The Brag

Diafrix
Full Of Dreams
By Benjamin Cooper 

After more than a decade of hard and oft-anonymous slog, Melbourne hip hop crew Diafrix are entitled to feel slightly fatigued. Yet on the release of their second record Pocket Full Of Dreams, vocalist and rapper Momo insists that he, his fellow frontman Azmarino and producer Ptero Stylus are in a state of relative bliss. “For sure, it’s been ten years of hard work,” he admits, down the line from his home studio, “but that period also allowed us to become self-supporting as musicians and as artists, and it also gave us our sense of identity. We wouldn’t have been able to put out any of our records [2007 EP In Tha Place and 2009’s debut LP Concrete Jungle] if we hadn’t been taking all that in. And we wouldn’t have made Pocket Full Of Dreams, which has been an… interesting process,” Momo says, somewhat mysteriously. When pressed, he offers only this: “There were up and downs. We were definitely deeply engaged in the process, because we are very hands-on people. I mean it’s our album, our baby. So we were involved for the entire process, working with the engineers through the mixing to make the best music we could. A lot of it was trial and error – we’re well aware we’re no Lady Gaga – but it’s dope rhymes and good music. What more could you want?”

The new album features an array of guests, from eternal expat Daniel Merriweather to local legend 360. How did the group’s studio take to the task of housing so many creative types? “It was actually a really chilled environment,” Momo says. “Quite a few of us had worked together before, either through the group or in other projects, which meant we were able to just get going. Everyone was really passionate, but I think it couldn’t happen any other way, you know? You’re working on new material, plus you get to perform all these new songs with other people – it’s just fun when you’ve got a new track in the system. And then you get to take it out to live shows, and you can see people reacting from the stage. Heads start bobbing as people start getting into a song, or recognising a beat, and it’s just amazing. People put their hands up to show they’re loving it – that right there is what I do, and it’s the best feeling in
the world.”

The Pocket Full Of Dreams tour will see the band teaming up with triple j Unearthed discovery Allday, heading through the cities and coasts of the nation. And after ten years, Diafrix still haven’t forgotten the fans sitting right up the back. “We love performing live, it’s really our thing, and it’s definitely one of the things that has kept us going for so long,” Momo says. “It’s really all about the crowd and the people that show you love from the nosebleed sections. Nothing is better than when we’re standing on a stage looking out at all these party people, and we can see the people up the top going off. I mean, it’s gotta be our response to give it our all, right? When there’s that much love, and people are having that much fun – well, I’d hate for us to be half-arsed.”

The crew obviously get much love and respect for their fans, but it’s the relationship between the two frontmen that provides the greatest creative spark. Azmarino and Momo have wildly different backgrounds, sharing only a love of all things Footscray, a passion for music and an African heritage. After being born in Eritrea, in the horn of Africa, Azmarino spent much of his young life as a refugee in countries as disparate as Jordan and Switzerland, before finally migrating to Australia at the start of the last decade. Momo arrived in Australia with his family from the Comoros Islands at the age of three. “Me and Azmarino share something amazing,” Momo says. “We’ve created this whole group, this project, together… A lot of people will ask who my number one rapper is, and I just say it’s him every time. I really feel that he’s upped my game so much, and what I write has become much deeper than it ever used to be. And together on stage we really try to make each other shine.

“I think we both recognise we’re blessed in being part of such an organic relationship,” he continues. “I mean, stuff does go wrong. There’s so much going on and you do have minor hiccups. But you know to keep going even if you miss a word, or to be backing each other, because if one person runs out of breath there’s gotta be someone else really supporting him. We’ve always supported each other, because we have had to. One of the things that motivated us way back at the start, and made us take our music seriously, was that Australian hip hop was a certain way and didn’t look like changing. But we still thought we had something good going on; we thought, ‘We’ll stand tall on our own two feet,’ and we did. Now the scene is very different – culturally and stylistically, it’s very diverse – but we’re still doing our thing. And we’re doing it damn well.”

What: Pocket Full Of Dreams is out now
With: Allday
Where: Goodgod Small Club
When: Saturday October 27
More: Also playing at Homebake alongside Hilltop Hoods, Daniel Merriweather, Blondie, Kimbra, Sonicanimation and more, held on Saturday December 8 @ The Domain