Auckland hip hop act Home Brew successfully both transfixed and shocked parts of New Zealand.
Their classic debut album – perhaps the most anticipated and positively received local release of 2012 – has become synonymous with hip hop in Aotearoa and was followed by a long list of successful musical endeavours from the members – including the critically acclaimed and award-winning Avantdale Bowling Club, Team Dynamite and @peace.
It’s been over a decade since the release of Home Brew, an uncompromising, anti-establishment snapshot of honesty, self-reflection and disillusionment. With that honesty, Tom Scott, Haz Beats and Lui Gumaka created the clearest picture of the 2010s zeitgeist yet – somehow blending hip hop with Trade Me, PAK'nSAVE, John Key and whatever drug ‘killed the dinosaurs’.
‘11 years gone by. it's weird looking back at it with hindsight. i think some of it has fermented better than other parts. but i can at least step back from it now and see it for what it was. it was some honest shit that we weren't trying to take too seriously. and that's what i like about it now. it was never too up itself. it was just the noises that came out of us at the time. a bunch of kids having fun. hard to hate on that.’
― Tom Scott