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Welcome to the authentic face of British hip-hop! Welcome to the world of Authentic Bros! Consisting of multi-talented brothers, Babak, a Sound-Engineer (Vocals, Mixing, Beats, Production), and Reza, a Video-Producer (Vocals, Beats), the duo have been steadily forging their own unique brand of multidimensional, emotive urban soundscapes. Raised from a young age on a diverse palette of influences ranging from commercial big-beat rap, explosive indie hip-hop, UK grime, drum’n’bass, R’n’B, reggae, ragga, dubstep, reggaeton and traditional Arabic and Persian music, the duo searched extensively for a creative outlet to realise their ambitions of fusing these base elements into a new breed of music. Frustrated by the lack of diversity on the UK urban scene, they set about creating a new vision and a new sonic journey for the people of the world.
HipHopInformant: How long have you been involved in Hip-Hop and how did it all begin?
Authentic Bros: We've been involved in Hip-Hop just over 10 years. It all began from school field to the streets where we used to spend a lot of time beat boxing and free-styling away with friends. At that time we never thought about pursuing music as a career, though we always knew there was something there to nurture. It was approximately 6 years ago when we started attending production classes, from then we realised that we can specialise ourselves in specific fields, consisting of Video Production (Reza – TV Technology & Production BSc) and Audio Production (Babak – Sound Engineering & Production BSc). We aimed to establish our career not just as artists or MCs but also as producers, giving us the advantage of expressing our form of art in an audio and visual format.
HipHopInformant: Where are you from originally and, does that influence your music and sound?
Authentic Bros: We're originally from the Middle East, southwest Iran to be exact, historically known as Elam within the kingdom of Mesopotamia. The style of music hailing from those areas is very oriental, spiritual and philosophically driven, this has definitely had an influence on our music and sound in various ways as it can be heard on the majority of records we produce. Though it is obvious that we still keep the hip-hop genre alive within our productions and at the same time carrying the British style, but as a whole we have a world and oriental concept.
HipHopInformant: How would you describe your music to people that haven’t heard your music before?
Authentic Bros: A twist of world music within Hip-Hop/Rap simultaneously converged with soul. Keeping it as real and genuine, hence authentic as viable. Therefore providing the listener with what we would expect to hear. So long as it is truthful to us then it would definitely be truthful to the people. We try as much as we can to bring back the main elements and the real essence of not just Rap, Hip Hop etc. but rather the music. People can expect to hear variable poetic contents, from spiritual to physical, worldly matters to life and the list can go on. Though at the end of it all we highly recommend everyone to check our music and off course the videos and derive their own decisions and conclusions.
HipHopInformant: How do you feel about the state of Hip-Hop in the UK at the moment?
Authentic Bros: Quite good, definitely taken to another level in comparison to last year, which can only result in a higher level for next year and the following years.
HipHopInformant: Tell me about your new EP, “For You”- what can listeners expect?
Authentic Bros: The EP consists of 3 diverse productions and their instrumentals. The first song ‘For You’ is based on a true loving relationship, to love for real rather than for lust. Inspired by real life and mainly aiming to convey the message of keeping the love like it was the first time. We shot the video in Majorca, since we felt it was definitely a suitable location for the song and the particular Electronica/Trance sound that it carries.
The second song ‘Same Rules’ is more about life from a world perspective. When we produced ‘Same Rules’ our aim was to put forward the message of peace, unity, care and harmony. The production it self has a Middle-Eastern sound to it much like the Reggaeton genre. The video for ‘Same Rules’ is currently in production, based on mainly a 3D graphics along with oriental set designs.
Finally the third song ‘True Light’ is more of a Hip Hop production from an electronic sound palette. With ‘True Light’ we wanted to convey the message that rather than entering the music industry for solely fame and games, we actually here to represent on a real perspective and aim to put soul within our form of art, hence ‘True Light’, being the light of God.
HipHopInformant: How did the name Authentic Bros come about?
Authentic Bros: The name came about due to the fact that we're brothers and also the fact that we’ve incorporated our roots and culture within our art, therefore aiming to give the productions authenticity, hence Authentic Bros.
HipHopInformant: Does your music have a message, if so what is that message?
Authentic Bros: Definitely has a message as all music has whether positive or negative. The messages mainly revolve around life, humanity, love, peace, respect, unity and everyday events within our lives.
HipHopInformant: Finally what does the future hold for Authentic Bros?
Authentic Bros: At the moment we're working on an album, which should have a large number of styles in terms of beats, sound, poetry and generally the music as a whole. We’re not sure exactly when the release date will be, though hopefully by the end of 2009 or early 2010, but keep us in your scope as we will be announcing the release date. We also have a number of videos in the production line so definitely check out our myspace, youtube, etc.
HipHopInformant: Any shout-outs?
Authentic Bros: A shout out to yourself Nikhil for reaching out to us, and much respect to britishhiphop.co.uk.
www.myspace.com/authenticbros
