in Brisbane, Queensland in 1996. Resin Dogs are a loose collective, a cut and paste sample band who use live drums, live bass, and elements of hip hop via turntables and samplers to create all f ...

, and Koolism. The band has also performed at a number of festivals, including

Big Day Out The Big Day Out (BDO) was an annual music festival that was held in five Australian cities: Sydney, Melbourne, Gold Coast, Adelaide, and Perth, as well as Auckland, New Zealand. The festival was held during summer, typically in January of eac ...

Splendour in the Grass Splendour in the Grass (commonly referred to as Splendour) is an annual Australian music festival held at the North Byron Parklands in Yelgun, New South Wales. Since its inauguration, the festival has also been held in various locations near ...

Rock-It Rock It is an Australian music festival held at the Arena Joondalup in the northern suburbs of Perth, Western Australia. The festival was first held in 1999, and mainly features modern rock music. Along with the nationally-touring Big Day Out, ...

Falls Festival Falls Music & Arts Festival (commonly known as Falls) is a multi-day music festival held annually in Lorne ( Victoria), Marion Bay (Tasmania), Byron Bay (New South Wales) and Fremantle (Western Australia), Australia over the New Year's Eve an ...

Homebake Homebake was an annual Australian rock festival, featuring an all-Australian lineup (with the occasional artist from New Zealand). The festival was first held on 3 January 1996 at Belongil Fields in Byron Bay, on the far north coast of New S ...

, Good Vibrations and the

Southbound Festival Southbound was an arts, camping and music festival. A variety of Australian and international artists performed at this event. The festival occurred annually around New Years, at the Sir Stewart Bovell Park in Busselton, Western Australia. His ...

History

1996-2001: ''Epinonimous''

Downsyde's origin occurred when MCs

(Scott Griffiths) and Dyna-mikes (Shahbaz Rind) were in Year 11 at Craigie Senior High School, where they took part in a school talent quest in 1996. The group said "We sort of figured out ourselves at 16 the best way for us to identify with Australia and to write topical music about Australia was for us to use our own voices rather than adopting a New York accent." –

Hayes, Joshua ''Downsyde – Kicking Up The Dust'' X-Press Magazine 14 August 2008 (page 14) The duo released a tape demo called ''Behind the Bucket'', selling copies at two local shops, managing to sell all of the 200 copies they made within weeks. The band said "We suddenly got asked to play gigs with

Eskimo Joe Eskimo Joe are an Australian alternative rock band that was formed in 1997 by Stuart MacLeod, on lead guitar, Joel Quartermain, on drums and guitar, and Kavyen Temperley, on bass guitar and vocals, in East Fremantle, Western Australia, Austra ...

and Beaverloop at the Grosvenor and actually gig as a band. At that point we used to play the gig with our beats recorded on a

walkman Walkman, stylised as , is a brand of portable audio players manufactured and marketed by Japanese technology company Sony since 1979. The original Walkman was a portable cassette player and its popularity made "walkman" an unofficial term for p ...

that we'd plug through the PA" –

The group added a third MC, Dazastah (Darren Reutens), whom they met at Leederville

TAFE Technical and further education or simply TAFE (), is the common name in English-speaking countries in Oceania for vocational education, as a subset of tertiary education. TAFE institutions provide a wide range of predominantly vocational cours ...

, and DJ Armee (Damien Allia) on turntables, meeting him at the Hyde Park Hotel where he would DJ on Monday nights. Later, the group expanded to the current line-up with percussionist Salvatore (Salvatore Pizzata) (ex-Beaverloop) and Cheeky (Mat Cheetham) (ex-Circus Murders) on keyboards, loops & samples joining the group. Cheetham recalls "I was in Tokyo hanging out and got a call from my mate Sal, he's playing drums with these guys Downsyde and he said 'when you come back you should have a crack at sampling stuff for them.' So I came back, met the guys and the next thing I know I was in the band. My first show was at the

." – Cheeky For four years Downsyde produced beats and rhymes and played at hundreds of gigs, parties, and MC battles culminating in the September 2000 release of their debut album, '' Epinonimous'' – recordings made by the band from 1996 to 2000.

2002-2006 : ''Land of the Giants'' & ''When the Dust Settles''

Their first single, "

Gifted Life "Gifted Life" is the first single from Australian hip hop group Downsyde's second album Land of the Giants. It was released on 23 September 2002 on the independent label, Hydrofunk (established by Resin Dogs) and distributed nationally by Virgi ...

", was released in 2002 and was nominated as 'Best Single' at the 2003 Australian Dance Music Awards. In the same year, Downsyde won the ''Best Debut Artist'' at the Dance Music Awards. Their second album, '' Land of the Giants'', was released in 2003 on the Hydrofunk label. The album won 'Most Popular Local Original Album' at the 2003

Western Australian Music Industry Awards The Western Australian Music Industry Awards (commonly known as WAMis) are annual awards presented to the local contemporary music industry, put on by the Western Australian Music Industry Association Inc (WAM). The WAMi Awards are Western Aust ...

. Downsyde signed with

Obese Records Obese Records was a record label that released music from the Australian hip hop genre. It was the largest Australian independent hip hop label, including performers Pegz, Thundamentals and Dialectrix. Obese Records also operated two retai ...

and in 2004 released a single, " Lesfortunate", which they followed up with a third album, ''

When the Dust Settles ''When the Dust Settles'' is the third full-length album from Australian hip hop group, Downsyde and was released in December 2004 through Obese Records. It was produced by band members Optamus, Dazastah, Cheeky and Armee. All tracks were r ...

'', in December 2004. The album was nominated for the J Award of 2005. Pizzata was replaced by Catastrophe, Dazastah's brother on drums between 2005 and 2006. Catastrophe was a short-term member and filled in to do the late 2005 "When The Dust Settles" Australian Tour and performances up to mid 2006. Steve Curyer (aka Hi-Hat), Downsyde's current drummer, joined in early 2007. Downsyde were one of the Australian hip hop artists featured in the documentary ''Words from the City'', which aired on

ABC Television ABC Television most commonly refers to: *ABC Television Network of the American Broadcasting Company, United States, or *ABC Television (Australian TV network), a division of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Australia ABC Television or ABC ...

in late 2007. Dazastah (Reutens) is a prominent local record producer.

(Griffiths) runs his own label, Opt Shop records. Armee (Allia) has toured with Fdel and DJ'd at many prominent clubs in Asia. Cheeky (Cheetham) is a member of dub group the Sunshine Brothers and has a solo project 'Rooster Police'.

2007-2009: ''All City''

In 2007 the band signed with Illusive Records and commenced recording their next album, once the final tracks were down on tape they then headed off to

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...

to play a couple of shows for the

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the secon ...

Festival. The band said "We've changed labels every album. We did ''Epinonimous'' independently, ''Land of the Giants'' on EMI/Hydrofunk and ''When the Dust Settles'' on Obese. After ''When the Dust Settles'' was released, we need to take time away from touring and a whole lotta other stuff to do with the industry; we felt there was a whole lotta pressure for us to release another album a year and a half later and to do all of this stuff mechanically, which creatively didn't feel right. We specifically sign one album deals, whereas a lotta artists get bullied into three album deals and get shockingly ripped off, spat out and are not a musician two years later. We sent 'this' album out to countless labels and we got back countless deals back. It just happened that Illusive came back with a very interesting way of marketing Downsyde, plus we have the common goal of elevating us as a band and not Australian hip hop per se." – Optamus The group's fourth album, '' All City'' was released on 4 October 2008, and features collaborations with Howling John Stone and

Guru Guru ( sa, गुरु, IAST: ''guru;'' Pali'': garu'') is a Sanskrit term for a "mentor, guide, expert, or master" of certain knowledge or field. In pan- Indian traditions, a guru is more than a teacher: traditionally, the guru is a reverential ...

. The album became their first album to enter the ARIA top 100, peaking at number 76 The first single from the album "Fortune and Fame" was released on 1 September, together with the accompanying video produced by West Australian production company The Penguin Empire has received significant airplay. In October 2008 to promote the release of the new album Downsyde embarked on its first national tour since 2005. Of the tour, the band said "We're pumped man – it has been a long time since we did a string of dates around the country, and it's good fun." -

2010-2015: hiatus

released his debut solo album ''Forever & a Day'' in June 2010, with keyboardist Chris 'Imposter' Foster and multi-instrumentalist Moondog. Dazastah is embarking on a talent project called "Natural Dazastahs" in which he will be uploading beats online for the public to rhyme over, with the best entries being compiled for release. Although members are working on these various solo projects the group is still working on a fifth album.

2015-: reformation and ''Classic ILL''

Downsyde have been on a five-year hiatus however in 2015 they have been recording sixth studio album, ''Classic ILL''. The first single, "Only Got Now" from the album was released in September 2017. The music video to the single was directed by Aaron McCann.

Discography

Albums

Singles

Awards and nominations

Australian Dance Music Awards

Downsyde won one award from five nominations in 2003.2003 DMA Nominations
/ref> , - , rowspan="5", 2003 , rowspan="3", Downsyde , Best Hip-Hop Act , , - , Best Australian Hip-Hop Act , , - , Best Debut Artist , , - , ''Land of the Giants'' , Best Album , , - , "Gifted Life" , Best Single , , -

J Award

The J Awards are an annual series of Australian music awards that were established by the

Australian Broadcasting Corporation The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) is the national broadcaster of Australia. It is principally funded by direct grants from the Australian Government and is administered by a government-appointed board. The ABC is a publicly-owne ...

's youth-focused radio station

Triple J Triple J (stylised in all lowercase) is a government-funded, national Australian radio station intended to appeal to listeners of alternative music, which began broadcasting in January 1975. The station also places a greater emphasis on broad ...

. They commenced in 2005. , - ,

2005 File:2005 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico; the Funeral of Pope John Paul II is held in Vatican City; " Me at the zoo", the first video ever to be uploaded to YouTube; Eris was discover ...

, ''When the Dust Settles'' , Australian Album of the Year ,

West Australian Music Industry Awards

The

(commonly known as WAMis) are annual awards presented to the local contemporary music industry, put on by the Western Australian Music Industry Association Inc (WAM). Downsyde won 10 awards.2003 West Australian Music Industry Award Winners

(wins only) , - , 2001 , Downsyde , Most Popular Original Electronic Act , , - , rowspan="3", 2003 , Downsyde , Most Popular Local Original Urban Music Act , , - , ''Land of the Giants'' , Most Popular Local Original Local Album , , - , "El Questro" , Most Popular Local Original Music Video , , - , rowspan="2", 2005 , rowspan="2", Downsyde , Best Live Electronic Act , , - , Best Urban Music Act , , - , 2006 , Downsyde , Best Urban Music Act , , - , 2007 , Downsyde , Best Urban Music / Hip Hop Act , , - , 2008 , Downsyde , Best Urban Music / Hip Hop Act , , - , 2009 , "Fortune and Fame" by Downsyde , Most Popular Music Video , , -

References

External links

* {{Authority control Australian hip hop groups Western Australian musical groups Obese Records artists