igotmadstalkers

Macromantics, aka Romy Hoffman, spits out her words like machine-gun fire. Farewelling her last album, Moments in Movement, and promoting her latest single Physical, the intellectual queen of Aussie hip-hop sounds more like she’s on a campaign trail than a music tour. Today it’s philosophy, politics and poetry on ‘Miss Macro’s’ agenda.

Oddly enough, Hoffman’s first taste of stardom came when she was asked to play guitar on the 1995 American tour of Ben Lee’s high school punk band, Noise Addiction. She was just 15 at the time. “Going to America and touring for a month and a half and playing with all these bands I grew up listening to, and having to do interviews, it kind of taught me what it’s like to be a touring professional musician. It gave me a head start in a way, so now I’m used to it,” Hoffman explains.

But the American tour brought Hoffman more than just experience; it led her to her muse. “For me, 1995 was the golden era of hip-hop. Our manager was with us at the time and for some odd reason he bought me a stack of hip-hop records and said, ‘You need to listen to these, I think they’re going to change your life;’ and alas, they did.”

My suggestion that her shift from punk to hip-hop was a drastic and unlikely musical progression provokes Hoffman to launch into her aggressive battle-rap politspeak, “I don’t see hip-hop and punk rock music as two totally different things; I see them as part of the same quest to change the world. Like punk-rock music, hip-hop has an attitude, a sound, a fashion, a politics behind it. It’s contradictory, it’s ferocious, it’s immediate, but I do see them as part of the same system of people who have been cut down and thrown on the margins of society,” says Hoffman, genuinely concerned for people in society who are stripped of their political voice.

Hoffman found her voice in poetry. “Philosophers like Walter Benjamin and Nietzsche, Heidegger, those guys are my influences, not other rappers, not other musicians.” She laments the loss of classical poets like Dylan Thomas. “Classical poetry doesn’t exist anymore, it exists in music; music is poetry. I think old school poetry had an unsaid image about it, the way it used words and created imagery and was metaphorical and was quite abstract. These days that’s done in the visual side of things, music videos and the image of modern day poet, whereas before it required imagination.”

Like the world of politics, hip-hop is still a playground for boys but Hoffman refuses to be walled in by gender constructs. “I’m coping just fine. It is male dominated but we still live in a male dominated culture and society and that doesn’t get to me. My sexuality and my gender isn’t this massive deal to me that controls my life,” she responds curtly.

Hoffman’s claim that she is unconcerned with questions of the feminine seems contradictory given that she singles out Kathleen Hanna “as the woman who inspired me to make music.” In fact, Hoffman fell in love with the whole Riot Grrl movement, drawn to its socio-political agenda. “Growing up finding that movement, you look back and in hindsight you can say that it really was that pivotal moment of my life, where my whole world was like, ‘Oh my god I have found what I was meant to find’… I hope that I’m adding a unique layer to society through my work and it was that movement which taught me to do that.” As it happens, Hoffman recently signed an American record deal with the Kill Rock Stars label, which fostered most of the original Riot Grrl bands, including Hanna’s Bikini Kill. Hoffman is humbled that she is a now part of that movement too, “It’s still really overwhelming when I look into my record collection and see that name on a lot of my favourite records and think ‘wow, I’m a part of that’.”

Hoffman seems less grateful that she will soon be supporting one of the biggest female pop artists in the world, Lily Allen “I don’t really like her personally” Hoffman confesses bluntly, “but I do think it is important that she exists. I think that people like her and Lady Sovereign and Amy Winehouse, the fact that these women are making pop music that is different to all the other stereotyped images we have of pop musicians, it adds a new spice and flavour. It shows that there is room for interesting music and interesting girls who have different body-types and different messages. It diversifies pop music a bit so I respect her in that way.”

Hoffman reminds me of a politician, opinionated and fearless and just before she hangs up the phone she chirps, “Spread the word and vote Macro.”

Catch Macromatics on Friday July 13 at Revolver Upstairs. Also on Thursday August 2 supporting Lilly Allen at The Prince.
Physical is out now on Remote Control through Inertia.

source-http://www.beat.com.

Zhiwai

Props on this

Drizzy

i don't like lilly allen.

Cropped_Stunts

Thanks.......

Rhod-Willz

props B...

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You know, Michael Jordan was supposed to play basketball. Floyd Mayweather was meant to box. And Eminem was meant to rap.” Amen! - 50 Cent

FoShizzlE

propzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

GMNRecordsCT3

she sexy but how is she hip hop news?

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myspace.com/bummydavis - soundclick.com/gmnproductions

"The name on my car insurance is YOUR FUKIN FAULT!!"

MC B STREETZ

i dont like her either

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"I'M A LOUDMOUTH NIGGA BUT MY RUGER SILENT" -TONY YAYO A.K.A TALK OF NEW YORK
"ALL YAYO ENEMYS ARE ALL OF MY ENEMYS" - MC B STREETZ A.K.A YAYO'S NINJA

..L1EF..

LiLy Allen is cute as fuck, but she's a cry baby and can't step up to Macromantics on the mic.