A-Love: Vegas Vacation.

A-Love plays Monastery on December 14.

Melbourne rapper A-Love (aka Antonella Formosa) has been cutting her teeth on some rather hefty shows recently, warming up for Mystik Journeyman and Anticon in Melbourne, as well as finishing off her degree in Anthropology recently. She's debuted on Triple J with her solo tune Petty from the new Culture Of Kings 2 album, and is currently touring Australia to promote the disc. Culture of Kings lands in Brisbane this Saturday night, and I was lucky enough to catch up with Antonella and have a yarn about living the hip-hop dream.

How did growing up around music shape your aspirations?

“Well actually it was kind of the reverse. Coming from an extremely musical family it was always drummed into me to NEVER be a musician! It's a pretty ruthless industry in general and my dad has always pushed me to become a doctor or a lawyer or something... On the flip side of that I suppose knowing the music industry inside out its made me pretty cautious of the ways which you can get burnt and I guess I'm pretty lucky in that I don't have distorted views of making big bucks or getting a superstar ego and all that other bullshit that comes along with the music industry.”

Your dad is one of the founding members of the Little River Band. What's he think of your choice of hip-hop as a style?

“Every journalist wants to know that! My dad pretty much thinks hip hop sucks, just because he cant deal with how repetitive it is, however he's recognised that hip hop borrows from so many styles and that in a lot of ways he's helped shape my musical tastes. I think he has a lot of contempt for the whole ethics of sampling as well, just because he thinks people should learn an instrument before deciding to make any kind of music. Despite all that, he supports me on my travels and knows that this isn't just a passing phase, and after winning 20 thousand dollars in the Nescafe Big Break he's starting to take me a little more seriously!”

How has Culture Of Kings been received?

“Nationally I think it's done extremely well. It made feature album of the week on Triple J, which is definitely a good thing.  It worked well for me being a new artist to have all these strange people know who I was, and has definitely worked in my favour, as well as being able to do live shows in places like sunny BrisVegas!”

What's the plan for the next few years?

“Make lots of albums, put out lots of albums thru my new record label Duality Records, travel overseas and assassinate George Bush.”