DAVID DALLAS & THE DAYLIGHT ROBBERY AUSTRALIA TOUR

Kiwi Hip Hop artist David Dallas is the “artist formerly known as”. Formerly known as Con Psy. Formerly known as one-half of the award winning local Hip Hop group Frontline. Through currently known as “the next big thing”.

Dallas first appeared on the New Zealand music scene after label mate P-Money spotted the prodigious talents of the rising star. It was this recognition that led to Dallas’ searing verse on Scribe’s “Not Many – The Remix”. The song heralded the arrival of an untapped rap talent that New Zealand hip-hop was quick to make room for.

Eight years on from that 16 bar introduction, David Dallas has amassed an impressive history of ticked boxes. Releasing a critically lauded debut album? Check. New Zealand music award for the Best Hip Hop Album? Check. Record deal with prestigious American record label? Check. Surgically precise wordplay few can approach? Check.

The past three years have been a rollercoaster for the Kid. He signed to underground powerhouse Duck Down Music NYC in 2011, releasing second album The Rose Tint in the US soon after and touring throughout North America with Hip Hop duo Aer. A spot at the notoriously hard-to-get-into SXSW Fader party. Big ups from Kanye West and adds to MTV America and Australia. Short listing for New Zealand’s highest songwriting accolade, the Taite Prize. A tour of New Zealand with P-Money, and the release of his Buffalo Man EP.

Not wanting to rest on laurels, the start of 2013 saw Dallas enter the studio with production whizz kids Fire & Ice, note book in hand. Diamonds are made under pressure. In four months, Dallas had twelve unmissable finished tracks to put his name to.

D.Dot talks a big game but he’s still a storyteller. Themes on Falling Into Place range from epic Django Unchained tales of escape on first single “Runnin”, to his tribute to the streets of South Auckland, “Southside”. Arguably the biggest innovator in hip hop New Zealand has seen in two decades, Dallas has once again turned his eagle eye to finding new and unusual talent to mix in with his own. On “The Wire” and “The Gate” he collaborates with alt. pop icon Ruby Frost, the tracks bookending the album (both songs had been demo-ed a year before “that” TV show, to quell any notions of bandwagon-jumping). Elsewhere in the tracklisting, up-and comers Spycc and Rokske rub shoulders with long time wingmen Sid Diamond, Mareko, PNC and US superstar rapper Freddie Gibbs.

“I’m out here, I’m hungry. I don’t play’ around, trust me.” – ‘Runnin’, David Dallas