Rhyme Dispenser

"I've just been trying to work through and finish this album, which is exciting but quite terrifying all at the same time,” says a very frank Pez, or Perry Chapman as he is known by his parents. The record has been a very long time coming. It's been over four years since the original release of his debut album-proper A Mind Of My Own, which is basically a lifetime in hip hop. There haven't even been a whole lot of guest spots or the usual kind of in between releases that rappers use to keep themselves in the limelight. If anything, Pez seems to have been deliberately avoiding it. It seems, though, that this wasn't for the usual reasons of trying to get out of the public eye – there were more serious issues at play. Notably, his health.

“I guess the health issues that went a little bit haywire for a while, that kind of started it all, y'know?” he says somberly. “It started playing up when things took off in the first place, but I didn't really know what it was at the time. It was just a pretty crazy year I guess – it sort of went from zero to a hundred really quickly, and then over that year I think my health was progressively getting worse and worse and then by the end of it I really came crashing back down to earth. It was a little bit weird and a bit scary for a while, but I feel like I'm on the mend now and I'm coming back which feels good.”

Early in the year, Pez broadcast on YouTube that he was suffering from Graves' disease. “It's an auto-immune thing and they say it's something that you'll have forever and you hear different things,” he explains. “Western doctors give you a bit of a death sentence with it and it looks pretty horrible, but then I didn't really do that kind of treatment. I kind of did things naturally which is why it took a little longer, but it seems to have sort of stabilised which is exciting because just doing it all naturally, they told me that wasn't really possible. I definitely have to make some changes in my life – I mean I was probably, well, definitely having too much of a good time, party a lot and abusing my body, which was a big part of the problem I think, so I certainly can't do that kind of thing anymore. But you know it's probably a good thing, and it made me take a good hard look at myself in the end.”

It must have felt like the universe had it in for him. With the unexpected success of The Festival Song and his bro 360 inking a deal and ascending to national fame, being struck down with an illness must have seemed like a cruel blow. “You know, it felt like that for some time,” he agrees. “Kind of like, 'Woe is me. Why would this happen to me?' I was quite bitter about a lot of things and I fell apart a bit, but coming out the other side of it, it felt like it was probably a reflection of a lot of fears and deep, darker stuff that was underneath that I probably wasn't dealing with and paying attention to, and it kind of forced a lot of that up to the surface a bit. It was really a blessing in the end in that it made me take a good look at myself and I feel like I've learnt a lot from it and I've come out the other side feeling more ready than ever to give things a go. In the past, I guess I tended to build up a lot of different little defense mechanisms and ways to deal with things and get through life. Now that I know about a lot of the darker stuff below the surface I've dealt with it and now I can try to move on which is a good thing.”

Even though now he's been getting back on board and starting to get stuff together for what will be his next album, he says it was intimidating and difficult just getting back into the right frame of mind for the whole process. “It was a bit scary at the start, man,” he says. “The first things I was trying to write I was like, shit man, I couldn't even remember how I used to do it. It feels like – I think it must have been 18 months or so where I didn't really try to write a song. But before that, it was all I did. Like, all I ever wanted to do was write raps. I was so obsessive that I couldn't imagine not doing it. After having such a big break, I guess a lot of the fears kinda kicked. The label was like, 'We've gotta back this up and you've gotta do this and you've gotta do that' and everyone was making plans and my health was falling apart.

“It all snowballed there for a little bit,” he continues. “It was nice once I stepped back and remembered how to write songs and remember why I write songs. Not just doing it for the sake of it. It's easy when you get all these people coming at you and you have a label and it becomes a bit of a business and you start thinking about it like it's just a job. It's like, hang on – I remember that I got into music at the start because I actually loved it y'know? It was a good chance to step back and remember and get connected with that again.”

Now that the creative juices are flowing again, Pez is once again as motivated as he was way back at the beginning. So much so that he's now thinking about taking things to another level entirely. “I sort of had this idea, like where I've got so many songs sitting around now it might be really epic to try and make like a double album, but you know, you've got to have a lot of really good songs to pull off something like that so I dunno,” he laughs. “I'll just try and record them all first and then weigh it up. Whether I should cut a bunch off and just keep the strongest ones for an album.

“Probably my favourite album no matter what but definitely my favourite rap album is Life After Death by Biggie, and that was a double album. I feel like life is tempting me to do it but I don't know whether It'll happen. It's just a cool thought in the back of my head really. If I can finish these and try and write enough cool stuff – that would be a dream.”

Pez will be playing the following shows:

Saturday 10 November - RNA Showgrounds, Brisbane QLD