RAED is the most controversial rap artist in Australia. He made headlines in 2001 when he stalked the founder of Mushroom records, Michael Gudinski, orchestrated a bomb hoax in Crown Casino, demanded a hot chocolate and then entertained the bomb squad with freestyle raps.
Some Youtube commentators refer to Raed as the godfather of mumble rap. Others class him as an avant-garde pioneer. Everyone else hates him. But there’s only two ways to describe Raed; relentless and committed.
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When my friend introduced me to R.A.E.to the muthafuckin.D I was expecting a joke, but what I witnessed was so perplexing that I was left glued to the laptop screen in awe. The music video was for i dont care who you are, and I felt unsettled, confused and as RAED puts it, “psychologically invaded.”
Raed is a hulking Lebanese-Australian extrovert from the suburbs, who used to sell ecstasy for a living. Raed loves flexing on screen and flossin’ in his BMW at every chance he gets. The juxtaposition of an alpha-jock doing mundane rap-video stunts, combined with the most absurd stream-of-consciousness raps, creates a truly surreal experience, or as Raed puts it, “outrageously contagious”.
The initial reaction most people have toward Raed is: “this is horrible”. That’s because they don’t want to understand it. But the deeper you troll through the R..A..E..D Youtube channel, the more you begin to find die hard fans explaining the artful quality of his aesthetic. To brazenly dismiss his style, is a slap to the face of an auteur, responsible for the most innovative rap technique on this planet. How would the internet respond if Stockhausen’s Kontakte was released on Youtube in 2013?
If we backpedal to the origins of Raed, the most shocking thing about his style is how “normal” and socially conscious his first track was:
Raed’s humble beginnings are proof that the rapper consciously derailed from the conventions of rap music, in search of something original. Ironically, the only other time Raed has been tangibly on-beat was on a track titled oh babbe u waan pipe, a meth reference that he conceptually subverts by being his most aesthetically cohesive.
Raed reiterates this point in his autobiographical feature film, Still Flowing which is about Michael Gudinski’s “ploy” to stop Raed’s success as a rapper. In the film there are several scenes where studio executives praise Raed’s unique style; “he’s original and that’s exactly what we need,” “he’s really dedicated to his style,” and “[his] style is really crazy and intense.” In the music world, producers and labels are constantly on the lookout for someone or something original, Raed offers originality on steroids.
There’s an obsessive precision to this originality. Raed’s production company Tripplah is a reference to him being a triple threat; writing his own lyrics, makes his own beats and directing his own videos. The final product comes from the unique abyss of his imagination, where he meddles in every piece of the creative process. Maybe the magic is in the mediocrity or Raed-ness of every element. But if you gotta love this city babe was directed by David Lynch everyone would probably stroke their chins and applaud the way he subverts conventions.
However, the main problem with the way Raed is perceived in the public has a lot to do with the tragic circumstances of his personal life. Raed’s older brother died from an overdose when he was young and his father commit suicide, after surviving several attempts. In 2014, Videos began surfacing on Raed’s alter-ego Youtube account, Dr TripplaH where he waves a “magic wand,” which is actually a glass crack-pipe, and raps, “2Pac’s da king but my rhymes do sting”. His tragic personal and psychological decline have given his haters an excuse to explain his manic style through his meth addiction, a dark period that produced his most abstract work:
Raed’s style functions as post-rap. Last year he released his first album after a four year hiatus, “The Lavas Volcano,” has a more electronic sound while maintaining his steezy reimagining and deconstruction of the rap genre, continuously challenging all expectations of flow, rhythm and meter. The lyrics often evoke traces from the themes of hip-hop, with tracks about bravado (All Gone Astray), sex (spread your legs), heartbreak (NO MORE TEARS TO CRY, BABE YOU NO I LOVED YOU) and abstract conceptual stuff (the earth moved today, volcano the lava), while staying faithful to the disorienting experience of his techne.
Raed’s Arab identity made his work more obscure, because around the late 2000’s most Arab rappers were either incredibly niche or just a comedy act, and to Youtube audiences Raed was both. He introduced the imagery of suburban Arab identity; the fashion of the era, the slang, the drugs, the hotted up cars and the passion for Crown Casino, elements that align with a caricature most Australians are familiar with, and that Raed highlights in his incredible trance rap collaboration thinken ov me tonight. But he saw himself as something more than that.
On the staircase is a secret man, Raed claims, “the sound is built for the freaks.” The album before his latest release was titled, I am the Cool Freaky. The noun freak is defined as, “a very unusual and unexpected event or situation,” and the verb describes, “[behaviour] or cause to behave in a wild and irrational way, typically because of the effects of extreme emotion or drugs.” In an interview with Sneaky, the rapper was questioned about why Michael Gudinski filed a restraining order against him, Raed quipped, “Gudinski knows a freak when he sees one.” He will always be the infamous freak of the rap world.
“RAED: R=RYTHME A=ARTIST E=ETERNAL D=DESTINY THE NAME SAYS IT ALL AND IN REVERCE IST DEAR AS IN DEAR FRIEND OF MINE.”
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