TOP KIWI RAPPER WORKS 9-TO-5 TO PAY THE BILLSSTEVE HOPKINS - Sunday News | Sunday, 18 January 2009YOUNG SID is more than just a diamond in the rough - the South Aucklander is rapping his way onto the international stage. But it's a case of almost famous for the 21-year-old whose real name is Sid Diamond.
For the last six weeks the Otara local has been in New York recording his second solo album and in Korea on a four-day publicity stop.
But on Tuesday he's back to shifting packages not records as a storeman on a south Auckland factory floor. "Yeah, I work in a factory. We (Sid's band Smashproof) still do 9 to 5s, man. This music is a passion for us but we still got our jobs to hold us down and pay our bills," Sid told Sunday News.
Sid's second album yet to be titled will be released later this year, along with another he's working on with international artists. And in March Smashproof which consists of Young Sid, Tyree and Deach will release their first collaborative album called
The Weekend.
"We're all hungry, man. We got work standards over here, we can put out, like, 100 songs. We've got like 100 songs in the can," Sid said.
The Weekend, as the name suggests, is about "pretty much that".
"
The Weekend is about three dudes that have normal jobs like us. We're like factory workers and at the end of the 9 to 5 you clock out on Friday and your weekend starts and anything can happen," Sid said.
The album is a follow-up to Smashproof's first single release Ride 'Til I Die and has been hotly anticipated.
Since the single's 2005 release both Young Sid and Tyree have released critically acclaimed solo albums Tyree's
Now Or Never earned him the Best Male Artist at the 2007 Australasian Urban Music Awards, and Young Sid's
The Truth was nominated for Best Urban Release at the 2008 New Zealand Music Awards and gained him the Waiata Maori award for Best Urban Album.
The Weekend's first single, Brother featuring the Macy Gray-sounding Kiwi Gin Wigmore is a riff on life in south Auckland and has just been released.
"We're just stating what is actually happening. We're trying to get south Auckland to open their eyes and see what's happening to try to overcome it and be better people.
"We're showing people there is another way. It's hard to be from South Auckland. It's hard to get out of there."
For Sid whose mum was a drunk and whose dad was a drug dealer everything changed after he released The Truth.
"I didn't think I'd be overseas and that, travelling. Before The Truth I was nobody, I was no one," Sid said. "I was a boy from the hood. I had heaps of support from my neighbourhood but nationally I was a nobody." But Sid's neighbourhood friends almost cost him it all.
He lent his voice to the Colourway Records song "Put Your Colours" On which featured several Killer Beez rappers including gang boss Josh Masters and people assumed the rapper was part of the violent street gang.
"I got some bad light for that. But I honestly don't regret it. I was helping out some friends and I got put under the same light they were under," Sid said.
"I'm still mad I got put on TV and made to look like I was this bad guy. I almost got blacklisted, they were going to pull my video clips off TV. I missed out on a lot of things gigs, money. I had to build it all up again."
In May, police arrested 44 Killer Beez and Tribesmen gang affiliates in a drugs sting which saw them seize about $500,000 worth of P and cannabis, $20,000 cash, a large amount of stolen property, motorcycles and cars under the Proceeds of Crime Act.
Sid says the Killer Beez are still his friends but he draws the line at visiting them in jail. "Like go to the jails and visit them? Nah, nah. That's their thing. But they know what's up. I've still got love for them."
High Court proceedings between Eircom and four music companies - EMI, Sony, Universal and Warners - have been settled on an amicable basis. The proceedings had been in court for eight days.
