Street savvy ... Kerser’s tales from the suburbs about drugs and crime have struck a chord with young fans. Picture: Supplied Source: Supplied
HIS albums are the most likely to be nicked from a JB Hi-fi store.
The fourth one in four years, KING, smashed straight into the top 10 on debut last November.
His videos have amassed more than 26 million views and he calculates he has written, recorded and released 500 tracks since he embarked on his hip hop career while still a teenager.
Kerser is the most successful rap star you have never heard of.
The 27-year-old MC who proudly hails from Campbelltown in Sydney’s western suburbs has been wilfully ignored by an industry that doesn’t know how to package his unapologetic hip hop from the streets.
His brutally honest musical tales about his life have struck a resounding chord with a fiercely devoted fanbase — so much so it prompted him to move to an unspecified new home on the NSW south coast.
After making his name on the rap battle circuit, culminating in a now legendary viral video of his 2012 contest with fellow MC 360, Kerser’s life in Campbelltown got hectic.
Prolific artist ... Kerser plans to write and record 10 albums in 10 years. Picture: Robert Pozo Source: News Limited
His third album S.C.O.T. landed at No. 5 on the ARIA charts after troubling Katy Perry and other A-listers on iTunes immediately after its release, soaring to No.2.
Kerser even counts gangland widow Roberta Williams as a fan, who goes to his Melbourne gigs with her daughter.
“I spin my friends out sometimes by going to Macarthur Square on weekends. By the time we walk from one side to the other, I’ve got 70 to 100 kids following us, asking for photos,” he said.
When they started knocking on his townhouse door for photo opps at 11pm, it was time to move.
“It drove my girlfriend crazy,” he says. “And I didn’t want to be rude to fans, to tell them to go away at 11 o’clock at night when they knocked on the door. I felt bad.”
He credits his honest rhymes about drugs, parties, crime and the everyday concerns for capturing the attention of hip hop fans in Australia.
Some of it is exaggerated or sarcastic, often stretched so far from the truth it becomes comedy.
But most of it is real.
“When I came along, a lot of Australian hip hop artists were rapping about BBQs and beaches. I speak from the street point of view,” he says.
“It’s more raw than most.”
While he makes no secret of his marijuana use, he blames the ice epidemic for the escalating violence and chronic disenfranchisement crippling Australia’s suburbs.
“Boredom and drugs. There’s nothing to do. I have mates who have had drive bys, had their doors kicked in and I know other people who have done that. They don’t have any morals and they’ve gone crazy,” he says.
Making his own mark ... Kerser says he has no desire to be a ‘45 year old rapper’. Picture: Supplied Source: Supplied
“And then you get emails from other kids, telling you their stories of being addicted to ice at 12, abused at 14, story after story after story. Sometimes they tell me I saved their life. On any day, that’s enough for me.
“Music is a way to get out of that, to inspire people to get out of a bad position and make a change.”
He says he had his own run-ins with authority when he was a teenager “known to local police” but decided to exorcise his demons through music to “avoid the dramas”.
Kicking off with his debut record The Nebulizer, released in 2011, through to KING, Kerser has worked exclusively with his producer Nebs.
The beatmaster sends through his works-in-progress and Kerser uses those skeletons to flesh out his ideas.
His older brother Rates and best mate Jay UF generally make an appearance on record and stage.
He has the incredible ambition to release 10 records in 10 years and also set up a label to help support the local hip hop talent he has discovered in south west Sydney.
“I don’t want to be a 45-year-old rapper, to tell you the truth,” he says.
“I want to be working out of an office with my own label, giving kids the opportunities to make it.”
Kerser performs at The HiFi, Sydney, Sunday January 25, 7.30pm
Tickets from $25.50
thehifi.com.au
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