On Diplo’s last day in Australia, we took Diplo to the Gadigal Music Headquarters in Redfern for an in-depth feedback and production day with the artists who performed at the Friday night show.

The morning began with the young guys from the On Track workshops and emerging rappers and producers, Stunna Set. These young people are all committed to music and developing their careers as artists, this is what they want to do with their lives and Diplo was hugely impressed with the levels of creativity. Over three hours he answered important questions, shared music styles and new movements and highlighted areas that they should each focus on, and how they could each stand out.

Stunna Set’s producer Rhimi with Diplo

With Stunna Set on the verge of releasing their first EP, Diplo listened to each recording and offered strong production feedback. The in-depth music discussion continued into the afternoon (after a rooftop barbecue with the whole Redfern - Music family) with both Radical Son and The Last Kinnection joining the session.

Radical and Last Kinnection are each working on new music and both sessions with Diplo were hugely productive. Diplo sat with Radical Son for over two hours discussing his music, his influences, lyrical messages and recording styles. Radical is remarkably talented and can switch genres like no other, and we look forward to Radical producing an album that does justice to what the man has in him. Diplo shared writing techniques and sequencing ideas and took David into the Gadigal studios for some one on one producer - performer time.

Last Kinnection and Diplo hit it off, and immediately shared the next albums concepts. Diplo handed over a hell of a lot of new music and offered A&R support throughout the albums writing, Diplo reckons that these musicians can easily fill the club/hip-hop gap that is so drastically missing from the Australian music scene.

Diplo with the Last Kinection kids!

It was a huge day, topping off an amazing few weeks. Thanks so much to everyone else involved, and stay tuned to www.heapsdecent.com to see what happens next!

The extended Gadigal, Heaps Decent, Last Kinection, On Track, Whichways family with Diplo, at lunch on the studio rooftop.

Diplo with the Koori Radio ladies. Thanks Leticia!

Last Friday at Diplo’s Sydney show at the Metro Theatre, Heaps Decent programmed the second room (The Lair), booking young acts we’ve worked with in the past year and some established Indigenous artists we admire.

Starting off the night was 16 year old D-Minor in his first ever club performance, followed by a showcase of young artists including Dazzle, Young Nookie and Str8 Ballaz. These young artists have been part of the On Track program - an initiative run by Redfern Community Centre with Cesar Bassi and Wire MC.

Then began the more established acts - first up was Stunna Set, a young trio who have recently signed to Gadigal Recordings. Rapper Radical Son was next, who commanded the room’s attention with his huge, powerful voice and finally the room was closed by trio The Last Kinection, who got the crowd moving to a tight set of upbeat rap jams.

Big ups to everyone involved, on stage and off. We’ll be posting some video footage of the performances over the next few weeks, but in the meantime check out one of the STR8 BALLAZ film clips.

This week Heaps Decent went back to Junperina, the all girls Juvenile Justice Centre that we visited in 2007 with M.I.A.

With workshops spread over three days, we took with us the biggest crew ever. Heaps Decent founder Diplo joined us on all 3 of the days. Rapper Amanda Blank came along for one, bringing her two DJs Ronnie Darko and Chris Devlin, making this Chris’s third workshop with Heaps Decent!

On the third day UK producer Sinden came to record with us.

It was a fun, exciting 3 days. After introductions we spent as much time as we could recording raps with the 30 girls incarcerated in the centre. Those who didn’t want to rap helped with the production of the beat the others were rapping over. Like most of the young artists we work with, the girls had a diverse taste in music - but two genres stood out as their favourites - hip hop and gabber! So Diplo decided it was time to invent gabber rap!

We’ll be working hard on finishing the songs we’ve recorded over the next few weeks. Thanks so much to Diplo, Amanda Blank, Ronnie Darko, Chris Devlin and Sinden - and of course all the staff and girls at Juniperina!

Tomorrow night Heaps Decent hosts the side room at Diplo’s Sydney show.

In the Lair at the Metro Theatre we’ll be putting on a party featuring Last Kinection, Radical Son, Stunna Set, a showcase from the kids in the On Track project and D-Minor’s debut performance!

It’s going to be a huge night - with Diplo and Amanda Blank playing in the other room - make sure you buy your tickets asap, you can get them through Fuzzy.

Today we packed up our stuff and said goodbye to Key College’s home on Albion St in Surry Hills.

We’ve been teaching a music class there every week for the last two years. Key College has called the space home since 1996, providing education for young people suffering from problems with drugs, alcohol and homelessness.

This year’s group was even featured in the Sydney Morning Herald for doing so well in their School Certificate! Read the article here.

Key College will relocate to a new space in Redfern next year. Congratulations to all the students who have been through the college over the years and thanks to teachers Min and Ben for letting us spend so much time there. We look forward to working with everyone in Redfern!

Sydneysiders should head to SOHO this Sunday after Christmas, where the good people at Sounds are throwing us an end of year fundraiser party!

The line up features are great cross section of some of Sydney’s best DJs including Doom & Hoodrat, Kid Kenobi, Act Yo Age and Ro Sham Bo. Sampology is even flying himself down from Brisbane to play and we’ve been told there will be some extra special secret international guests playing on the night too!

Make sure you buy your tickets here - all proceeds are going to Heaps Decent to fund some exciting workshops across NSW next year.

Mad Decent’s Maluca joins D-Minor in Adam Bozzetto’s studio in Sydney to record a hook for D-Minor’s new song about his year at Key College - “Time to Grow”, which we’ll be putting up for download in the next few weeks!

Heaps Decent set up shop out the front Harbourlife this past weekend, collecting donations from the VIP lane. Thanks again to Fuzzy and our new Festival Supervisor Splitter, pictured here with 2nd time volunteer Tepi. Thanks guys!

After all the recent (well deserved!) hoopla about A-Trak’s amazing workshop with Heaps Decent, we realised we had been overlooking another Fools Gold artist who had worked with us early in the year - Sammy Bananas!!

Back in March Sammy came with us to Key College and taught two students - B and Josh (aka SKNKRK!) - how to make a mash up in Ableton. The result was pretty amazing - CC Penniston’s Finally over the instrumental to Rihanna’s Disturbia. You can read Sammy’s in depth recount over at the Fools Gold Blog.

The links on their blog have expired but we’ve uploaded them again for you!

SKNKRK & Sammy Bananas - Finally Disturbed (House Edit)

SKNKRK & Sammy Bananas - Finally Disturbed (Gabber Edit)