Mathas On Being Sick Of Social Media & Dealing With Online Trolls

Just because we can make music, does that mean we should? Let’s run with the cliché; when a tree falls in a forest. Why question its potential sound when we could be asking why the fuck we’re cutting it down it down in the first place? I’m a writer with a passion. Hopefully you’re a reader that shares that same passion. So what happens when I write something you don’t agree with? Does my falling tree fall on deaf ears or no ears at all? For example, when I say hip hop isn’t what it used to be, Tupac is better than Biggie or Australian rap only holds value in mainstream commercialism, do you hit ‘share', just ignore the content and hit close, OR, write an insidiously hateful comment to really let me ,and my audience, know how you feel? The thing about the internet is it doesn’t matter where you live. As long as you have a connection, you have access to the world and its inhabitants at your fingertips, which is both exciting and frightening at the same time. This week I spoke to an MC that can talk you under the table. Not because he’s “living comfy in his beach police state,” but because his creative and provocative demeanour doesn’t have time for haters. Perth resident Mathas explains to me that location is irrelevant when dealing with trolls.

"Ultimately, it’s got nothing to do with the isolation of living in Perth," he says.

"We actually first started making music by forming a crew called The Community. We were building something, as the name would suggest, that really started a movement, not just throwing a track on triple j Unearthed.

"There’s a really strong local community over here and it crosses over a lot. I know heaps of people that make music — not just hip hop — and everyone frequents gigs. There’s a lot of comradery and a lot of really good bands come out of here, maybe that’s because of the isolation! It’s not always a bad thing."

I haven’t yet had the delight of investigating Perth’s hip hop scene but I imagine it’s no different to that of Melbourne or Sydney, for example?

"Look you can always make generalisations about states," Mathas explains.

"But ultimately, the people that come to your shows want to be there. There’s no difference between east and west coast. We’re all just music lovers."

What’s particularly unique to Mathas is his eloquent and articulate vocabulary. It’s brilliantly broad yet beautifully specific to the message in his rhymes. In addition to that, his live shows are actually quite theatrical where he enters the stage somewhat in character. Who is this man and how did he come about?

"I think because of the density of my lyricism, the fact that it’s quite thick and a lot of the time has a dark sort of negative tinge to it... it’s very much of an opinion.

"I don’t like being preachy but I know that sometimes I am... So what happened was I started trying to be funny or theatrical on stage. It kind of cut through some of the seriousness in my songs and it sort of made me feel comfortable to be able to share my stories and opinions. I think it makes the audience more comfortable too."

Last year Mathas dropped a track dubbed Bravo Troll, bravely investigating just what trolling is in a world saturated in social media and cat videos. The track grew to be far more than a simple single and I was inquisitive as to how the rapper found frustration in peoples online vendettas.

"I was feeling, and still am, monumentally sick and tired of social media. It’s something that came along somewhere in my musical life and became sort of imperative to your personal success as a musician, in this multi-faceted source of self promotion.

"It wasn’t written in a particularly happy space, but it was about me witnessing what people have to persevere online. Comments my friends have received or women having to deal with trolls for example… it’s a pretty dangerous area to write about, but it’s something that everyone just puts up with. It’s become your personal broadcast and how much people want to be on board that broadcast. There’s a lot of narcissism on the internet and I spose'… I wrote a song about that!"

I, no doubt like you, am completely guilty of shameless ‘broadcasting.’ Hell I work in music! It’s somewhat depressing though when you really think about how much value we place on ‘likes’ and followers.. What’s even more depressing is the shit we let people get away with simply with the flick of your thumb. I think it’s about time we stop allowing people to associate hip hop (as a culture, not just the music) with the shallow bullshit plastered all over Facebook. I haven’t even touched on YouTube comments, is there a line we can draw between free speech and hateful and potentially damaging comments?

"Look I don’t know. We’re discovering it’s really hard to police… I don’t have the answer to that but that’s also what’s so daunting and exhausting about it. It really makes me retract from it and I actually had a huge break from social media deactivating my Facebook account.

So, Bravo Troll?

"Look I knew it was dangerous territory. I knew there could be some backlash. I haven’t really had to deal with online bullying or trolls. But some of my friends are big Australian hip hop artists and the comments you get are always 50/50. Half is positive and praise but it can also be mindless cruelty."

And suddenly I’m back to mental health. One doesn’t think about the effects of your tweet, the ramifications of your Instagram post or who is actually going to see your updated status. It’s so incredibly important for the next generation (if not ourselves) to understand the power of words/visual content before they have to deal with such anonymous cruelty.

"There’s a group called The Bully Project Australia that focuses on bullying within schools. They were interested in the song based on the lyrical content... It’s a little dangerous associating bullying with trolling as trolling can actually have its positives.

"Anyway they basically made a press kit of my design elements and built a curriculum out of the song for schools to be able to order and study! I broke down the lyrics and they created exercises the kids could do based around avoiding cyber bullying, it was an amazing thing to be a part of, I was really flattered!

"This sort of stuff HAS to happen in early education so we can grow the positive type of people we want in society. They need to be taught how to navigate information in a world full of falsity. I have no idea how to get to that, but I believe it starts with education."

I think we can all agree that at times life can be hard. Really fucking hard. And I certainly don’t need it made any harder by some bullshit hater, criticising who I am as a person through the defence of anonymity and reckless key-bashing. So has Mathas now gone off the grid for good?

"Nah man I still use it, I push gigs and stuff, of course. But I’ve also been writing a lot. If I’m going to invest in my creativity for a while I need to cut everything else out and social media feels like business to me.

"I need to cut business out to be creative and I’m having so much fun with that. I’m taking a break so I can write a body of music I’m really happy with and the plan is I’ll be releasing the first part of that later in the year."

At this point I’ll encourage you, if you’ve experienced cyber bullying or need to speak to someone you can head to Reach Out, Headspace or Beyond Blue for support.

From one of the dopest, most articulate rappers in the game I think we both agree; If you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything (AKA sit down, be humble).