Fatman Scoop has been fortunate enough to travel the world and bring to R&B fans what they love best – good music. Since the early 2000’s, we’ve heard Scoop bring the bass drops to the floor with ‘Be Faithful’ and other tracks including the likes of Timbaland, Missy Elliot and Mariah Carey. The AU Review had the chance to sit down with Fatman Scoop accompanied DJ Bluey during their travels on Australian soil.
Scoops new single “Sunrise”, featuring Major Lazer’s Jillionaire and MC Fuse ODG, brought fans a infusion of phat beats and cool rhythms all together in one piece. The song was recorded within a week, after Scoop had been ambitiously waiting to get together with Jillionaire to create a hit. “Jillionaire understands the way to put a record together. I was like ‘you know something, I’m not going to waste this week. This week, something’s happening’” said Scoop. “We went to the studio and he started playing beats and my manager was like “That song’s good”. That week everybody came through. The energy was there.”
Fans can expect more from Scoop in 2017, after Bluey announced that the pair are in the midsts of working on a track titled “Bumper”.
Over the last three years since the introduction of Fox Fm’s R&B Friday’s, old school R&B has sky-rocketed back into airwaves around the nation. After travelling to Australia late last year for Fox FM’s successful R&B Friday’s Live tour alongside Nelly, TLC and Mýa (just to name a few) Scoop was amazed by the amount of support that he received, describing it as “One of the most successful tours I’ve ever been on”.
Throwback to my AUSTRALIAN tour. Where are my Aussies at?! @RNBFridaysLive pic.twitter.com/O59ur8sDbR
— Fatman Scoop (@fatmanscoop) March 23, 2017
Presented by Frontier Touring, R&B Friday’s was brought to life with the national tour RNB Fridays Live, selling out venues around the nation. “In terms of where everybody was in their career, it was an extremely successful tour.” Scoop says. “Just being on that tour at this stage of my career was great. It just showed me how much that station has embedded R&B Fridays into people’s consciousness.”
The all-day R&B idea, originally sparking out of Adelaide in June 2015, has grown to become one of the most successful experiments from one of Australia’s most listened to entertainment networks, Southern Cross Austereo and its Hit Network. After the network dubbed Friday’s as ‘R&B Friday’s’ for a trial period of four weeks, it became clear to the network that listeners wouldn’t let go – and two years later, Australians around the nation are continuing to embrace old school R&B. “In order to be in any kind of game, you have to have some form of guts and some sort of vision. Sometimes you’ve just got to take a chance.” said Scoop.
Bluey, who accompanied Scoop to Australia in 2016, said his experience in Australia would keep him coming back to perform for Australian crowds. “The crowds are really receptive to whatever you give them. At one of the shows in particular, we went on and did our usual – Scoop did his thing, hip hop and R&B classics, I warmed up with R&B then I went on played house for an hour and they loved it. Everyone was like “Woah, what is he doing?”, but it worked.”
Scoop, who has travelled to Australia at least 12 times, describes Australia as a place where he can be himself. “Generally, the people here are very warm. You don’t experience the kind of things that you experience in America. I don’t feel uncomfortable, I don’t feel like people are looking at me like, “Who’s this black guy?” or whatever. I generally feel comfortable. And that’s something that you don’t get in a lot of countries.”
Before finishing up the Sunrise Tour in Australia, Scoop took a trip to Mount Isa this weekend for Triple J’s One Night Stand, putting on a performance for locals and Triple J fans during the Thundamentals “Wyle Out Year”.
.@fatmanscoop x @Thundamentals, the #triplejONS collab of a lifetime pic.twitter.com/MCGiyTOzfu
— triple j (@triplej) April 22, 2017
You can catch Fatman Scoop and Bluey in Brisbane and Perth before the pair head to New Zealand.
April 28th | Eatons Hill Hotel, BRISBANE | 18+
Tickets on the door
April 29th | Villa Nightclub, PERTH | 18+
www.moshtix.com.au
May 4th | The Grand, WELLINGTON | 18+
www.ticketspace.co.nz
May 5th | Stampede Bar, AUCKLAND | 18+
www.ticketspace.co.nz
May 6th | Totara Street, TAURANGA | 18+
www.ticketspace.co.nz
———-
