How I Became a Fan of Horrorshow

It started with a name. Browsing Aussie hip-hop forums in the late noughties, “Horrorshow” caught my eye. I pulled up the duo’s first project, The Grey Space, not knowing it would stick with me for years.

The opening track “Uplift” set the tone immediately. At the time, I felt as though rap was saturated with the same tired flexing and braggadocio. Every second MC claiming to be the greatest alive. So when Solo (the MC) rapped:

My question is this, how every record every rapper’s
Claiming they’re the best there is? “Somebody’s lying”

I sat up.

The outro then drove it home:

I’m definitely not the best
There will never be another footprint
On the surface of the Earth quite the same as mine
And that’s the only claim I’m walking out of here with

A refreshing take amongst the unabashed and relentless “I’m the best” rapper chest-thumping going around.

Then came “Waiting for the 5:04”, a track about catching Sydney trains. The hyperlocal nature of the story was supremely relatable and made me feel seen. It hit different to anything else I’d heard from overseas. This felt like it belonged here.

The rest of the project was full of poetic, local, melancholic bars that fed my introspective, angsty tendencies, particularly “Dire Straits Pt. 1” and “Celapram”.

But it wasn’t all brooding. “No Rides Left” and “All Summer Long” were proper jams with a lot of warmth. And the pocket Solo hits with “I’ve never meant to let you go / My heart’s like a metronome” is just *chefs kiss*. A section so perfect I kept rewinding it again and again.

What made it all land was Adit — the other half of the duo — and his soulful, well-crafted production throughout. When I read that these two had made this as high school teenagers, I genuinely couldn’t believe it. They were just like a year older than me.

This was proper hip-hop. Local, focused, poetic, soulful. Everything I wanted.

I soon discovered their sophomore project “Inside Story” and worked through that too.

Somewhere in that listening session, “The Rain” came on and I experienced frisson (a psychophysiological response to rewarding stimuli, often called “musical chills” or a “skin orgasm”). I even tweeted about it.

I’ve been a fan ever since, following their work as Horrorshow, Solo’s feature verses, and Adit’s production credits with other artists.

A few years ago I was lucky enough to meet Solo a couple of times. The kind of encounter where you try not to say or do anything too weird. Hopefully I succeeded.

But the real full-circle moment came later. I’d submitted a verse for a remix contest they were running and Solo had this to say in their reel (around the 9 minute mark):

I was really impressed by your verse. Some serious wordplay going on. What really struck me was the way that you…you know, you had unexpected bars and imagery.

I feel like in the world of rap, often it can feel like you’ve heard it all before, you know? And in the space of your application, you managed to fit three or four things that I’ve never heard anyone put in a verse before.

From someone whose honesty I’d admired since that first listen, that meant a helluva lot.