Melbourne MC Remi has just been awarded the Australian Music Prize with the judging panel naming his 2014 debut album Raw X Infinity, the best Australian album of the past year.To celebrate, the young rapper just flung us the unreleased Billy Hoyle remix of “That’s That Shit”, that we are premiering below.It is the first time that the music prize, now in its tenth year, has been won by a rapper.The $30 000 prize money will also come in handy for Uber fares and late night taco truck stops when Remi trys to navigate the South By Southwest circus/shit fight next week.Before the politically and socially active 23-year-old Remi Kolawole jets off, we found out how he plans to survive a frantic week in Austin.Noisey: How will you manage how hectic your time will be at SXSW?
Remi: We plan to bring some sensible walking shoes like a Merrell or Birkenstock, to prevent blisters from all the walking between shows. Our sets get pretty energetic so on top of that, a stack of Powerade’s to keep our electrolyte's up.How will you deal with all the bands trying to one up each other without hating yourself?
As long as we can see Sean '@duttypaul' Paul tear his set up, I'll be cool. If we catch 'Your Old Droog', it will be an added bonus. We're all so very laid-back 'Aussie dudes' so we aren't really sweating about running round trying to one up other artists. We just want to kill our shows, see what the big smoke looks like, then roll back to our hotel steam some 'green tea'.How do you feel your music matches up to US contemporaries?
We've grown up listening to US Hip Hop our entire lives. From more underground acts like Black Milk, Oddissee, Slum Village to more commercially successful artists. We just make our own version of the music we love and try and channel our influences and add our own twist. It's never been a case of competition, just respect for the art.Do you have tips to surviving long haul flights?
The best way to handle a long flight is either have a Gameboy simulator on your iPhone, an SP404 to make beats or valium.
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Remi: We plan to bring some sensible walking shoes like a Merrell or Birkenstock, to prevent blisters from all the walking between shows. Our sets get pretty energetic so on top of that, a stack of Powerade’s to keep our electrolyte's up.How will you deal with all the bands trying to one up each other without hating yourself?
As long as we can see Sean '@duttypaul' Paul tear his set up, I'll be cool. If we catch 'Your Old Droog', it will be an added bonus. We're all so very laid-back 'Aussie dudes' so we aren't really sweating about running round trying to one up other artists. We just want to kill our shows, see what the big smoke looks like, then roll back to our hotel steam some 'green tea'.How do you feel your music matches up to US contemporaries?
We've grown up listening to US Hip Hop our entire lives. From more underground acts like Black Milk, Oddissee, Slum Village to more commercially successful artists. We just make our own version of the music we love and try and channel our influences and add our own twist. It's never been a case of competition, just respect for the art.Do you have tips to surviving long haul flights?
The best way to handle a long flight is either have a Gameboy simulator on your iPhone, an SP404 to make beats or valium.
Read more from Tom Hutchins at wetalkyoudie.tv.