Belle Brooks - better known by her pseudonym Dirt Child - is a sculptor, aquascapist and rapper from Mudgee, NSW. A three-track sampler of her recorded work landed on our doorstep here at Fuse HQ and we knew we had something special on our hands. Dirt Child is a keen sculptor by day, having studied Sculpture, Performance and Installation at Sydney College Of The Arts, and her most recent work, a near life-size sculpture of two giraffes copulating, has thus far been exhibited at the Perth Institute of Contemporary Art and Newcastle's This Is Not Art Festival. By night, however, she's been working on something completely different: a unique and often hilariously obscene take on Aussie hip-hop. Dirt Child was discovered one night whilst freestyling over dodgy beats for a laugh by friend and producer James Woods, who recognised something seriously good and quit his major label desk job to produce her debut EP. Now, this five-track EP RATKING is the first release on Fuse's Beat No Beat label, as a joint venture with the artist-run Climbing Hills Records. Although rooted in "skip-hop", Dirt Child isn't "h8 da guvment" rap, nor does it confirm the "youf on da streetz" cliches; it's a combination of simple electro rhythms and, in the words of Belle herself, "kinda dorky, kinda crass, tongue-in-cheek, hokey, frenetic dickhead Australiana rap on gamey beats".

Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. Golden Tooth
2. Slugmite Millionaire
3. Anthem (Feat. Jimmy Suit)
4. SIC 101 (Feat. Jimmy Suit)
5. Cremaster