Bringing People Together

VB in hand and Nike sweatsuit zipped up to the collar, Max MacKinnon (better known as the Eso part of Aussie hip hop act Bliss N Eso) is pontificating on religion. Well, spirituality to be more exact. “My chakra is gold, I am spiritually intertwined, my third eye is 50 pyramids sphinxing around a Phoenix head with lions staring at you,” MacKinnon says, his blue eyes all wide and wild.

“I'm out there man – I'm spiritually fucked”

Bliss N Eso broke the mould in the early noughties, becoming one of the first Australian hip hop groups to shake off those feeble attempts at emulating “American rap”, instead, choosing to embrace the 'okker'.Success came thick and fast for the trio, made up of MacKinnon, who goes by the moniker of Eso, along with Jonathan Notley (Bliss) and Tarik Ejjamai (DJ Izm) and in 2004 their debut album, Flowers In The Pavement, saw them nominated for Artist Of The Year in the MusicOz Awards. Since then, countless accolades have followed, but MacKinnon reveals that it is only until now, with their 28 June due fifth studio effort Circus In The Sky, that he has finally felt free enough to reveal everything.

“This is the one that I think there were a lot of things that we wanted to say,” MacKinnon stresses. “I feel really, really confident about this one – more proud of it than anything. You know, the last one had a lot of freestyle essence to it, with tracks like Family Affair and Where The Wild Things Are. Now, we've really just kind of pulled things out of us.”

The 'things' MacKinnon and the other lads managed to extract from themselves include an animated tale about the time MacKinnon came face-to-face with his childhood idol, Ozone (aka Adolfo “Shabba-Doo” Quinones), from that classic '80s magnum opus, Breakin' and its sequel, Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo (aka Breakdance 2: Electric Boogaloo).

“When I was five-years-old and living in, fuck, ya' know, Penrith and then moved to the Blue Mountains, I was infatuated with that movie. My parents said we were going to Los Angeles and so I grabbed a dollar from my dad and said, 'I'm going to give this to Ozone when we get there to stop the community centre from being demolished', 'cause that's what was happening in the movie,” MacKinnon leans in closer, all serious and almost in prayer mode. “So, we go over there and two weeks pass. The next day, we're going back home and we're rolling along Melrose Avenue and there's this car crash, so my mum stops the car. Then, there are two guys helping out and one of them is Ozone,” MacKinnon says, still amazed. 

“I run up and jump on this guy and he hugs me and takes me back to his restaurant and signs photos for me, 'To Max, Be Cool, Shabba-Doo', 'cause that's his real name. My parents couldn't believe that I made it happen and it's taken this long for that story to come out because I wanted it to be perfect,” MacKinnon says.

The bouncy and animated MacKinnon admits that everyone around him – “DJs, mates, close friends” – had hassled him to pen the tune, but the moment evaded him until… “We were just about to start the writing process and Ozone called me up!” MacKinnon shouts, smacking his hands to his head. “Somehow my dad found this guy through his production label and told him the story and asked him to call me,” MacKinnon, exhausted with his own tale, leans back on the couch and adds, “That's how I knew the time was right”.

The track, Lifes Midnight, is haunting with its childish bike-bells opening, before MacKinnon rolls out the tale piece by piece, always keeping it close to home, “I'd watch Breakdance and idolise Ozone/ Rented it so many times back in Kurrajong Heights”. It is those homegrown nods that saw Bliss N Eso indoctrinate themselves into the Aussie hip hop psyche.

MacKinnon, who first met Notley and Ejjamai when they were just 17, says it's not just the group's music that hypnotises and drags fans in, but rather their spiritual philosophy. “We've got our own religion, man – and it's called Bliss N Eso. Nah, but for real, ya' know, we have fans who are right there with you in the front row and they've got all the posters and the albums and the clothing – it's almost like a religion,” MacKinnon theorises. Closing his eyes and bringing his hands together, MacKinnon gets all spiritual on our arse, telling us that he believes the core of the band's belief system stems from positive thinking.

“I know I'm a little bit over the top here 'cause I believe in it so much, but the fans that we have and the ones that we talk to tell us how we've saved relationships, how we've made their parents understand who they are. We are bringing people together with music – which is the last kind of magic in the world.”

Circus In The Sky, with its quirky samples from the likes of indie princess Sarah Blasko and triple j darling Emma Louise, is likely to see the boys convert a whole new generation.

“There are so many, wild, wild songs on this album, that's why we called it Circus In The Sky, because I literally feel like it is a circus,” MacKinnon grins. “We didn't plan it, we didn't go, 'Oh, we gonna make it like this', it was just… like that Sarah Blasko song [We Will Run],” MacKinnon falls back onto the couch, his eyes rolling back into his head and his fist smacks upon his heart, “Argh! It was just like; get this arrow out of my heart! With Emma Louse and the Jungle track – you know, 'My head is a jungle'! I've been reading books by Michael Jordan, who says that your head actually is a jungle and everyday people are throwing in little tiny seeds and some of them are bad, and they grow and create a jungle. But what you wanna do, man, is like, you only take the good seeds and let the positive ones grow – then your mind becomes a forest of positive thoughts.”

MacKinnon, who can barely keep up with his own ecstatic thoughts, singles out Daniel Merriweather – whom he calls “a gangster, gangster old-school motherfucker” – as helping to drive home the Motown sound they'd be searching for on the track Can't Get Rid Of This Feeling.

But it was their collab with Nas that saw MacKinnon turn to jelly and start fanboying. “Mate, I am bromancing out the mother!” before shooting both legs in the air and shaking his hand between them, “It's Nas dude! It's fucked up!

“I used to listen to him when I was 16, man, it's just an absolute pleasure to have him on the album. Nas does a lot of slow tracks and a lot of different kind of tempo tracks – so for him to be on a track with us we're he's actually doing some double time rhyming is just… I mean, he could've just slowed it down and wanked it off, but he fucking took it to the table!” MacKinnon grins.

Sitting back and finally taking a breather, MacKinnon reminisces about a favourite memory of his: that one time the boys hit up SXSW. 

“Oh mate, we saw Nas play his entire first album, Illmatic, from start man, to finish! Man, there was not enough sperm in any of us boys to show how much we fucking loved it.” Amen to that.