Kid Mac (Macario De Souza) isn’t just a hip hop artist.
The educated Australian has put his bachelor of fine arts to good use by filming his documentaries Bra Boys and Fighting Fear (both narrated by Russell Crowe). Fighting Fear follows the lives of Kid Mac along with his best friends MMA fighter Richie Vaculik and big wave surfer Mark Mathews.
He is currently touring North America to promote his music release Head Noise and just finished a set at Austin, Texas’ South by Southwest (SXSW) Festival. Kid Mac plays Banff’s Wild Bill’s Saloon on March 24.
“It’s totally wild, I can’t fathom how it all works, but you get here and it’s like all these people are in the same boat and trying to do the same thing, so it’s just exciting,” Mac said.
“I had my first show last night and it couldn’t have gone any better. The venue was a thousand (people) and it was over capacity and the place just went crazy. So it was a perfect introduction to SXSW.”
Kid Mac is known for bringing positivity to his brand of hip hop and he focuses on leaving his audiences happier than before they arrived. “Bring that ‘get the party started atmosphere.’ It’s all about reading the crowd and if it’s not going well, you have to take it to the next level and once you get it going crazy you can slow it back down and bring it back up just before the end, that’s definitely how I like to work,” said Mac.
Having been in Canada last year, Kid Mac said he feels more comfortable playing in the Great White North and will showcase mostly Head Noise for audiences. “We’ll be mainly hitting the snow resorts; it’s definitely going to be a party vibe and hopefully they’ll be walking out of there sweating, laughing and having a good time.”
Thanks to Mac’s educational background in film, he directed the video for “Bustin’ Down The Door,” the first single off the album. “It’s about living that mundane life and knowing there’s a burning fire inside your soul that wants to bust down that door and doing what you like doing,” Mac said.
“The environment around you will just make you like a robot in that mundane life. The idea is there’s this girl who’s had this desire and passion to be a dancer and she’s been stuck in that rut and we have that dream sequence kind of moment that made her have the realization that life’s way too short to be just like a robot like anyone else – to knock down the door.
“There were a couple of ways we wanted to try and shoot it and we had to just strip it back until we got it. Usually, I have a great big blockbuster idea, but you don’t have that kind of money so you strip it back and come up with something a little bit clever and more worthwhile money-wise.
“We used what’s called a phantom camera for the fire breathing stuff and that was high speed which is amazing visuals when it come to fire and water and stuff like that. I was able to play with that camera when we shot the film called Fight Fear and we shot some really good big wave surfing stuff on that.”
Kid Mac is also expanding into other mediums.
“Right now we’re doing a TV show called The Crew,” Mac said. “It’s a show back home that follows two of my best friends and myself, Richie Vaculik and Mark Mathews. Vaculik is an MMA fighter and Mark Mathews is a big wave surfer and it’s three best friends chasing three different career paths and we’ve done one season at home and done 10 episodes and it’s done really well. We’re just wrapping up a second season at the moment and we just got a deal for a third season.”
