New gig for Adelaide artist behind some of Australia’s biggest bands
Following the release of his first solo album and starting a new gig at Adelaide University’s Aboriginal music centre, a Ngarrindjeri hip-hop artist reveals his secret to success and what he learnt from working with Adelaide heavyweights Hilltop Hoods.
Professionally known as Trials, Daniel Rankine has spent more than a decade helping shape Australian music from behind the scenes.
The producer, rapper and songwriter has worked with everyone from Hilltop Hoods and Paul Kelly to Thelma Plum, Dune Rats and DZ Deathrays, picking up four ARIA Awards and the 2018 APRA Songwriter of the Year award along the way.
Now, the artist is bringing that experience into the classroom, joining Adelaide University’s Centre for Aboriginal Studies in Music (CASM) to help mentor the next generation of Indigenous music students.
Founded in 1972, the centre is the only devoted university-based centre specialising in Australian Indigenous music, offering a fee-free one-year pathway into university for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students.
Four classes into his tenure, Daniel says there has been “huge progress”.
Seeing things “go into practice pretty quickly, is really exciting and encouraging,” he says.
You might like
“I’m basically teaching all the fundamentals that got me to where I am today, so production from the inside and out”.
However, Daniel says theory can only take you so far – “know the theory, but trust your gut,” he says.
“It’s very important to really go with the same feeling that gave you the inspiration to get into creation in the first place.
“I think just trusting your own instinct and [using] that love for the reason why you’re making it in the first place to guide you a little bit further and a bit stronger than anything else is very paramount for me”.
Daniel says this principle is what guided him to make his first solo album, hendle, which was released in May.
Subscribe for updates
The 10-track hip-hop album is a stark exploration of instability juxtaposed against a bouncy beat, a technique he learned while working with Hilltop Hoods.
“I saw the reaction, people literally in the crowds jumping around and moving to these very serious topics, and then I took that into my own career,” he says.
“It’s an album that is spoken and written in a voice and particular sound that I don’t think many people may be too familiar with… an interesting way to enter into adult rap music.
“When I had the opportunity to do my own solo record, it literally is a guilty pleasure all around. That’s why there’s no guests, no features, no nothing, no influence, nobody, just me”.
Dean of Adelaide University’s Elder Conservatorium of Music and School of Performing Arts Professor Anna Goldsworthy says Rankine’s presence at the centre is inspiring.
“He brings a great deal of professional experience to the centre, but beyond that I think he’s just a marvellous example of what can be done if you follow your passion and you have the necessary drive to really fulfil that dream,” she says.
“I think the value of that cannot be underestimated”.
CASM co-director Greyson Rotumah agrees, and says Daniel’s new role marks an important moment for the centre.
“CASM is more than a music program. It is a cultural space for our Indigenous community to find out what they’re all about in terms of Indigenous heritage, language and music,” he says.
“It’s been 15 years since we’ve had an Indigenous producer in this space, but to have somebody of Daniel’s calibre in here to empower our students and take them into other academic industry pathways is incredible.”
Want to see more stories from InDaily SA in your Google search results?
- Click here to set InDaily SA as a preferred source.
- Tick the box next to "InDaily SA". That's it.
