Obese Records

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Obese Records

Founded	1995
Founder	Tirren Staaf (Pegz)
Genre	Hip hop
Country of origin	Australia
Location	Melbourne
Official website	http://www.obeserecords.com/

Obese Records is an Australian hip hop record label. It is the largest Australian independent Hip-Hop label,^[1]a retail store and a touring ('Zoo Dynamics') and record distribution company.

1 History
2 Artists
3 Compilation releases
4 See also
5 External links
6 References

[edit] History

Obese Records started in 1995 as a small record store, called OB's by Ollie Bobbitt, in Prahran specialising in hip hop music.^[2] The store changed it's the name to 'Obese Records' after Bobbitt sold the business to Shazlek One. In mid-2002 the store was bought by Tirren Staaf (a.k.a. Pegz) and transformed into a record label. Pegz, a Melbourne-based artist, used the label to create a distribution network.^[3] Pegz also purchased the Zenith Records vinyl pressing plant^[1] one of only two companies that still press vinyl records in Australia.^[4]

The first artist released on the label was DJ Reason.

'A few labels were doing things with hip-hop, but people really weren’t investing the capital into it. Obese was born out of necessity – there was nobody touching Aussie hip-hop. Maybe the majors didn’t know how to market it, or the independent labels didn’t have any faith?'^[5]

In 2003, Obese artists Hilltop Hoods released their album The Calling, which became the first Australian hip hop album to go gold.^[6]

Artists associated with the label were nominated for four 2007 AIR Chart Awards by the Australian Independent Record Label Association (three for Hilltop Hoods and one for Muph & Plutonic).^[7]

At the 2007 ARIA Awards, the Hilltop Hoods won Best Urban Release for their album The Hard Road Restrung.^[8] The Hilltop Hood's DVD, The City of Light, released by Obese Records in 2007, has also been classified gold.