A Night with Aesop Rock and Kimya Dawson

Aesop Rock, the enigmatic poet-laureate of hip-hop, is rightfully regarded as one the premiere lyricists to have emerged from the rap scene. Combining haunting samples, densely woven rhyme schemes and a brimming intellectual brio, Aesop’s spidery drawl has left an indelible mark on hip-hop, drawing new boundaries in a field so often ruled by convention.


Aesop Rock appears at this year’s festival in the company of Kimya Dawson, former member of Moldy Peaches, singer of the Juno soundtrack and leader of the so-called anti-folk movement. Her catchy but complex ditties mesh perfectly with an inimitable brand of rambling, raw storytelling, bright even as it shines a light onto the darker aspects of the human condition.

From wildly different backgrounds, but linked by a richness of wordplay and anecdote, their collaboration sounds startlingly new and unexpected. Part intimate folk jam, part art-hip-hop party, this is a unique meshing of two of the brightest minds currently working in indie music.

Bastions of the Arab-American hip-hop scene, The Narcicyst and Omar Offendom present their new collaborative show, the Hobson Jobson experience, especially for Melbourne Festival. Hailing from Iraq and Syria respectively and rapping in a combination of Arabic and English, theirs is a furiously political and cerebral brand of hip-hop, marked by the currents of a post-9/11 world and the strangeness of their cross-cultural experiences.