YOU can easily picture Kasey Chambers knocking on the door bearing baked goods. Because as Bliss n Eso's Max MacKinnon says, "she's a dead-set legend".
Chambers and Bliss n Eso, from the outside, might seem strange bedfellows.
But the Sydney hip-hop heavyweights and alt-country queen have been good friends since the 2000s when a then-emerging Bliss n Eso made one of their earliest recordings in Chambers' brother Nash's studio.
Chambers actually lived a couple of doors down from Bliss n Eso's studio during the making of their seventh album The Sun, released last Friday. It led to an unexpected collaboration.
"She would be constantly going past and dropping off organic cookies and all types of food for us," MacKinnon said.
"One day we're sitting and listening to the demo of Good People and we thought we needed a female voice. We're racking our brains and then there's this knock on the door again, 'Hi guys I hope you're OK?'
"I was like, 'How did we not put this together? She's knocking on our door and leaving cookies there'."
Bliss n Eso invited in Chambers and played her the demo.
"Kasey loved the message in Good People, loved the lyrics we'd written for the chorus, and I think she said yes before I finished the sentence of 'Would you like to'?," MacKinnon said.
"That was a real special one for us, to have a song which is about good people and having that network of people there for you when you need them and Kasey was definitely ours."
Bliss n Eso and Chambers first performed Good People live back in April at the Music From The Home Front from the Sidney Myer Music Bowl.
The song carries special meaning for Bliss n Eso. It directly references the darkest period in the group's history since they formed in the late '90s while still at high school.
In January 2017 stuntman and former Ninja Warrior contestant Johann Ofner was fatally wounded when he was shot by a shotgun loaded with blank cartridges while filming a video for Bliss n Eso's single Friend Like You in Brisbane.
A coronial inquest into the 28-year-old's death is continuing in Brisbane. There's no suggestion Bliss n Eso were at fault.
On Good People Jonathan Notley, aka MC Bliss, raps, "Imagine someone dying on your music video/ Can you fathom how soul destroying, that gets in to you/ And people in the scene that you think you're friends with/ Don't even text or call/ Yeah you know who you are."
Then in the chorus Chambers sings, "I got them good people, fly people holding me up".
We use hip-hop as a vehicle, which is always therapeutic for us, and obviously that was a tragic thing that happened and I guess the media had their say on what they thought.
Max MacKinnon, Bliss n Eso
MacKinnon was reluctant to speak about the incident at length, but said Good People was a positive outlet for himself, Notley and Tarik Ejjamai.
"We use hip-hop as a vehicle which is always therapeutic for us and obviously that was a tragic thing that happened and I guess the media had their say on what they thought," he said.
"I think it was only right Bliss had something to say about what he was going through and his perspective on the whole thing."
Good People is just one of many intriguing collaborations on The Sun. There's OG's featuring rising Sydney rapper Blake James Turnell, aka ChillinIt; Lost With It starring the vocals of Newcastle electro-pop artist BOI; and English soul and pop artist Jake Isaac chimes in on the closing Lighthouse.
But certainly the most exciting collaboration is On One, featuring the UK grime lord Dizzee Rascal & Kings.
"I reposted a freestyle Dizzee had done recently, just to throw up on my stories and show a bit of love," MacKinnon said.
"He direct messaged me and said, 'I know who you are brother, let's f--king ave it' and when he spelt 'ave it' it was without the h.
"I called up Bliss and was like, 'Man you're never gonna guess who I've got on the line ready to do a track with us'. Bliss was stoked. It was such an easy transaction. He was like 'Show me the beat, if I like it I might do something'. He loved the beat.
"We'd done Big Day Out festival once together in 2011, so that's where he remembered us."
Despite Bliss n Eso being in the top echelon of Aussie hip-hop acts, alongside The Hilltop Hoods and Illy, MacKinnon said the current crop of mainstream rappers across the globe aren't turning his head.
"If the rap is about how cool I am and I f--ked your bitch and look how much money I've got, then I'm not there," he said.
"Globally the mainstream of hip-hop isn't exactly what I love. So I've always had to dig deeper to find the good stuff. I don't think you can call it hip-hop anymore. There's hundreds of sub-genres that go on underneath, whether it's grime, trap or old boom bap. There's a lot going on.
"But if you checked my playlists right now it would be Al Green and Smokey Robinson, I'm an old-school player."
Bliss N Eso's The Sun is out now and they play Wests NEX on February 19.
