The Signal

The breakout star of Sydney ensemble The Herd, rapper/producer Urthboy (a.k.a. Tim Levinson) forged his solo career with a canny ear for crossover appeal. His second album, 2007’s <i>The Signal</i>, taps a deep range of collaborators and sounds to reach beyond Aussie hip-hop while still echoing The Herd’s social awareness and polyphonic approach. Guest voices abound, including a who’s who of aughts-era Oz rap in The Tongue, The Herd’s Ozi Batla and members of Koolism and Muph & Plutonic. More telling are counterintuitive cameos from outside of Levinson’s immediate peer group, such as Kamilaroi-Tongan singer Radical Son and Texture Like Sun’s Mark Pearl. Production comes primarily from Hermitude’s El Gusto and TZU’s Count Bounce, with Urthboy co-writing many tracks with Pip Norman (Troye Sivan, Baker Boy). Even with all of that talent assembled, the album is remarkably consistent, flowing from track to track with breezy continuity. Lead single “We Get Around” remains a signature Urthboy cut, with a piano sample that conveys bedroom-pop balladry more than hip-hop swagger. Roots rocker Mia Dyson’s bluesy turn on “Over Before It Began” foreshadows Levinson’s future collabs with indie darlings Bertie Blackman and Josh Pyke, while “Modern Day Folk” acknowledges such cross-genre dabbling with shoutouts to Bob Dylan and A Tribe Called Quest alike. <i>The Signal</i> was followed a year later by an all-star updating of Kev Carmody and Paul Kelly’s 1993 protest song “From Little Things Big Things Grow” by Levinson and others under the name The GetUp Mob. Featuring several of this album’s guests, that hit version led to Levinson working repeatedly with Kelly, a sure sign of mainstream acceptance.