Home Brew are back. Breaking their indefinite hiatus, Tom Scott and Haz Beats unveil arguably the biggest hip hop release in Aotearoa this year. At last, a justified ‘highly anticipated release’.
Run It Back comes on the back of their recently re-issued debut album, which earned the pair yet another Number 1 album.
Fans get their first taste of Run It Back with the title track of the album. The single paints a picture as if life has caught up with the characters from the first album. Run It Back contains shocking moments as well as points of anguish, regret and pain from struggles with long standing substance abuse and income instability – reflecting a brutal realism of life in Aotearoa.
At the same time, it’s as carefree and rebellious as Home Brew have ever been. It’s a recognition of the messiness of life. Celebrating the wins and loving what you have while also reflecting on how things could’ve been better – but not wishing they were.
Their classic debut album has become synonymous with hip hop in Aotearoa and was followed by a long list of successful musical endeavours from the members – including the critically acclaimed and award-winning Avantdale Bowling Club and Team Dynamite.
‘There’s a term hoopers use after you lose a basketball game – “run it back”. You could get beat 11-nill, but if you call “run it back” then you start the game again from 0. You keep the same team, same rules, but you get a do-over. And if you’re lucky you might have learned something from the last game. It’s like a shot at redemption. After that call you don’t think about what the score was in the last game. You just keep it moving. So that’s what it is now.
I used to think I had to keep making the same mistakes to make another Home Brew album. Thought I had to stay the person I was then forever. But, nah, that was something I made up. I dug my own pigeonhole. Truth is that nobody wanted me to stay the same forever. They wanted me to grow. And I’m not the only one who has grown up – the people who grew up with that album grew up too.’ Tom Scott