Social media can be a very fickle thing for any celebrity, especially musicians.
Sure, it’s a brilliant means of communication with fans, breaking down the whole notion of placing an artist on a pedestal, however such two-way conversation can be a terrifying thing too, just ask Matt Colwell, aka 360.
The 28-year old Aussie hiphopper has utilised the communicative platform for great things, for example, encouraging fans to send him videos rapping in bids to land a spot next to him onstage, but it too has played against him, the artist having been verbally accosted online countless times, especially after his “controversial” appearance on ABC show Q&A in October of last year.
On this, we thought it high time we had a chat with the interesting and often harshly judged character, the main theme of our conversation, everyone’s favourite worst enemy: social media.
We caught up with 360 not long after he’d been in the studio working on his new record that should drop “most likely the start of next year”, the ‘Live It Up’ rapper explaining how stoked he is to be back on the road once again on the a part of the epic Utopia tour.
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With our conversation almost entirely surrounding social media, 360 solemnly made clear “to be honest with you, I’ve deleted Facebook off my phone completely now.”
For a dude with three quarters of a million followers, this somewhat baffled us as to why he’d shut off such an important communication port.
“I really, really can’t stand the negativity” he revealed “and one thing I notice about myself is say I post something on Facebook, I’ll see there’ll be ninety per cent of comments that are positive, and then there’ll be one really negative comment, but that’s the comment I’ll end up buying into.
“I appreciate the positivity and all that, but it’s funny how the negative ones are the one that stand out” he said.
Colwell opened up, “people say the most brutal shit on the internet, it’s like people don’t give a fuck what the consequences are” confessing, “I don’t even look at Facebook anymore – I’ve only got Instagram on my phone now, I know the negative comments are still there but I’m not reading them.”
“They pushed her to the point where she said ‘I’m going to kill myself'”360 shared a very eye-opening and concerning experience he recently had online, “I’ve got a younger fan, she’s about 15 or something like that” he told us.
“I went onto her Instagram ‘cause she tagged me in one of her photos and I see all these comments of these kids ganging-up on her saying the most brutal shit man.
“She was just trying to defend herself and then they pushed her to the point where she said ‘I’m going to kill myself, I hope you are guys are happy’.”
Shocked, he continued, “you’d think that would change what they were saying, but they kept going and they said ‘good, go kill yourself, you’d be better off’ and all this shit. It’s just horrible man.”
This hit very hard for 360, a known public supporter of anti-bullying and anti-racism, not to mention a strong advocate of organisations such as Beyond Blue, having penned tunes like ‘Early Warning’ to this theme.
“People don’t understand that their words have a lot of power, especially the people are being bullied, it’s really full on man. The shit they say on the Internet they would never say in person, it’s crazy” he said, almost dumbfounded.
Having copped his fair share of harsh criticism, 360 attests that a portion of Australia suffers from tall-poppy syndrome, “as soon as people start kicking goals they immediately want to tear them down, if someone’s doing well we bring them down, people are very quick to jump on that kind of thing and it’s so frustrating.”
Comparing to the overseas market, he went on, “in America I found that people making music over there people want you to be successful, like everyone is getting behind someone if they are successful they get praised for it whereas in Australia people just tear it down.”
“If you make a song with someone singing a hook suddenly you’re not hiphop anymore”A completely fair statement to be made, Colwell then spoke of the scrutiny his genre of music receives, “I don’t know whether I’m just saying this because I’m in the Aussie hiphop scene, but it feels like it’s more prominent in Australian hiphop.”
Discussing the difficulties of making it in the Aussie hiphop league, he continued, “there’s so many rules that people have made up if you’re making Australian hiphop. You can’t make commercial radio songs and shit like that otherwise you’re a sell out, there’s all these rules that are in place.”
“It’s really frustrating” he exclaimed “it’s so prominent in Australian hiphop, if you make a song with someone singing a hook suddenly you’re not hiphop anymore – where music has no boundaries.”
Australian rap is a rather new genre of music, having been pioneered by the likes of the Hilltop Hoods and Bliss ‘N Eso not so long ago, and despite it often being shotdown, the fresh wave of music is gaining legs through the likes of new acts like Tkay Maidza, Baro, Coin Banks and Allday, we poised Colwell with the almighty question, who will break Aussie hiphop internationally?
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“People always say ‘do you think in Australian rapper could blow-up in America?’ and I think it will be extremely hard, but I honestly do think it will happen, it’s just a matter of time, and it’ll be someone people don’t expect.”
Despite being positive that someone will take our homegrown sound to the overseas masses, he doesn’t believe this will be any existing artist on current rotation, “I don’t think it’ll really be anyone kicking ass in Australia at the moment, I think it’ll be the next generation influences all this new school hiphop like A$AP Rocky, A$AP Ferg and Schoolboy Q, they’ll come up with a different soundscape and it’ll really cool to see an Australian artist to go over there and smash it.”
360’s huge national Utopia tour kicked off at the beginning of April and beats all the way through to May, he teased with what fans can expect from the shoes, “we’re going to put a bunch of new shit in there, that’s going to be really fun. I just dropped a new song with Infinite called ‘Monument’ so we’ll be playing so that’s going to be crazy.”
360 Utopia National Tour Dates
Thursday, 16th April 2015
Harvey Road Tavern, Gladstone QLD
Tickets: 360
Friday, 17th April 2015
The Triffid, Brisbane QLD
Tickets: 360
Saturday, 18th April 2015
Racehorse Hotel, Ipswich QLD
Tickets: 360
Sunday, 19th April 2015
The Northern, Byron Bay NSW
Tickets: 360
Wednesday, 22nd April 2015
Plantation Hotel, Coffs Harbour NSW
Tickets: 360
Thursday, 23rd April 2015
Cambridge, Newcastle NSW
Tickets: 360
Friday, 24th April 2015
Waves, Wollongong NSW
Tickets: 360
Saturday, 25th April 2015
The Metro, Sydney NSW
Tickets: 360
Sunday, 26th April 2015
The Doylo, Central Coast NSW
Tickets: 360
Wednesday, 29th April 2015
The Rosemount, Perth WA
Tickets: 360
Thursday, 30th April 2015
Prince Of Wales, Bunbury WA
Tickets: 360
Friday, 1st May 2015
Players Bar, Mandurah WA
Tickets: 360
Saturday, 2nd May 2015
Dunsborough Tavern, Dunsborough WA
Tickets: 360
Thursday, 7th May 2015
Commercial Hotel, South Morang VIC
Tickets: 360
Friday, 8th May 2015
Chelsea Heights Hotel, Chelsea Heights VIC
Tickets: 360
Saturday, 9th May 2015
The Hi-Fi, Melbourne VIC
Tickets: 360
Friday, 15th May 2015
Hallam Hotel, Hallam VIC
Tickets: 360
