Ben's Big Blog

Manchester United seem intent on become record holders. I think it's safe to say they are one more loss away from taking Felix Baumgartner's record for the longest free-fall in history. And whilst I do greatly enjoy watching someone with an ego the size of a Real Madrid wages bill being publicly humiliated on a weekly basis, it did spark up a question I haven't thought of since 2004.

I was in Darwin on a cricket exchange, and Australia was playing a test series against Sri Lanka. One night after training, we were leaving the ground with a few beverages under our belt and we saw Shane Warne, John Buchanan and Andrew Symonds wandering around our training facility. Warnie had a sneaky dart in his mouth, which he duly apologised for, and they seemed in quite a hurry, so we left them to their own devices. Later that night someone mentioned that Warne never got along with Buchanan, and he also had provoked the ire of a number of other players. I wondered aloud 'why in the world do a group of grown men who are the best in the world at their sport need a coach?'

Why indeed?

It was the first time it had ever occurred to me. I had grown up under the watchful eye of some of the best. Kevin Wilson at Bankstown Bomber AFL club. Greg Beaven at Bankstown Cricket Club. Countless others who had shaped and moulded me as a person and a sportsman, who played far more important roles in my formative years than any teacher ever managed. Coaches were essential, but I figured once I got to a certain age they were no longer needed. They were there to teach and impart skill. What could John Buchanan tell Warnie?

What, indeed, could David Moyes tell his group of title winners? Nothing apparently. Yet Sir Alex Ferguson was absolutely masterful, and the true extent of his genius was hidden until his absence made it blindingly obvious. Similalry with the Australian cricket team. Mickey Arthur was a dreadful appointment, and his approach was outwardly rejected by those he sought to guide. As soon as Mr Lehman takes over, we are back on top of the world! Coaches, it seems, play an absolutely integral role in every sport, regardless of its nature.

Consider the marathon runner. Daily pounding the pavement, icing aches, mentally preparing for races. Who oversees their training? Who tells them how often to run, how far, what to eat, when to taper, what events to enter, how much water to drink? Sure, a runner could spend the time researching all of this himself, but in the time it takes him to gain all that knowledge he's lost 2 months of conditioning because he was sat in front of google all day and not running. The coach for an individual athlete becomes a lifeline to the sane world. Athletes live in absurd conditions, pushing their bodies to the absolute limit, pushing through pain barriers. They need someone next to them telling which pain to push through and which to sit out. They become their confidante, their personal psychologist, mentally preparing them with advice and optimism, and rational thought.

The role of the coach in an individual sport is considerably limited when you compare it to that of someone like Louis Van Gaal, Darren Lehman, Ewen McKenzie or Geoff Toovey. Factor in an entire squad of individuals, all with vastly different needs and personalities, different playing styles and requirements. Of course, nutritionists, psychologists, medical personnel take over the day to day running of these athletes, but the coach is the overlord, he or she sets the rules, outlines the strategy, must be fully aware of all things that may impact upon the performance of a huge array of individuals.

All of a sudden it looks pretty tough doesn't it? I always questioned why managers are the first to face the axe when a team is performing poorly. You hear it every year, in fact we are even hearing murmurs Guy Mckenna may lose his job, despite the Gold Coast Suns having their best year on record. Every season is littered with broken contracts. Andre Villas Boas, Mick Potter, Brenton Sanderson, Steve Price, David Moyes. Alan Pardew is on his last legs. Why are these individuals singled out, when it's the blokes on the park who are losing matches, not the coaches?

Just look at Manchester United. Without a dramatic personnel upheaval, they went from champions to barely staying in touch with the top half of the table in 43 games. As soon as the story about Mick Potter and Robbie Farrah came out, the Tigers starting losing games in landslides. The players never changed. But their relationship with the main man did. How did David Moyes manage to get Everton to such a level when his charges were clearly out-priced by others in the league? How did Darren Lehman turn a team of broken down has-beens in to the number one side in the world?

The job of the modern coach is so complicated, no one approach will work, and if one coach has success with one side, it's no guarantee of success elsewhere (Wayne Bennett ahem). They must oversee tactics, they must massage the ego's of the players, some which are so giant (Mr. Balotelli?) that it's more a case of rolling out the red carpet and letting them act whatever way they want. They must ensure that every member of staff is working ethically and legally (Sorry James Hird you let your club down and should never coach again). The plethora of things they need to calibrate must be why Geoff Toovey is the angriest man in the world. He works so hard to control everything he can, and then when a referee looks at his cross-eyed it sets him off on a rampage. When they manage to implement a system that works, it's magical. When things go wrong, inevitably it is the man in charge who bears the brunt, and rightfully so.

It turns out coaches are essential after all. Someone let Micky Arthur know Georges River have a coaches assistant position available. It's unpaid, but it's a start..

http://buck-65.myshopify.com/

Rating: 5/10

When someone like Doseone describes you as "far-out shit", you've placed yourself at the outer edge of the weird spectrum. Yet contemporary Buck 65 fans will probably know him from Wicked and Weird onwards; a section of his vast career that has seen him fall further and further in to the general hip hop classification. Major label backing (Strange Famous) coupled with a rarely spoken aim of American success has only solidifed this direction, and new fans will now see NeverLove as a standard hip hop release.

It wasn't always the case, and my briefest of historical lessons (excuse me, it's always difficult for reviewers who live and breath an artist to limit themselves) is appropriate here. Buck's back catalogue varies wildly from pure turntable dexterity, weird spoken-word musings on existential crises, the indulgent and consequential qualities that being half man half mythical beast involve, and music designed to enter the Polish national archive. His Language Arts series was indicative of a man completely attuned to his inner artist. Handling every single aspect of recording himself, he allowed his vast intellect to run free creatively. "I had the idea long ago that the fact that I'm a DJ, lyricist and a producer was a unique situation." The result was a maelstrom of ideas, thoughts, snippets of music that most artists would spend years honing, but with Buck's frenetic recording pace each was duly given its airtime and then discarded, moving on to the next piece. It was a fascinating melee of synapses snapping away, and it was part of what made him entirely unique.

Fast forward now to NeverLove, his latest record. Released September 30, it has been preceeded by something I believe ALL artists should do. Actually, maybe not. If they did, us as reviewers may not have a job anymore.. Buck, on his website Buck65.com, released a free stream of the record where each track housed an explanation of who produced it, how he wrote it, and what it is about. Wildly informative, dangerously addictive when you factor in his beautiful speaking voice. It also set off a number of alarm bells inside my head..

So many other artists!! So many fingers in the pot. Buck is not your average emcee. It's great for Jay-Z to gather 10 different producers and have 8 different guest stars on his new record. It's also great when Sage Francis corrals his creative buddies (Buck included) to contribute to his record. But Buck is different. His talent is so stark and unique that throwing it up against the rest of the hip hop world creates a friction that is barely concealable, and it is the first red cross against NeverLove. The record houses only 4 of his own creations, and whilst his previous 2 full length LPs, Situation and 20 Odd Years were both collaborative efforts (Skratch Bastid is noticeably absent from NeverLove despite producing almost all of Situation), this continues the trend towards a wider variety of producers and performers that was explored on 20 Odd Years. Explored is probably where it should've ended, because the extra hands on deck gave that record a sheen of 'over-production'.

This is continued on NeverLove. The first thing you will notice is that this sounds good! It sounds seriously good. Live instrumentation is quantized to within an inch of its life. Drum machines are presented in their organic form without passing them through all manner of tools Buck has used previously (maybe he should've gone back to digging in crates for beats, as disclosed in Driftwood off the brilliant Vertex). Guest vocals are so polished they sound like X-Factor auditions. Tiger Rosa has a lovely voice, as does his other female guests, but their huge sweeping choruses are almost deafening, considering the subject matter.

The subject matter is where things really take a downturn. One of Buck's other projects, Bike for Three! also had a project out this year called So Much Forever. I reviewed it here, and gave it an 8/10. Briefly, I said it was a staggering account of a man eaten from the inside out by heart-break, the devastation was etched in every line he spun, even if he rarely directly addressed what had befallen him. NeverLove takes a different approach. This is bare bones heart break, the entire album is an hommage to a relationship he clearly still dangerously craves. A Case For Us is palmed off as one written 'early in the separation', yet its inclusion is telling. Playful names, "super heroine ninja's", huge upbeat chorus, there is still a thinly disguised plea for redemption. Je'Taime Mon Amour is a retrospective bargain, an admission of guilt designed cynically to self-deprecate in the face of massive loss in the hope that this will cut through the tension and lead to a reversal of fortune. "I'm dying to express myself but I don't speak the language". It feels so grating up against Charlotte Savary's soulful croon. Then there is Roses In The Rain. A conscious effort from our central figure to place himself empathetically in the shoes of the women who so brutally left him, describing her as "painted brave and laughing tragic", and claiming "There's a wolf that lives inside me you have got one too, they recognise one another they can see right through".

Now, this is a break up record. I get that. But if you've followed Buck's facebook page, and his daily anecdotes which literally get me out of bed in the morning (or at least motivate me to open my eyes and turn on my iPad), you'll know that the demise of his marriage was swift and unexpected. She left, with a note reminding him to feed Kevin, his oft-maligned yet loved cat, and her wedding ring. On the intro to Baby Blanket he goes further, explaining that she took just about everything in the house. Yet there still remains this hunger within him to right his wrongs, to chase a ghost, to cling on where no foot or hand hold exists. It's so easy to objectively say that, but when you're in the throws of such a turmoil rational thought often evades us. NeverLove is a swirling mass of irrational explosions, tinted with a personality that is so distinct yet becoming increasingly lost under the weight of emotional breakdown. So Much Forever suffered in this way too, but there are some signs that Buck the artist is staging a sub-conscious comeback. She Fades, a real funky slap of a tune produced by Martin (who is apparently called Son Clef? But I cannot find him anywhere on google..), gets Rich back on his bike, husking his voice up vis-a-vis Rough House Blues, and spitting lyrical gems with aplomb, "snails pace frozen glacier / unsatisfied showmans nature / list making in nomenclature". Danger and Play, a rare all Buck event, sounds possessed, with a violent fog-horn signalling his dive in to a world of high art and weaving metaphors around famous figures and his marriage break up. It's a similar story on opener Gates of Hell, a typically discordant 'beat', so to speak, because it is more like a piece of electronic music, that Buck twists his words around, harmonising with cutting industrial elements and utilising the breathless delivery that signals his most potent work. If only "open the gates of hell" was a more accurate description of what was to come.

Ok, so that is the nuts and bolts of NeverLove. There are other brilliant moments, like the insta-grat of Super Pretty Naughty, which lifts almost everything except the resplendent bottom from Nicki Minaj's Starships, and there are terrible moments, like the inexplicable decision to sing on the final track Superhero In My Heart, as well as the pop-love in Only War. Let's put all of that aside for the moment, all the technical aspects and the links in the narrative, and look at NeverLove. Without the explanations of the individual tracks from the man himself, this record would have fallen well short of his formidable reputation as a poet who has managed to weave his words around hip hop production. If you need any further proof of his talent, check out the project he dropped on the same day as NeverLove, Laundromat Boogie. It's funkified flavour the perfect match for Bucks lyrical wizardry when given a more conducive target. With NeverLove, it's one thing for an artist who's sales are regularly in to 100k mark to chase the radio, it's an entirely other thing for one who is a true champion of the bedroom recording philosophy, who is a success story in weird, to lace his record with so many big pop numbers. And I don't mean Super Pretty Naughty. Too often (8, in fact) the chorus is handed over to the pure, clean pop singer. There's very little hard edge to those songs, and Only War and Heart of Stone are almost sinful in execution. They take precious headspace away from the man with the microphone, and the production is so polished that even quirky sounds and scratching is not saving the worst of them, like it did on 20 Odd Years (BCC, Paper Airplane, Gee Whiz). Too often Buck is stuck in 2nd gear lyrically, his artistic licence apparently stunted by the need to create 'a break up record'. Maybe it is immeasurably affected. Maybe he cannot get it back? So Much Forever was an exercise in mediocrity, but that was beautiful in itself. NeverLove is an explicit embrace of it, and that's a real worry..

I'd like to qualify this review by saying I am a MASSIVE Buck fan. I mean it. I have copped everything from Game Tight to Dirty Work EP to Dirtbike. I think he is one of the lost gems of the hip hop world, of which there are many, but his music is just staggering, and he is a constant source of inspiration to me. Writing these words cuts like a knife.

It couldn't possibly fail. Two of the worlds megastars, arguably the two most famous musicians working today. 75,000 people in Paris, going ballistic. And two days with which to film. It doesn't matter that no-one tuned in back home. Most of America has already attended the concert anyway, as it sprawled its way around stadiums, a zenith existing completely separate from yet confirming the existance of an iron-clad musical industry.

Of course, sometimes these things are lost in the execution. A life-changing live event can turn to an endurable bore when transferred on to the TV screen. All of Eminem's recorded live performances can attest to this. The bass isn't vibrating through your bones. The fanatic energy of the crowd isn't present in your living room. And Beyonce's thigh gap doesn't hold up to slow motion scrutiny. Again, this couldn't possibly happen. If you wander down to your local record store, you will be bombarded with Beyonce DVDs, she's released more than 10 live and compilation discs. Jay-Z also has form, with his stunning Fade To Black performance in 2004 that championed a new era for production values in hip hop videography.

Whether you're a fan of Jay, Bey, or both, this is more than just a co-headliner concert. It's a musical exploration of their relationship, and each performer is subtly entwined within the other, so that when Jay-Z appears on stage alone it feels empty, and when Beyonce is contorting and twisting by herself you can't help but secretly yearn for her man to return to her side. The opening salvo, 03 Bonnie and Clyde (the song that arguably set us down this path), Upgrade U and Crazy In Love are smouldering. Just the two of them; Jay looking like a modern day Andy Warhol, Beyonce resplendant in what little clothing she chooses to cover her unmentionables. Beyonce, the consummate professional, no fuss, total immersion in her craft. Jay-Z STILL sounding like a kid from Brooklyn who can't believe his luck to be performing in front of this crowd in this city in this day and age, a fact he elaborates on more than once during the show. His hunger and breathless interactions with the front row are invigorating, his energy infectious.

In 2008, in an interview with Jonathan Ross, Jay explained the dilemma faced by hip hop performers. He said that whilst bands ply their trade, their grind, by performing hundreds of shows before they manage to hit it big, hip hop artists use mixtapes and underground buzz to create a name for themselves. So when a rapper is signed, he is immediately thrust in to performing, something completely foreign to him. Since learning the art of entertainment from the legendary Big Daddy Kane in the early 90s, Jay-Z has now created the most accessible persona in modern hip hop that he presents on stage. Throughout the entire show he is much more concerned with energy than delivery, with fun than flow. On more than one occasion his lines sound mushed and muddled, as if he is drunkenly slurring or his mind is running so fast his mouth is trying to keep up with him. on U Don't Know, hidden under a black hoodie, he cuts the final syllable off each word. The spectacle is much more important than individual skill right now. He never misses the flow though, and the way he provides the entire run on the Diamonds remix, as well as his blistering hand throwing on PSA and On To The Next One remind you that this is not a man to be trifled with on wax.

Beyonce is one of the few singers in an auto-tuned world who can actually sing. She doesn't shirk away from a backing track, and when she is busy using her body to create stunning imagery during Partition she has no qualms allowing her recorded voice to pick up the slack. That said, when she spits on Yonce, and Nicki joins her for Flawless she is an absolute powerhouse of noise and skill. If you could criticise the first half, you'd suggest she could've shown off her pipes more often, but this is rectified dramatically during the touching run of If I Were A Boy, Ex-Factor, Song Cry, Resentment and Love On Top, a piece designed to both fuel the fires of speculation and solidify the bond that runs deeply through the performance and the tour. There's little doubt of her talent when she provides the hook for Holy Grail, somehow upstaging Justin Timberlakes withering recorded performance, and the way she absolutely owns Forever Young is a work of art. By the time she hits Halo, we're left in no doubt. Even after 2 and a half hours, she is still annihilating every syllable. It's something to behold.

Having witnessed from the outside the maelstrom of negative press the couple has recieved related to their relationship throughout the tour, it's hard to know who profited more from the speculation. Clearly, witnessing them together and on screen, these are two people very much in love. Their playful looks and touches on Drunk In Love, their knowing looks on opener 03 Bonnie and Clyde, even the way she goes HAM over the top of Takeover for Ring The Alarm, it's all the mark of more than a polished, professional performance. The intimate interludes, showing extracts from a rumoured short film based on the myth of the two as gangster fugitives, and the beautiful final few songs.. I mean On The Run is almost like being invited in to post-love cuddling. The at times embarrassing shots of their wedding played whilst Beyonce NAILS the chorus on Forever Young to close the show, and the fact that she wore her wedding dress directly after Song Cry, which immediately difuses all lyrical tension, they all combine to create a picture of pure marital bliss. You can see in your minds eye as they walk off stage together, hand in hand, and go play with daughter Blue Ivy for a few hours before all three fall asleep together in the same bed.

Think I am laying it on a bit too thick? You'd have genuine concern that all this lovey dovey action is a huge love-in mush, something that Robin Thicke might consider a good idea. But it just works perfectly. They begin the show together and they end it as one. Not co-headliners, but Beyonce and Jay-Z, a single entity.

It could have failed. I said it couldn't but it could've been a complete mess. But it wasn't, in fact it's one of the best performances captured on film in the modern era. They have just set the bar.

https://soundcloud.com/coinbanks/someone

Who knew a song about a man hoping to endear himself to a regular girl could house so much within it's walls?

Coin Banks is a young Aussie artist, from Perth, who makes genuinely good music. His initial EP offering, Heads, was a conscious explosion of colour. His talent was matched by a technical ability that felt well honed. Rather than just slapping together a loose narrative and ensuring the final word of each bar rhymed with the final word of the previous, rather than letting the sun-drenched beats speak for themselves as he rode them like a passenger, Banks spent time making a track that really felt sorted. A solid piece of hip hop. Heads wasn't outstanding, but it was better than 90% of the stuff being concocted in hip hop bedrooms around the country.

Certainly, his collaborations with Ta-Ku have been truly audacious, but they were just big enough to work. Ta-Ku pulls off the bright lights better than most, and when Banks jumped on board his technical ability shone through.

So I follow him on Facebook and Twitter, he doesn't have a massive crowd behind him, but then who truly does in Aus hip hop these days? But he grinds. He grinds hard, and it can never be understated just how difficult it is to truly make a go of rapping independently in this country. These are the guys doing it for the absolute love, they are working full time and raising families and living normal lives, but at night or on the weekends when they hit the booth they are honing a skill some of us dream we could attain. That's why it PAINS me to write this.

Because, all Coin Banks seems intent on is getting airplay. And why not? All of my underground hip hoppers have stuff uploaded to Triple J's Unearthed page. Whilst they may not admit it, they dream of being the next Remi, because Remi does coast to coast shows, and that means Remi gets paid. These guys, they aren't getting paid, they aren't in a position to quit their jobs and make a career out of what they love. So why wouldn't you want to, on a very conscious level, chase that sound that Triple J so craves?

This is why Someone, the newest single by Banks, just makes me sad. I was listening to Triple J today and the weedy-voiced intern who reads out a list of new songs someone has deemed play-worthy mentioned the newest track by Coin Banks was now on J rotation. So I went back and had a real close listen to Someone.

It has all the hallmarks of radio-fodder. Simplicity of a drum-line beat is expanded upon by brass. Brass must be the go-to for Aussies wanting to hit the radio. Why do we like it so? Is it because of Just Blaze, because of the early 2000s and the explosion of hip hop on to mainstream radio? Who knows. It's no longer shared by the rest of the world, but in Australia producers are doubling down on this sound and making the airwaves with it. In isolation, there's nothing wrong with this, but then Banks steps in. It's about love.. "I want you forever but forever's not very long". "I love you the way Beyonce loves Jay, the way Kim loves Ray, shit I mean Kanye". Yuck. Pedestrian, anemic. What happens to the kid who threw hands over the futuristic stylings on Circles? Who name-checked Nina Simone? Who even went a little trap on Hatches?!

Nah son. The bearded inner-city hipster with his 1988 walkmen locked on Triple J won't have heard of Nina Simone unless The Doctor announced a Double J tribute to her. He knows about the whole Kim and Ray Jay tape, and when Banks croons 'Give you what you want, what you need' he could be rapping about love or the arc in which he has taken his music and marketing. There's an almost offhanded attempt to switch the flow up halfway through the second verse, with a suite of Mona Lisa and Air Jordan references, and 'it's hard to compare / a beach to an island / what I've seen to a blind man / you are the only view that my eyes can see vividly'. Is that a woman or is it.. God forbid.. Airplay?

I really really like Coin Banks. I think he is so much more than Someone. He is a breath of fresh air in a market that has become so stagnant, and he just may have the nous and ability to straddle the gaping divide between good Australian hip hop and the stuff that is forced down our throats by our independent music station. (On that note, Hilltop Hoods can HANG THEIR HEADS IN SHAME at the record they released this year, they've taken to the divide with a jackhammer and ensured it's wider than ever before). Someone is not that crossover track. Aus hip hop is still waiting for its Hard Knock Life, it's My Name Is, it's Juicy. The song that will truly launch the underground in to the limelight. Coin Banks can be that man for the genre. Let's wait and see..

Coin Banks can be found in these places:
http://coinbanksofficial.com/
https://www.facebook.com/coinbanks
https://twitter.com/COIN_BANKS

His music can be found here:
https://itunes.apple.com/au/album/heads-ep/id814170694?ign-mpt=uo%3D4
https://soundcloud.com/coinbanks
www.coinbanks.bandcamp.com

And he looks like this

Some artists transcend that role when they emerge on stage. It's always difficult for hip hop purveyors to piece together an entertaining show on a budget, when it is just essentially them and a laptop in front of a room full of expectant people. Buck 65 has enough miles under his belt to know the ins and outs, but he is so much more than the travelling troubadour he likes to portray on record. On stage he transforms from artist to pure entertainer, equal parts poet, comedian, dance extroadinaire, sage story teller and visual treat.

But first up, we had ELLESQUIRE, tasked with warming the incredibly eclectic and varied crowd that had amassed in the intimate confines of The Basement. He emerged to.. not a hostile audience, but one keen on soaking up the ambience. He turned ambivalence in to raucous enjoyment with his brand of every-man hip hop. A mix of humour and honesty, with a touch of technical dexterity meant that his 40 minute set would almost have been a show stealer if it weren't for the professional lurking behind the curtain waiting to unleash upon us. All in all, an entirely enjoyable set, punctuated by mirth-inducing lyrics and a song about a cricket that elevated the status of the insect from nuisance to artistic tool. Check him out, he is a real light on the Aus hip hop scene.

Buck may have slightly ruined his mystique by arriving on stage, without fanfare, slightly early to tinker with his technology, but as soon as he made his way to the microphone that was instantly forgotten. Adorned in a cheap suit and a brand new belt that we were told was a minor breakthrough, in that it was double sided, his inital anxiousness gave way to consummate professional. Opening with the bone crushing first track from new album NeverLove, Gates of Hell, he quickly warmed to the task in a breathless display. The first half of his set was an absolute delight for seasoned Buck veterans, with beauty like Bachelor of Science, Cries a Girl (amazing), Indestructible Sam (complete with shovel-wielding theatrics) and a nice treatment of Roses and Bluejays. Tiger Rosa was introduced, and her lovely tones swept across the now packed dancefloor, as it became clear why she was so heavily involved in the making of his new record.

This isn't just a hip hop concert, though. For $37 you get the pleasure of witnessing every aspect of the mans personality, amplified 100 times through his anecdotes and his impossibly slick dance moves. Laundromat Boogie, probably a song most wouldn't have heard, was met with pure glee from the fun loving crowd, as his various active enhancements turned it in to a piece of performance art. We were treated at regular intervals to some instructional tapings regarding women's breasts, and a song, preceeded by the sobering news of the Canadian shootings, about side boob. Somehow, it wasn't distasteful in any way.

Having followed Buck religiously for the past 24 months, his heartache and pain was plain to see. He reserved his most energetic vocal performances for tracks from his new record. Only War was a booming expression of hurt, 'can't get you out of my system' coming with more emotion than a digital copy can house. Heart of Stone was equally painful, and in fact this reviewer was very critical of NeverLove, but having seen these songs performed live by the man himself it only adds weight to the entire situation. Whilst energetic and enthused when asked, Buck appeared drawn and lonely, at times cutting a sad figure as he danced through some emotions that were contrary to his movements. In only the way a great artist can, he brought to life his inner thoughts and projected them on to us, which may seem selfish but anyone who had heard the commentary for NeverLove before it's release knew exactly what they were getting themselves in to.

By no means were there tears or any kind of apathy from casual observers. In the humungous set, Buck kept energy levels at a peak, masterfully using his extensive back catalogue to control the moods and whims of the crowd who went quite stir crazy at times. Drunken dancers overcome, budding singers were revealed, a genuine sense of community settled in amongst the punters. We may not be the most mainstream in our music choices, but one thing is 100% certain if you are a Buck 65 fan: he has touched you deeply in some way. If you listen to any of his music with any kind of involvement, you cannot avoid his reach, and seeing him in person and celebrating his career with him with crazy dancing and loud sing-a-longs is just beautiful.

One man, on a stage, with a laptop, in a small room. It could have gone horribly wrong. But there's a reason why Buck is now 23 years in to this weird career he has cultivated. The man puts on one HELL of a live show. If you ever get the chance to see him, do not hesitate for a second. He will win you over, I guarantee it.

Find ELLESQUIRE here: https://www.facebook.com/ellesquire
http://www.bigvillagerecords.com.au/artists/ellesquire/
https://soundcloud.com/ellesquire
http://www.ellesquire.com.au/

Find Buck 65 here: www.buck65.com
https://itunes.apple.com/au/artist/buck-65/id4192372
https://soundcloud.com/buck65

"Beat that pussy up like Emmett Till"

The at times disgusting and violently disparaging way that hip hop deals with women. There is seemingly a disconnect now between what is suitable behaviour for the rest of the world, and what is acceptable in hip hop. Even the most ardent old-schoolers must now realise that the age of treating women as somehow inferior to men is well and truly over, so why does hip hop get a pass? A spirited conversation on the spot for everything Jay-Z related, http://aintnojigga.tumblr.com, set me off on this discussion.

"Snatch the bitch out her car through the window, she screaming
I body slam her on the cement, until the concrete gave
And created a sinkhole, buried this stink ho in it"

Hip hop and misogyny has a past so voluminous that it would fill several city libraries. From the jump, the two seem to go hand in hand. Slick Rick's 'Treat Her Like A Prostitute", which made a joke out of treating women as if their one purpose in life is to sleep with you, N.W.A's revulsion at the thought of a steady relationship with a 'ho' on "I Ain't Tha 1", and even LL Cool J on "This Is Us", going back and forth with himself about the way women are treated before finally settling on a comfortable diet of cheating and debasement. In the late 80s and early 90s, the period where women were truly beginning to push through glass ceilings, misogyny was available on tape and compact disc, but it was tempered. You had artists like Biz Markie, who rapped from a much more humble place on tracks like "Just A Friend", and LL Cool J himself finding new ways to win over hearts with non-threatening rhymes that touched on love, an emotion that was almost taboo. What then slowly emerged was a culture so hell-bent on excess, greed and shock value that the rights and feelings of women as a population were seemingly lost on a few influential purveyors..

"You know I, thug em fuck em love em leave/
Cause I don't fucking need em/
Take em out the hood, keep em looking good/
But I don't fucking feed em"

By the late 90s this had blossomed in to a full blown addiction. Jay-Z, Notorious B.I.G., 2Pac, Ice Cube, and yes, even Nas, all featured 'fucking ho's' prominently in both their rhymes and their video clips. The role of the woman in the rap stars life was drastically eroded, till they became little more than play things and punch lines. Of course, this was an age of excess in hip hop, where anything was possible with a hot single, where records were being shipped by the millions and money was more available than cocaine was in the 80s. Hip Hop was having its watershed moment, and those excesses were a celebration.

"Some bitch asked for my autograph
I called her a whore, spit beer in her face and laughed"

Slowly, the 90s bled in to the 00s. Eminem came out, and made everyone forget that Jay-Z was rapping about pimping girls, and that Snoop Dogg was using the word bitch more regularly than he was reaching for his weed sack. But the hysteria around Eminem did eventually die down, and by Encore in 2004,"You're a fucking coke-head slut, I hope you fucking die / I hope you get to hell and Satan sticks a needle in your eye / I hate your fucking guts, you fucking slut, I hope you die / Di-ii-ii-ii-ii-ii-ie", the world began to take stock. Nelly was appearing in videos where the only focal point were thick women in bikinis. Busta Rhymes appeared on a Pussy Cat Dolls song and said he was gonna "Put it on the girl till the pussy's black and bluish". 50 Cent was crooning one minute then chastening the next. As the decade progressed, Lil Wayne came out and set new benchmarks for sexual rhymes. Nothing was changing..

"Now let me get back to her
She call me Dracula, and I'll vacuum her"

When Jay-Z released his lyrical retrospective, Decoded, he went to some pains to describe that the man he was when he wrote Big Pimpin is no longer the man he is, as a father and a husband. His argument was that, through his rhymes, you could see his evolution as a person and an artist. From Ain't No Nigga, to Big Pimpin, then to Song Cry, 03 Bonnie and Clyde and finally Venus vs Mars, he said he had come full circle and now recognised that the way he was rapping about women and treating them was part of some deeper psychological discomfort that he experienced throughout his childhood.

Right. There was also his fabled promise to stop using the word bitch in his songs. On Watch The Throne, he almost reluctantly ends a stanza with 'Get your own dog ya heard? That's my bitch'. Certainly, by his final record, Magna Carta Holy Grail, he takes subliminal shots at his own misogyny on tracks like Beach is Better, but it took almost 20 years of music before he got to the point where he felt comfortable enough as an artist in hip hop to just remove the word from his vernacular. Now hip hop has moved on in many ways. An artist like Drake would have been devoured in the late 90s if he attempted any form of strong-arming, as we saw with R. Kelly and Sisqo. But whilst Drake is credited as being a modern day Romeo, have you taken the time to listen to some of his lyrics?

"I just throw a couple bills and she'll have a new pair of heels/
Oh no, there I go, magic tricking on your ass/
Throwing every president except for Nixon on your ass"

"She came through, she brought food/
She got fucked she knew whats up"

"Aww that looks like whats her name/
Chances are it is whats her name/
Chances are if she was acting up then I fucked her once and never fucked again/
She could have a grammy I still treat her ass like a nominee/
Just need to know what that pussy like so one time is fine with me"

Hip Hop may be more forgiving towards those attempting to woo rather than actively, aggressively pursue, but for an artist like Drake, who is seen as somewhat of a champion amongst a sea of misogyny to rap like that puts a damper on the whole movement.

Why though? Why were people stunned when they realised what Pharrell and Robin Thicke were ACTUALLY saying in Blurred Lines? Why were we so shocked when we saw Chris Brown act so violently towards a woman? Did you know, in a song released not a month ago by The Game, Chris Brown delivers the line "You really care bout this bitch / My dick all up in your feelings"? And his latest record is a tribute to the fact that you can say all you want in the press, you can 'recover' and take a new view of women, but in hip hop, there is still this complete disconnect between the real world and the rap world.

"Pimpin' is pimpin', I make a commission, make that pussy pay
My dick like a chopper, I load it then cock it then bust on your face"

What is the solution? If we view misogyny exclusively in media and public statements made by representatives of companies and corporations, it's really only the last 2 decades that language has been modified in a way that has seen any kind of disparaging remarks towards women be met with incredulity and anger. This is not a discussion on feminism, which has been a movement that has gained and lost ground sporadically throughout the past 50 years. Feminism is separate from overall misogyny in that it has always been of the view that any kind of disparity between the way women and men are treated is unfair. Of course, this is true, but for a large portion of the last century a large portion of males apparently didn't believe it to be so. Feminism waxes and wanes in terms of public perception based on what influential figures back it or don't. Emma Watson, Lady GaGa, Gwyneth Paltrow have all swayed opinion based on their remarks.

No, rather misogyny is now seen as a very dirty habit practised by seedy men in seedy back rooms in mens clubs. When our PM Tony Abbott says something stupid, which he is known to do, it's not just those who associate themselves with feminists who cry foul, it is the Australian people, because it is now unacceptable in the public life to say things like 'Women are not equal with men'.

However, in hip hop, this is still not the case, and it is so far in reverse that seemingly rapping about debasing women procures popularity. How? Do women not realise what they are dancing to? How did it take 12 months of ridiculous popularity for someone to stand up and say hang on, Blurred Lines is NOT ok?

Eminem released a song in 2010, called Syllables with some heavy hitting features.

"Cause nowadays these kids just don't give a shit bout lyrics
All they wanna hear is a beat and that's it
Long as they can go to the club and get blitzed".

On Cold Wind Blows:

"Yeah I laugh when I call you a slut, it's funny
Shorty dance while I diss you to the beat, fuck the words
You don't listen to them anyway, yeah struck a nerve sucker"

Maybe we all just need to open our ears. Robin Thicke's last album sold about 55 copies in Australia. The only people who are going to change this culture is the buying public.

My therapist (yes, I have a therapist with whom I discuss baking secrets) was lamenting her boyfriend's health kick last week. Apparently, he won't eat her banana bread or any of her baked goods because they house too much butter, too much fat, too many calories. This left her with a freezer full of treats that no-one would touch.. So she needed a recipe for banana bread that didn't involve lashings of God's Golden Gift (butter.. catch up).

Having only recently experimented with low fat cottage cheese, I wasn't yet in a position to advise her. So I went home and baked up a batch of Blueberry muffins. Gluten Free, of course, not that my sister knew, because once I hide them away in the freezer I can enjoy them all by myself at midnight with half a can of cream and no judgement.

Long story short, they came out perfect, more perfect than I could have imagined. Here is the recipe. Each muffin, and they aren't small, is only around 120 calories, so in the immortal words of Marjory from Fat Fighters (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcKzcganDwk), they only have half the calories, so you can eat twice as many!

BTW, this is my own (secret) GF flour blend. I have loads of them, and you can experiment with your own, but don't forget the rule, 1/3 starch, 2/3 flour

Recipe makes around 12 regular sized muffins

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cup low fat cottage cheese (Black and Gold is THE BEST!! In IGA)
1/4 cup olive oil
3/4 cup honey (or just substitute for straight sugar if you're not fussed about G.I.)
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
2/3 cup Tapioca Starch
2/3 cup Buckwheat flour
2/3 cup Superfine White Rice flour (or glutinous rice flour, from asian food stores)
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp Xanthan Gum (can omit if you are experienced in these matters but it helps bind the muffin)
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups frozen or fresh blueberries (or raspberries, or whatever berry falls off the tree in your part of the world)
1 tsp cinnamon (optional)

Method:
1. Pre-heat your oven to 350 degree farenheit (175 Celsius), not fan forced
2. Grease and line a 12 hole muffin tray
3. Mix the cottage cheese, olive oil, honey, eggs and vanilla together in a bowl until very well combined. Do this by hand, stand mixer or food processor
4. In a separate bowl, mix together your flour, baking powder, baking soda, xanthan gum salt and cinnamon if using. Make sure it is well mixed and well combined
5. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix well, until completely incorporated. The mixture will at first be quite dense, that's ok. Add water very slowly until it is wet enough that it slowly drips off the back of a spoon, no more.
6. Add the berries in to the mixture. Don't over mix, just fold them in gently so they don't break and bleed
7. Spoon the mixture in to the muffin trays.
8. Bake them for 25-30 minutes. My oven takes a good 32 minutes. You will know they are done when they are puffed up nicely and when you press a spoon on them gently, they bounce back immeditately.
9. Cool them on a rack and dig in!

iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/au/album/tails-ep/id917063166
Coin Banks: http://coinbanksofficial.com/

Coin Banks loves a brass section. His brand new EP, Tails, is hornier than Vince Neil. Even during the harder edged Focus, the climax involves someone blowing hard enough to inadvertently release the spit valve.

What it means is that Tails falls agonisingly short of being the saviour I was predicting when I reviewed Coin Banks' single release, Someone. In it, I claimed that Coin Banks could be exactly what Australian hip hop is looking for. And I believe he is. When on form, he manages to straddle the ever widening gap between mainstream and underground. I won't name names, but then again I will. Guys like 360, Illy, and The Hilltop Hoods are, whether they care to admit it or not, pandering to the Triple J generation. And it isn't a particular 'sound' that is wreaking chart havoc either, because Briggs is about as real as you're ever going to get and he is involved with some serious radio love.

What is most depressing about that music is these guys aren't very good. They don't sound good. They either sound amateurish; as if it's your mate Brendo from the local getting on the mic after a few beers, or in the case of The Hoods and Bliss n Eso, they just do the same thing time and time again.

Coin Banks straddles the gap, because his EP Tails is ready made for radio airplay, but he can actually rap, and he sounds damned good doing it! The third track, Focus, is set off with a real throwback 90s vibe, like something Timbaland would've produced before he could even afford his namesake. Banks throws hands over this, "I'm trying to find my focus / feed my brain like flying lotus / I ain't got time to stop by and admire the roses.. Modern day Otis devoted to writing my opus". It's smoother than the white chocolate ganache I just made. Whilst you're dazzled by his lyrical trickery and technique, the beat morphs from a real 90s heater in to an explosion of mid 00s grandeur, Just Blaze-style.

You see this is what sets Banks apart. He raps about the same stuff everyone else does, but he sounds nice. Real nice. On opener Highs and Lows, featuring a chorus from Anders who is channelling Justin Timberlake hard, he occasionally gets lost in his own theme, 'Guns without clips / bloods without crips', but ultimately he is busking the same message that rappers with their eyes truly open (and humans in general) have running through their core. Life is ups and downs, endure the lows and enjoy the highs. But boy can he ride that beat..

He still has a lot to learn, and that is a given. He is a youngster, and his age in the game can be measured in microns, but his promise is epic. On the second track, Cursive, he proves his worth with a shrewd Q-Tip sample in a nod to true heads, before jumping feet first in to teenage love back and forth. Cursive is exactly why you cannot compare Australian emcees to our US counterparts. Banks has this unmolested world view. I'd stop well short of calling it naive, because it isn't, it comes from a genuine place. "Girl come from a world different from mine, but we make a team like Pippen and Mike". Whereas Joey Bada$$ or Mac Miller would've turned that line in to a negative dripping with dry humour, if Banks were to do that he'd be labelled a fraud. Many aussie rappers have tried, and failed. Instead, Banks forges ahead in his own lane, "no diggity doubt / she's my epiphany / but I write in grafitti whilst she writes in caligraphy". That's just nice, no matter how you read it, but when it comes out of Banks' mouth so in tune with the beat it's a real hip hop moment.

Tails falls down because it's 5 original tracks that all sound similar, all come in around the same length, and all follow the same structure. On Cursive he goes back and forth with Apani B Fly, and his sing song way of stringing words together makes me wonder whether he'd be better served attempting a few hooks himself. Anders is high quality, but it's just another way Banks could impose his personality on the track. At the moment, we are getting sun sun and more sun from him. And it's real nice, especially coming in to summer, this could be a top down staple. By the time the LP comes, though, we need more. He's technically dazzling, his flow is incredibly solid, and his choice of production is excellent. There's more to this story though.

I call Almond Meal a flour. It is flour. It's a powder made from grinding an ingredient. If you can have coconut flour, you can have almond flour. Nevertheless, this cake tastes better for its inclusion (although you can avoid it altogether if you wish), and because the mainstream media calls it a meal and not a flour, we can call this a flourless cake and in that headline, it's gluten free status is confirmed.

This one I made yesterday, and I haven't attempted one for quite a while. Time hasn't been super kind to this recipe. It was one of my mum's staple "drop dead" desserts, and it was a famed birthday invitee throughout my youth because of my sisters Celiac ailment and the fact that it's difficult to go wrong mixing chocolate, sugar and butter. I originally came across this recipe in a 17 year old Womens Weekly Recipe collection, and tweaked it a touch to give it a personal taste. Dark Brown Sugar is used to add a deep caramel undertone, Rum is used to tint it a nice boozy shade and I added an egg, just because I like density in both women and cakes.

Important things before you start: Bake this for around 50 minutes, I had mine in for 53 minutes and it came out perfectly. You want to cool the cake in its pan, and it will sink slightly as it cools. The top should be crusty (not day old bread crusty, but firm to the touch).

Ingredients:
100g Dark Chocolate (70%)
100g unsalted butter
2 tsp Rum essence
2/3 cup Dark Brown Sugar
2/3 cup Almond meal
1 tbs instant coffee
2 tbs boiling water
3 eggs, separated
Icing sugar mixture, for dusting

Method:
1. Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees Celsius (160 fan forced) and grease and line a 20cm round cake tin
2.Combine the chocolate and the butter in a large, heatproof glass or ceramic bowl. Set it over a pot of simmering water, and, without letting the bowl touch the water, stir continuously until the ingredients have entirely melted and there are no lumps.
2. Combine the coffee and the boiling water, and stir
3. Add the rum, sugar, almonds and coffee mixture to the chocolate and butter, and stir until completely combined.
4. Add the yolks to the mixture one by one, beating or stirring well after each inclusion to ensure they are well mixed
5. Beat the egg whites in a clean bowl until soft peaks form
6. Carefully fold half the egg whites in to the chocolate mixture. When nicely incorporated, fold in the other half.
7. Bake in the oven for 50 minutes. The cake will be done with a skewer comes out with moist crumbs on it, and the top is firm enough to press on without breaking through or bruising.
8. Cool the cake in the cake tin, you don't need to use a wire rack.
9. Dust the top with the icing sugar mixture.

I served it with ice cream and whipped cream, but you could easily make a mousse and double down on the chocolate-ness.

Gluten Free Piñata Cake Recipe

Gluten Free Piñata cake.. Sounds delish right? The idea came from this Super Food Idea's Pinterest post. In fact the idea came when my uncle made my soon to be 13 year old cousin an actual real life Piñata for her birthday. Now how cool is that?! When I was 13.. Well. We didn't have so much a party as a family get together due to my lack of friends.. But Eve, my lovely cousin, is blessed with popularity, and this cake perfectly embodies her. She is bright and bubbly on the outside, and even more so on the inside.

So I set about discovering how I was going to make this. The recipe I had was for a normal cake, and we all know that substituting regular flour with Gluten Free flour is just a recipe for disaster, so the mission was to find a layer cake recipe worthy of our decorations. I ended up here, but it wasn't quite as simple as reproducing this recipe. The one in Super Food Idea's called for a massive 4 layers, and despite Eve's popularity I knew mine would plummet if I pulled a behemoth like that out of the fridge. Kids love cake, but they don't sit there and plow through half a kilo of it.

My initial thought was to bake 3 layers and cut one, thus creating 4 layers, and hollowing the middle two out to stuff with lollies and candy. In the end, I just went with the 3 layers, and cut a 12cm round hole through the middle layer, and another 12cm hole in the bottom layer, which I then half scraped out, leaving enough cake on the bottom to ensure the whole thing didn't collapse in on itself.

Without further adieu, here is the recipe in full, with my list of tips at the bottom.

Gluten Free Piñata Cake Recipe

Ingredients:

For the Cake:

297 grams, or 21 tbs, of Unsalted Butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups of gluten-free Cornflour (also known as corn starch)
2 cups of Superfine White Rice Flour (comes in the green packet, also called glutinous white rice flour despite having no gluten in it)
1 1/2 cups Sorghum Flour
3 tsp of Baking Powder (again, make sure it is GF)
2 tsp Xanthan Gum
2 tsp Salt
9 Large Egg-whites (keep the yolks in a jar in the fridge for custard)
1 1/2 cup of Milk (any type will do)
2 1/2 tsp Pure Vanilla Extract
2 1/3 cup of Caster Sugar

For the Buttercream Icing

250 grams Unsalted Butter
3 cups Icing Sugar Mixture (double check it is GF)
2 tsp Pure Vanilla Extract

For the filling and decoration

To be honest, you can decorate it however you wish. The cavity in the middle will hold around 1 1/2 a cup of candy. I used M&Ms, Chocolate Freckles, Jelly Beans, Mini M&Ms, and Mini Choc Bits. For the outside, I used 6 small Freddo Frogs, 1 1/2 cups of Choc Freckles, and a 400g bag of M&Ms to colour coordinate. All up, if you're in woolies, grab 400g M&Ms, 100g of M&M Minis, 100g Jelly Beans, 300g Choc Freckles and that should be plenty, with some leftovers to nosh on afterwards or during.

Method:
1. Grease and line 3 20cm round cake tins
2. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celsius (160 degrees fan forced)
3. Whisk together the flour, salt, baking powder and xanthan gum in a large bowl
4. In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg-whites, milk and vanilla extract until bubbly, about 3 minutes
5. Using your Mixer, beat butter on a high speed until light and creamy, around 3 minutes. Use a spatula to scrape the sides of the bowl as you go
6. Add the sugar and flour half a cup at a time, alternating between flour and sugar. Beat on a low speed, and make sure each addition is fully blended before continuing
7. Beat the mixture until it is just combined, scraping the sides as needed
8. Divide your cake batter between the three cake tins (I only had two, so I had to bake in two batches). Make sure the top is nice and smooth before you pop them in the oven
9. Bake them for 30 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean with no batter on it
10. Allow to cool for 10 minutes in their tins, and then invert them on to wire cooling racks to cool completely.

Make the Icing
1. Using your mixer, beat the butter and vanilla extract on a high speed until creamy and light
2. Add the sugar one tablespoon at a time, whilst beating on a low setting. Make sure each addition is fully blended before adding the next
3. Beat until completely combined, and store in the fridge until you are ready to frost

Prepare the cakes
1. Trace out a 12cm round circle on two of your cooled cakes. Cut all the way through on the first cake, and remove the middle. On the second, cut down to about halfway, and scoop out the cake so you have a 12cm cavity

2. Take your icing out of the fridge. Place the half-hollowed cake on a sturdy work surface, and spread the icing on top and on the sides, with a light layer in the hole
3. Put your fully hollowed out cake on top of the bottom layer, and spread icing on top of it and inside the cavity
4. Fill the cavity with lollies and chocolate!!
5. Place the final cake layer on top, and ice the entire structure

6. Decorate it in any way you wish. I started in the middle of the top of the cake and spread the Chocolate Freckles outwards. I then colour coded my M&Ms in a ring around the freckles, and using that colour as a base, I went down each side, forming a colour coded border. In the middle of the border I placed a freddo, and surrounded him with freckles. Your buttercream is incredibly sticky and if you firmly press (but dont push your cake over) the decorations on, they will stick!

Now it is ready to serve! Place it in the fridge if you aren't quite ready to cut it yet, but it is best assembled on the day you are going to eat it. It will last a good 5 days in the fridge, and 3 months in the freezer.

Tips:
Some don't like to use xantham gum and eggs. I did because I didn't want the thing to crumble.. It doesn't make for a gluggy cake, although if you do want a lighter cake, I suggest skipping the xantham gum and just hollowing out the middle layer cake to ensure it stays upright

Don't tell the person who's cake it is what's in the middle. Chances are they will already be blown away by your decorations, and when they cut in to it the surprise will be even greater!

You can honestly decorate the cake any way you want, and fill it with whatever you want. I have heard of people filling it with melted chocolate, so that when you cut in it oozes out. Custard is also a good filling, using your leftover egg yolks.

Make sure that when you do ice the outside, you lay it on relatively thick to ensure your decorations stick nicely.

Enjoy!

Nicki Minaj - The PinkPrint

Rating: 8/10

If you managed to sit through the DVD that came attached to Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded, The Re-up, you'd have no doubt seen a rather large male kicking it with nicki pretty much constantly as the trotts her way around the globe. That's Safaree Samuels, SB, or Scaff Beezy, long rumoured to be the man behind Nicki Minaj. If you're that big of a fan, you will also note that Nicki rarely goes in depth on her personal life. That all changes on The Pinkprint..

Whilst Lil Wayne has endured the worst promo period for his much anticipated record Tha Carter V, Nicki has rolled out a golden carpet ahead of herself. Right at the start of the season she began by dropping Lookin Ass, Chi-Raq freestyle and Yash Bitch, all of which served as a reminder that on her day, there are only a handful of males in the industry who can compete with her bar for bar. The 'real' hip hop fans had their thirst quenched. Then came Anaconda, Pills n Potions, and Bed of Lies. In the process she reigned in her teenage following and satisifed them with bubblegum pop and the love balladry they are more used to hearing from Taylor Swift. Promo complete.

The Pinkprint is.. Well, it is different. It is nothing like her previous 2 records, or her mixtapes. On Pink Friday and Roman Reloaded, she straddled the chasm between hardcore rap dominatrix and sickly sweet EDM Queen. It wasn't a particularly delicate balance, with Roman Reloaded top heavy with street cred and filled out at the back end by radio fodder that would make Katy Perry blush (Starships, Marilyn Monroe, Pound The Alarm). The Pinkprint takes the colour in name only, as she moves to quash that dichotomy and reinvent herself as a true hybrid of the music industry. There's no 'rap' Nicki vs 'pop' Nicki on here, this is the woman herself with the aim only of expressing herself in the most potent way possible.

The record begins with three tracks that you'd normally find scattered in a traditional Nicki tracklist: All Things Go, I Lied, and The Crying Game. All are brutally autobiographical, and together they shed more light on the woman behind the persona than the entirety of her previously recorded work. All Things Go is a brutal opening as she reflects on the loss of a cousin, a possible abortion, and her younger brother Caiah's college dreams. I Lied strips the outer layer off totally, and then The Crying Game applies salt to the wounds, "We was just planning a wedding", "Is it too late to talk? Did I wait too long?""I'm just abusive by nature, not cause I hate ya, I guess I wanna imitate ya". She mixes her frank, simplistic rap flow with a hybrid of singing to convey that this is Nicki, pure and simple, and this record will be like no other she has released.

Whilst it shares lineage with Jay-Z's The Blueprint, it's more closely related to The Black Album, as the songs play out like a movie script with Nicki pulling half the strings, and the other half just spilling out of her, uncontrolled confessions. Only is a disgusting romp that sounds like the ultimate break up party smash, with Drake and Wayne explaining their various carnal thoughts about Nicki and what they'd do to her when she is no longer spoken for. Buy A Heart, with a brilliant performance from Meek Mill, casts her as the cold and emotionless, calculating lover that stays well on top of the games men play to win her over, "you said you was in love, and I still didn't budge / Cause I already seen how you be going in when you be in them clubs". When Pills N Potions and then Bed Of Lies cut in, they sound like expressions of the same problem, with Nicki outwardly dismissing a relationship that inside she can't let go of, despite her best efforts. Grand Piano continues this theme, although it backtracks to before the relationship is over, as she shrewdly observes herself being drawn in to the negative consequences of a toxic relationship, "Am I just a fool? Blind and stupid for loving you".

Despite the candid nature of these tracks, it must be viewed in relative terms. They are candid for Nicki Minaj's standards, but she has nothing on Taylor Swift. There's still a huge amount of innuendo and unanswered questions. Who did she say yes to in 2006 when they proposed? A partner, or the rap game in general? Who is playing her head like a grand piano? When Drake says she has a man, is it still SB? And is she admitting to attacking him with a bottle of Ace of Spades? It's a puzzle that, given past acts, she won't soon help us solve.

Of course, she can still spit. She lays lyrical waste to Iggy Azalia on Win Again with a withering verse of subliminals. She trades heat with Drake and Wayne on two separate songs, although the unfortunate Truffle Butter (admittedly a deluxe edition bonus track) is woefully undernourished. Yung Berg (remember him?) drops by for a brilliant piece of eery angst on Shanghai which she tears to absolute shreads, "All these bitches in pocket, I'm bout to make a deposit / Tell em go head and gossip, as long as your house is the size of my closet". The much awaited link up with Queen Bee is dominant, with both legends dropping to the kind of trap flow that would make established underground artists bow their head in shame. She enlists Ariana Grande not to help her on a love ballad, but to dissect the importance of a man who gives good oral sex and is submissive when he's told to be.

And yes, Anaconda is actually listenable if you give it a chance..

The Pinkprint, initially, might seem odd to you. She blurs the lines between rapper and singer so expertly that her previous work sounds clunky and conspired in comparison. It takes more than a couple of listens to digest it and recognise what it is. All of a sudden, the title begins to make sense.. There's no woman in the game with half as much talent as Minaj, and whilst we all desperately want her to drop a project of pure, dazzling rap acrobatics, she still manages to delight by redefining the term Queen. Beyonce might have that on lock right now, but the way Nicki has put together The Pinkprint she is coming for the thrown

How To Make Gluten Free Sourdough Starter

Meet Martin The Morose. He is my Gluten Free Sourdough Starter, and I began his savoury journey around 2 months ago. He has grown, developed, aged, died, been reborn, and been the centrepiece for Pizza's, Bread, Muffins, Waffles, Pancakes and even part of a cake..

There's nothing more rewarding (well, there's millions of more rewarding things, but this is easy and fun) than cultivating your own sourdough starter. The sense of achievement when you actually bake that perfect loaf, using just flour and water, with such a rich flavour and lovely texture is one of life's great pleasures.

All of those recipes will come in good time. You probably know as well as I do that gluten free baking and cooking requires you to massage recipes slightly. You cannot just straight substitute regular flour for your own GF blend, without adjusting other ingredients. So, I present to you a comprehensive guide on:

How To Make Gluten Free Sourdough Starter

The key here is time and patience. It will take your starter at least 3 or 4 days before it starts bubbling away, growing via the yeast it has gathered from the atmosphere and the wild yeast present in your flour. Your room temperature will greatly influence this. If you live in a humid area, you may find your starter growing at an alarming rate. This is perfectly normal. If you live in dry heat, or it's the middle of winter, your sourdough starter might be quite slow to develop, possibly taking a couple of weeks or even longer to beging bubbling. Don't despair! Keep feeding. There are a few hints that might help also, I will detail them.

Flour

Firstly, what flour do we use? Well, any Gluten Free flour will work, as long as it isn't bleached and overly processed. White cornflour, tapioca starch, potato flour, sweet white rice flour, none of these will work. If in doubt, check how white it is. If it's whiter than Katy Perry, save it up for your next sponge cake.

Generally, I will use Sorghum, Besan (Chickpea), Quinoa, Brown Rice, Millet or Teff flour (if you can find it). If you can, make sure it is organic, as the less processed the flour is, the more wild yeast it houses inside it, and hence the more lift and bubbles you will get from your starter. I tend not to use Buckwheat flour, because firstly it's a waste of a brilliant baking flour, and secondly it tends to turn your starter all gluggy and too thick, like a pancake batter.

Water

Some people say don't use tap water if it is chlorinated, or has fluoride and other things added to it. To be honest, I live in Sydney and our water has a whole bunch of stuff added to it, and I've never had a problem straight out of the tap. If you find you're not getting results, and you believe chlorine might be the culprit, leave a jug of water sitting out overnight to allow the chlorine to disperse, and then use that. Or, filtered water.

Another sneaky trick to get your starter moving along is to use Potato water. This is the water left behind when you boil potatoes.. Just drain it in to a glass jar, allow it to cool, and then refridgerate it until required. It actually works a treat, and the extra yeast in the Potatoes can give your starter a huge boost!

Placement

Compile your starter in a big glass jar, make sure it has at least 10 cups worth of space in it, because if you get lucky your starter can expand at a rapid rate. The best place is anywhere in the kitchen. Not in the fridge or in the pantry, but somewhere out of the way. Cover it with cheesecloth or even a Chux to keep flies and other insects out of it.

Feeding

To get your starter off and running, combine half a cup of flour and half a cup of warm water in your glass jar, and stir it vigorously until it's well incorporated. You're going to want to feed your starter (add more flour and water) twice a day, at least 8 hours apart. Don't stress if you miss a feeding or two, this happens. As long as you keep a decent schedule your starter will be happy to oblige. Once the initial feeding occurs, you can cut it back to 1/4 cup of flour and 1/4 cup of warm water. If you find your starter is going ballistic and reaching for the sky, discard half of it at every feeding, and continue until you actually use it.

The Rise

Your starter should begin to rise after 4 days, but it can take up to 2 weeks for any results, especially if you live in a cold area. You will know you are succeeding when bubbles start to appear on the top of the mixture, and when you life the jar to the light, you can see aerated bubbles in your dough. It's also easy to tell when you feed and stir, whether it has been rising, by the mark left on the side of the jar after a feeding. See these two bubbling away? Don't worry if this doesn't happen immediately, patience is the key. Don't discard a tardy Starter.. Keep feeding, ensure it is getting enough humidity, and perservere. If it is really bothering you, add a teaspoon of sugar at each feeding, and use the water from boiled potatoes. This can help to gather and cultivate the wild yeast.

Consistency

We know with most gluten free cooking, the key is to use more liquid. With a gluten free sourdough starter, there is no need, so the consistency you want to aim for is not so thick that you could kneed it, but not so wet that it doesn't lose its form. Basically, if you mix it with a wooden spoon and it drips off the back of the spoon, it is too wet. If you can poke it with your spoon and it doesn't stick to the spoon, it is too dry. It's a trial and error game. If it isn't rising and seems watery, use less liquid. If it isn't rising and just sits there like a boring dough ball, it need more water.

Hibernation

If, for some reason, you are unable to feed your starter (vacation for example) or you just don't need to use it as fast as it is growing, it's a good idea to place it in a state of hibernation. This means portioning some, or all, of your starter and placing it in the refridgerator. Place an airtight lid on your jar and put it in the fridge.. That's it! Your starter will live happily in your fridge for up to a month. If you have a longer period, then I suggest freezing. If you are going to freeze it, dry it out first. To do this, spread a thin layer of your starter on a baking sheet and allow to dry for 2 days. Crumble it up, put it in a ziplock container and freeze. This is generally only if you are really attached to your starter, because as you will see in the next step it's time consuming to revive a frozen or hibernated starter.

Reviving a Hibernated Starter

Gluten and non-gluten sourdough starters differ slightly here. For some reason, it will be harder to revive your non gluten starter. Do not let that discourage you. To revive a refridgerated starter, simply take it out and begin feeding it again. Over the course of 4 - 7 days, it should become active once again.
A frozen starter, dried, is a different proposition. Add 1 Tbs of the crumbs to 1/2 of flour, and 1/2 of warm water. At each subsequent feeding you can continue to add a Tbs of the crumbs and 1/4 cup of flour and water. It may take a couple of weeks for your starter to resume its merry march towards the top of your jar though. But if you love you starter, then it is worth it.

Troubleshooting

Making Gluten Free things is hard. It's trial and error. Thankfully, with sourdough starter, it's actually quite easy to remedy any problems you are having. Here are some common ones.

My starter has a layer of liquid on top of it that isn't incorporating in to the dough
This is called Hooch, and it is alcoholic. It is a by-product of the fermentation process, and is in no way harmful to your starter. All you need to do is drain the liquid off, and use a little less liquid than usual in your next couple of feedings!

The top of my starter has gone mouldy
If you are constantly feeding and stirring, this really shouldn't happen, but if it does, no fear. Just scrape the mould off the top and ensure you don't mix any of it in with the dough. Your starter is meant to be sour. It is meant to sit and ferment. Mould will happen (usually on the sides of the jar or around the rim). It isn't harmful. Just scrape it off and keep plowing onwards.

My starter isn't rising, and I see no bubbles
There's any number of reasons. Firstly, ensure you are using the right flour. Unbleached, organic if possible. Some flour which has sat in packaging for a year that you bought from Woolies may not rise much at all. If this is happening consistently for 2 or 3 weeks, change your flour, buy more expensive and better quality from a specialist store.

Your climate may not be conducive to a heavy rising starter. If this is the case, to give it a helping hand, place a cup of water in the microwave for 1 minute, then immediately place the starter in the microwave when it is done. Every few hours, zap the water again (after removing the starter). This will create a nice humid environment for your starter.

You haven't given it enough time. As I said earlier, it can take up to 2 weeks for a starter to start. Keep feeding, keep going, have patience.

Use filtered water instead of tap water.

If none of this works, I suggest venturing out and buying a starter mix, or a starter, from a bread shop, specialty store or supermarket. Purists will tell you this is the cheats way, but purists can shove it. If it isn't working, go for it!

I will be posting recipes as soon as I perfect them. Bread, Pizza Dough, Muffins, Waffles, Pancakes, Crepes.. There's so much you can do with your starter, and it will save you countless dollars!

Gluten Free Sourdough Doughnuts Recipe

It was my mates birthday yesterday, and he loves sugar. I will never forget one year, we were camping together, and for breakfast our parents had cooked up a storm. Bacon, sausage, egg, beans, toast, avocado.. We all ate our fill, and decided to drive off our belly's by heading in to town. Half an hour later, my mate was at the local bakery, ordering THREE jam filled doughnuts AND a milkshake.

Can eat.

So it was his birthday, a 30th no less, what to get him? Easy. I've been desperate to add to my Sourdough recipe arsenal, and this was the perfect opportunity to road test my Gluten Free Sourdough Doughnuts Recipe!

Now.. There isn't a single recipe matching this description on Google. Normally, I would present you with a recipe and add a personal twist to it. Not so here, because no-one else has tackled this apparently important task. Sure, there are sourdough doughnuts. But they aren't gluten free. And there are gluten free doughnuts. But they use yeast. This recipe will allow you to use up that yummy sourdough starter you have fermenting away on your kitchen counter, hopefully influenced by my own recipe here. Yep, this is brought to you by my own Martin The Morose.

Now, a lot of GF recipes treat kneading like smoking. It's OK to do it once a year, but for everything else, don't overwork that dough. So, blindly I waded in to battle with a rough recipe that called for a nice, standard GF dough, i.e. very wet. Ha! Yeah right. Try cutting doughnut shapes out of oatmeal and you'll understand just why doughnut dough needs to be kneaded. Half an hour in to my task I literally had dough gloves on.. In fact, check out my work space:

Trust me. When I took this photo, my iPad looked like a square piece of dough. So I had to tweak. Clearly, the usual gluten free method was not going to work. So I added flour. And more flour. And more. Then I had lunch, then I added some more..

I must add, this is not my first foray in to the doughnut world. I have made many a batch, ranging from the light and airy to the frisbee variety. This was my first Sourdough batch however, and they turned out a treat!

A note or two. Firstly, on the glaze. You can glaze it with whatever you wish! I used some frozen Butter Cream I had left over from my Gluten Free Pinata Cake. If you want to go for the whole Krispy Kreme experience, this will help, and Google can instruct you on the rest. This will produce a nice unglazed doughnut you can decorate however you wish! The Sourdough will act as your yeast, so think of these as Yeast Risen Doughnuts.

Also, for the oil, I used Peanut, but that's because I had it handy. I wouldn't recommend it, because some have allergies, so use Vegetable or your preferred frying oil. Make sure it's 350 Degrees Farenheit, or 175 Celisus before you dip your dough in.

Gluten Free Sourdough Doughnuts Recipe

Makes: 18 large Doughnuts
Prep Time: 30 mins + 2 hours rising
Cook time: 15 mins

Ingredients:
3.5 Cups Gluten Free Flour Blend (I used 1.5 cups of Tapioca Starch, and 2 cups of Buckwheat flour. Remember, 1/3 of the mix should be starch, the rest a flour, like Sorghum, Buckwheat, Besan, Brown Rice, White Rice etc. If you're using Coconut Flour, add another half cup of liquid)
1.5 Cups Active Sourdough Starter (Make sure you starter is nice and bubbly and suitably sour!)
1/2 cup Caster Sugar
2 tsp Xantham Gum
1 tsp Salt
1/2 tsp Baking Powder
1/4 tsp Baking Soda
1 tsp Apple Cider Vinegar
2 Large Eggs
266ml Milk (any type is fine)
56 grams Unsalted Butter
Oil for frying (I used 500ml and a smaller pot)
Extra flour and water to adjust the texture of the dough.

Method:
1. Combine all of the Dry Ingredients in a bowl, and either whisk them until totally combined, or using a stand mixer, mix until combined.

2. Combine the Milk and the Butter in a pot over medium heat. Stir until butter is melted, and milk is starting to simmer. Remove from heat, and allow to cool (cool enough you can stick your finger in it)

3. Whisk the eggs until bubbles appear. Add them to the dough, along with the Vinegar and Milk and Butter mixture. If you're using a stand mixer, mix until completely combined, and the dough comes together well enough to handle (fit your dough hook or paddle attachment for this task, and use a spatula to scrape the sides. Mix on medium setting).

4. Now you use your cooking instinct. Flour a hard surface and turn the dough out on to it. Start kneading. You want a dough that is a joy to work with. If it is sticky, add more flour. If it is crumbly, add more water. Work the dough like you would for a pizza. I broke my dough ball in to two pieces and kneaded them separately, until they were very smooth and easy to roll out. If your dough is becoming too hot, pop it in the fridge for 15 minutes to harden up.

5. Break your dough ball in to 4 portions. Place a portion on your floured surface, dust lightly with more flour, and roll out to 1 inch thickness.

6. Use a cookie cutter, a doughnut cutter, or anything round, and cut the dough in to a round shape, as big or as small as you like. Use your knife and cut a circle out of the middle. Gather the scraps and re-roll them. Continue this until you've used all the dough.

7. Place your doughnuts on a baking tray lined with baking paper and dusted with flour. Cover with plastic wrap, and place in a warm place to rise for 1 - 2 hours. Sourdough will rise slower than traditional yeast. When they are 1.5 times their original size they are ready to rock!

8. Pour the oil in to a pot so it extends about 2 inches up the side. Place it on medium-high heat, and heat until 350 degrees F, 175 degrees C, or until it is hot enough that when you drop a bit of extra dough or bread in, it browns up immediately.

9. In batches, carefully slide the doughnuts in to the hot oil, cooking for around 30 seconds on each side, or until brown and crispy. You don't want them to be a light brown, but you also don't want them to turn black. My Doughnuts cooked very quickly, so I had them 30 seconds each side, but you may need to cook them slightly longer.

10. When they are done, remove them with a slotted spoon and allow to cool and dry on a rack adorned with paper towel.

11. Allow to cool entirely before you attempt to glaze, otherwise you will ruin your glaze and get sticky sugar all over you!

As you can see, I attempted to glaze before my Doughnuts had totally cooled.. Also, my handwriting (or dough carving) is quite poor. But you can carve out any shape you wish with this dough. (And for the record, who cares what they look like? Wikipedia has this picture of a Doughnut and it ain't pretty)

That is why I added so much flour, and made it knead-able. You need to have fun with a Doughnut! And the beauty is that even if they don't taste so good, no-one will care anyway, because they would've instagrammed them already and gotten 40 likes within minutes, so everyone feels rewarded regardles!!

PS These taste awesome. I wouldn't present them to you if they didn't!

Easy Gluten Free Sourdough Bread Recipe

Look, Gluten Free baking kind of sucks. It's trial and error, its touch and feel, it's hit and miss. My mum, who spent the better part of a decade baking GF bread, even occasionally makes a dud loaf. If you've ever baked with GF flour before, you are probably all too aware of the feeling that a giant door stop is lurking in your oven. It smells great, but it has the density of a Stephen Hawking book, and it's as chewy as the bits left in your mouth when you eat Celery.

However! The fact that all of this is true makes the successes all the more sweet. This recipe is by no means a fail-proof one. No Gluten Free bread recipe is, no matter what the blogger claims. You have to know your flours, know your oven, and know your atmospheric situation, as well as knowing your sourdough inside and out. Know how hydrated it is. Know how aerated it is. If you have a gooey mush that looks as bubbly as a 5 year old can of coke, you're not going to have great results no matter what you do. Nowhere else is it more important in Sourdough baking that you have a very active, very bubbly, very eager starter.

Now, because this is Easy Gluten Free Sourdough Bread Recipe, and because you are time poor and do not treat cooking like a science (like myself), I am not going to urge you to weigh and calculate the hydration of your starter. Who cares right? Life is too short. As long as it isn't runny, that it coats the back of a spoon when you dip it in (if it falls off the spoon that is perfect! A nice drop though, not a runny one), and it is very bubbly and puffy, you are good to go!

A quick note on ovens. My oven is about as hot as Kim Kardashian without makeup. So I have to add 10 minutes to cooking time to get a decent result. Pre-heat your oven, make sure it is pre-heated. Then, when 40 minutes passes, check your loaf for a number of things. Firstly, it should sound hollow when you tap it. Secondly, it should be solid and not break apart when you lift it. Thirdly, if you have a thermometer, check the internal temperature is around 95 degrees celsius. And finally, give it a very very slight bend in the middle.. If it come apart nicely, with a slight propensity to crumble, you've nailed it!

Also, I do not use Xanthan Gum in this recipe. You may use it if you wish, but if you have your flour mix correct you won't require it.

Easy Gluten Free Sourdough Bread Recipe

Time: 9 hours (20 min prep, 8 hours rise, 40 minutes in the oven)

Ingredients:

2 Cups Active Sourdough Starter (Nice and bubbly!)
2 Cups Gluten Free Flour Mix (I used 3/4 cup Tapioca Starch, 1/2 Cup Sorghum Flour, 3/4 Cup Glutinous White Rice Flour. Remember: A third needs to be a starch of some kind, like Corn, Tapioca or Potato, and 2/3 can be any flour you desire, with the exception of Coconut, which requires more liquid)
1 Tsp Salt
2 Tbs Sugar
2 Tbs Olive Oil
1 - 1 1/2 Cup of Warm Water

Method:

1. Prepare a loaf pan or other vessel in which to cook your bread, greasing it with butter or lining it with Baking Paper. Combine your flour mix and the salt and mix well, ensuring it is well incorporated.

2. Add your Sourdough Starter to the flour mix, and add the Sugar and the Olive Oil. Mix until just combined, or the mixture resembles big chunk bread crumbs

3. Add the water, 1/2 a cup at a time, stirring well after each addition. The dough will NOT be like a Wheaten dough, you will not be able to knead it. You are aiming for a thick, pourable batter, similar to a cake mix. The dough is ready when it comes easily away from the sides of the bowl when you stir it, and it coats the back of a spoon and runs off it. As you progress you will learn to get the consistency right, but basically you want to just be able to pour the dough from the bowl in to the prepared tray with a little help from a spoon. Not as runny as custard. Think of the consistency of Porridge.

4. Pour the Dough in to your prepared tray, cover with a damp tea towel, and leave in a nice warm place to rise for 8 hours. It should almost double in size. You don't want it to rise too high, or it will collapse. If you find it isn't rising, place it in a warm over, or microwave a mug of water and place the bread in the microwave, the steam will help it to rise.

5. Pre-heat your oven to 175 Degrees Celsius, 155 Fan Forced, or 350 Degrees Farenheit. Place the Dough in the middle of the oven and cook for around 40 minutes.

6. Check at 40 minutes. If the internal temperature is at least 95 Degrees Celsius (200 F), when you tap it, it feels hollow, and the top is nicely brown, remove it from the oven. If it isn't done yet, bake it for 5 minute intervals, checking every 5 minutes until done.

7. Turn out on to a rack and allow to cool completely until you attempt to slice it.

8. Slice it VERY CAREFULLY! If you are too rough with your Gluten Free Sourdough Bread, it will crumble, and your dreams of a lovely farmhouse loaf will be shattered..

Store it in the fridge for up to a week, or freeze it for 3 months.

If you want to make a traditional sourdough loaf with just flour and water, you can easily omit the oil and the sugar, and just add a couple more tablespoons of water to make up for that loss of liquid.

Homemade Gluten Free Sourdough Pizza Dough

OK this recipe is an absolute star in my current line up. And I think it will become one in yours too.. It's so cheap, so delicious, and so easy to turn in to a Michelin star meal that you will be making pizza at least twice a week if you have a nice and healthy Starter.

First things first, do you have a Gluten Free Sourdough Starter? If not, fear not! I have got you absolutely covered right here on my How To Make Gluten Free Sourdough Starter Recipe. It's super detailed and has everything you could ever want.

Now, we know that Gluten Free food is ridiculously expensive in the super market. A single Gluten Free pizaa crust from my local supermarket? $7.76. No joke. That is abhorrent!!!! This Homemade Gluten Free Sourdough Pizza Dough will cost you a tiny little fraction of that. I am talking.. Less than 50c. And I am all about saving money right now, so this is a value hero for me, because if you make two of these crusts, it is easily enough to feed a hungry family of four.

This recipe takes about 9 hours all up (8 hour+ rising time), and it makes up one very large pizza crust, enough to feed two people. If you have four people to feed, double it up.

Ingredients:
1 Cup Gluten Free Sourdough Starter
1/2 Cup Warm Water
1 Tbs Salt
2 Tbs Oil
1 1/2 Cup Gluten Free Flour Blend (Again, remember, 1/3 of this must be starch, the other 2/3s can be anything) I personally use 1/3 Tapioca Starch, 2/3 Glutinous White Rice Flour

Method:

1. In a large bowl, stir together Sourdough starter, Water, Salt and Oil.

2. Add the flour gradually, mixing well after each addition.

3. The dough needs to be kneaded properly, like wheat dough, so add more flour or water accordingly. When the dough is the right consistency to handle, cover your hands in flour and get to kneading! Knead until you have a nice smooth dough ball.

4. Sprinkle a generous helping of flour back in to your bowl, making sure to coat the sides well. Place your dough ball back in to the bowl, cover loosely with cling film, and place it in a warm place to rise for 8-24 hours. It should just about double in size during this time.

5. If it isn't rising, give it some help. Place it in your oven and set it to its lowest setting, or, microwaves a mug of water for 1 minute, and then place the dough in the microwave with the mug.

6. When it has risen, you can do 1 of 2 things. You can freeze it for future use, or press it out and cook it now. I like to make 2 'dough's' at a time, and freeze one for later in the week, it's much easier.

7. When you are ready to cook, pre-heat your oven to 200 degree celsius (180 fan forced). If you have a pizza stone, congratulations! Use that. If you don't, just line a baking tray with baking paper. Sprinkle some flour on to the baking paper. Place your dough ball in the centre, and press it out to about 1-2cm thickness. Use your fingers, not a rolling pin, as this dough tends to be sticky. Flour your hands if the dough is sticking to them.

8. Brush your pizza crust with a little bit of olive oil, and maybe half a teaspoon of salt, just to make it even more delicious. Now, pop it in the preheated over for 10-12 minutes, or until it is firm and starting to brown.

9. The most fun part of all. Top your pizza! I've been using puree'd pumpkin lately instead of traditional pizza sauce, but you can top it with absolutely anything and everything (although don't over-crowd it). Keep it relatively simple.

10. Place it back in the oven for a further 15-20 minutes, depending on how crispy you like your crust. Take it out, serve, enjoy!

Rating: 8.5/10

October 28th and December 9th... Wayne fans know. These weren't enjoyable days. As hype built towards the expected (initial) release date of Tha Carter V, which was to be Wayne's magnificent return to form after the frankly laughable IANAHB2, keyboard residents were sent in to a nervous fervour. But the day came, and passed, and as is par for the course with Young Money, Cash Money, whoever they now are, a pushback was inevitable. By December 9th it became clear that this was a project destined for the Detox joke circuit, and we were desperate for new Wayne material, overplaying his offcuts like Gotti and Off Day until the individuals words lost all meaning.

Thankfully, through a couple of PSA's and videos, Wayne teased and tormented us but ultimately delivered, and Janury 20th we were graced with a huge 15 tracks of new Lil Wayne music.

And holy hell did the boy deliver..

We were all a bit concerned. I am a reviewer first, but I am also a Wayne fanatic, and despite constant ribbing from my rock-oriented friends, I am regularly seen driving around Sydney with my windows up and the aircon blasting, rapping along to Wayne. So I was worried. His voice on Off Day was back to his auto-tune heyday of the mid to late 00s (think Lollipop), but he was rapping about SEX!!! Sex sex sex. The man has more ways to describe a vagina than there are words in the dictionary. We all know what happened on his last studio album.. Wowzers. Enough said.

Still, with the impending implosion of Cash Money records, and the bad blood between Wayne and his father and mentor Birdman, we were awash with new material. And boy, did Wayne not disappoint. The opener, Coco, a remix of the OT Genasis track of the same name, went in. And I mean he went in hard. The first verse went something like this:

Who kept this shit together? Nigga, me, that's who
Who was there when niggas left us? Nigga, me, that's who
Cash Money is an army, I'm a one man army
And if them niggas coming for me, I'm going out like Tony
Now I don't want no problems, I just want my money
Ain't gotta hold no conversation or my luggage
Tell whoever's countin' that I'm on a hundred
Woo, Birdman Jr., more like Ugly Duckling

Yeah. Hardcore. Birdman just spat in to his double cup. To put this in to perspective, Wayne and Birdman have been tight since Wayne was a snotty nosed kid. He took him under his wing at the age of 9, and Birdman sat by and watched Lil Wayne become the best rapper alive, and then slowly decline, all the while selling truckloads of records, truckloads of trukfit, and signing certifiable superstars like Drake and Nicki Minaj. Basically, Wayne and Birdman built an empire from the ground up, one that has stood the test of time and remains the one true label that has endured (think of the death and decline of Rocafella, Shady Records, G-Unit Records, Murder Inc etc and you realise how much of an achievement this is). So for them to part ways was dramatic.

That's not to say S4TW2 is an expletive based tirade aimed at Wayne's father and mentor. In fact, the situation seems to have snapped Wayne out of his vagina-induced perma-haze, and finds him at his most lyrical since the classic mixtape No Ceilings. We missed mixtape Weezy.. Whilst Dedication's 4 and 5 were solid projects, they lacked the energy and enthusiasm that he displays here.

Some of that can be attributed to his delivery and his auto-tune, although anyone who claims Wayne is aping the style and delivery of Young Thug needs their head examined. Wayne and T-Pain fathered the auto-tune generation. But it's more than just that.. He sounds vicious, he sounds hungry. When he claimed the throne of Best Rapper Alive on Tha Carter II, you felt it, you felt he was embodying that role, he believed he truly was, and that no-one could touch him. On S4TW2 he is in peerless form.

"I don't know how you like your steak but I'm in rare form"

Indeed. On Trap House, he is breathless, relating his hectic lifestyle back to the imperious Michael Jordan. On Selsun Blue, over the top of All About The Money by Troy Ave, Wayne goes in and murders the original, spitting an elongated single verse about his lyrical abilities and the crack dealing past he sometimes revisits. Lines like "li li li lick my lollipop like it got gum inside / miami in the winter, cali in the summertime / my bitch independent, she don't ask me for a dime' is just straight on the fly brilliance, in the same vein as classic A Milli or Upgrade U. On centrepiece Fingers Hurting, a thumper produced by Metro Boomin, he again follows the narrative of cocaine selling, cocaine taking, and just general free association rhyming.

The thing about Wayne is that he just raps. He goes in the booth and raps, and he has bars for days and days. He doesn't stop, he doesn't quit, he works, he doesn't even bother writing his words down because it slows him up. Watching him work during The Carter Documentary was intriguing. He would work through the night, carry a microphone with him so that whenever inspiration hits he lets it flow out of him. It's been years, though, since he has spat with such quality, for so long. The way he trades verses with both Drake (Used 2) and 2 Chainz (Preach) is indicative of his status. He murders them. And their verses aren't bad, but Wayne, as he said, is in rare form.

"Never seen my car before, it’s like a unicorn in traffic
Too much fucking talent, rap Shakespeare go Hamlet
You other boys could kiss the game goodbye, be romantic
Please don’t worry Nancy, all my weed is organic
If my children end up smoking
I'll whip they ass if they don’t pass it"

What also becomes evident is a large part of his initial run of wins during the mid 2000s, syrup, or lean, has come back in to his life. No Type is a straight love song in the vein of Pussy Money Weed, or I Feel Like Dying, and whilst it contains the odd corny line (It was love at first sprite), it's easily the equal of more famous dual-meaning love stories, like Jay-Z's I Know, or 50 Cent's Baltimore Love Thing. He even shouts out Katniss Everdeen.. I mean come on!

The only downside to the tape is the beat selection. Most of these beats have been played ad-nauseum, and remixed repeatedly. Whilst Wayne's versions are generally better quality, it does get tiring listing to Hot Nigga again, or Tuesday. The only other true misstep is Drunk In Love, with his new girl Christina Milian. Whoever is telling those two that they have chemistry in the booth is straight lying. Their previous collaboration, Start A Fire, did anything but, and in fact may have been the very reason Carter V was not released on it's new date of December 9th.

What can we take away from this tape? It is more coherent and focused than the original S4TW. It features a rejuvinated Lil Wayne. It features a Wayne that is at his most lyrical for years, and it once again solidifies him at the very top tier of the rap game. He is a punch line rapper, so he cannot be mentioned in the same sentence as Lupe Fiasco or Joey Bada$$, but as a punch line rapper he is absolutely top of the tree.

Sorry for the wait? Thank the gods for it. Carter V, if it is anything like this, will be well worthy of his Carter series, and could possibly be the best installment yet..

Rating: 10/10

2Pac famously said "I'm not saying I'm gonna change the world, but I guarantee I will spark the brain that will change the world".

No-one is in a better place to to that than Kendrick Lamar. He is born of the age of information. Whilst his spiritual and revolutionary ancestors; Mandela, Malcolm X, and Tupac himself, all battled to have their message seen and heard and felt by as many people as possible, with the advent of the internet and the wildfire that is social media, Kendrick has the entire world at his fingertips.
To Pimp A Butterfly is an extension of the narrative that was so beautifully described on good kid, m.A.A.d. city. We were introduced to a young, naive, intellectual soul who, through experiences like Swimming Pools (Drank), The Art of Peer Pressure and Money Trees grew in to a figurehead of hood mentality. In much the same way that E-40 presents himself as hood famous through literal depictions of ghetto life, Kendrick used his mother and father to ground him and his actions in reality, with the brilliant closing remarks from his mother on Real a precursor for exactly what To Pimp A Butterfly is trying to achieve.

Opening with the sample of Every Nigger is a Star, by Boris Gardiner, is a more subtle way of re-stating the classic 2014 track by Lil B; "No Black Person Is Ugly". It sounds dated at first, until the incredible production from Flying Lotus, Thudercat and Sounwave gives way to a menacing, futuristic funk odyssey, in which Kendrick lays his feelings on the table from the drop: "At first I did love you, but now I just wanna fuck". Fame, fortune, violence, "fugazi" thuggery is all housed within this judicious intro. The scene is set..

If you haven't been able to follow the narrative, it is one of immediate simplicity, but the further you dig around in it, the more complex it becomes. During 2014, Kendrick appeared on The Breakfast Club to 'spruik' his polarising new single "i", which had blogs and heads alike wondering if Kendrick had, in fact, done exactly what he preaches against on this record. Rather than get in to the mechanics and specifics of the song, he explained that since the success of his first record, he felt he needed clarity of thought. So he travelled. He travelled the world as a successful hip hop artist, something only a blessed few have the luxury of doing. During that time, rather than soaking up his surroundings and living in the moment, Kendrick thought. He observed, he pondered, he noted and he filed each experience away in his memory bank, and he took them out again and considered how to apply in a way that would benefit his culture and his people. The message of To Pimp A Butterfly is one of hope and empowerment of a culture and a race; the same kind of thing that rappers have been focused on since the art of rap was created. But the conversation has gotten muddled along the way. When Jay Z rapped "If you put crabs in a barrel to ensure your survival / You're gonna end up pulling down niggas that look just like you", it was instructive of an entire generation of kids in the street, which Kendrick addressed even more potently on The Blacker The Berry, with "So why did I weep when Trayvon Martin was in the street? When gang banging make me kill a nigga blacker than me? Hypocrite!".

The release of that song prior to the album was almost an act of defiance by Lamar and his label. For anyone lost in the throes of racism, it was inflammatory, and stand-offish. When you consider that Drake sold nearly 500,000 copies of his record in it's first week, with nothing more aggressive than a youthful phone hustle scheme, the bravery of Kendrick to put something like The Blacker The Berry out in to a world of diminishing album sales and diminishing returns was huge. In fact, it's a bravery that is echoed throughout the entire record, although rarely can he be accused of a lack of humility. On the despondent "u", in fact, he takes sharp aim at himself, "I place blame on you still, Place shame on you still, Feel like you ain't shit, Feel like you don't feel confidence in yourself". It's a moment of raw introspection that is not uncommon, but more viscereal for the words that follow, "I fuckin' tell you, you fuckin' faiulure, you ain't no leader".

It's during these moments that the beauty of TPAB comes forth. Whilst 2Pac was a visionary and a revolutionary who was hell bent on sparking change, his self-doubt was not over his actions, but rather what would become of them. Kendrick is chastising himself in much of this record. When he turns his focus inwards, such as on "These Walls", the results are startling, "wall tellin me they full of pain, resentment, Need someone to live in them just to relieve tension". The deeper you scratch away at the message of cultural empowerment, the more you expose the open wound that is the personality of Kendrick Lamar.

It would be remiss if this review didn't mention the incredible bomb that he drops on the music industry as a whole. Kendrick's admission on The Breakfast Club was a disillusionment with the fame he worked so hard to achieve, and on King Kunta he thrashes industry vets, "The yam is the power that be, You can smell it when I'm walking down the street""Now I run the game, got whole world talkin' King Kunta, Everybody wanna cut the legs off him". This is, essentially, an extension of the title, as explained in the outro to Mortal Man. Kendrick is the butterfly, or "the talent", and the faceless men (think Lyor Cohen if you need a face) are using him and his beauty, in essence pimping him, and rappers as a collective. On For Sale? (Interlude) he spins a tale on just how seductive the lifestyle can be (just check out 50 Cent's instagram if you need proof), detailing all the way in which Lucy (Lucifer, or an extension of the rockstar lifestyle that comes with selling your soul for record sales) attempts to seduce him.

Kendrick will not be seduced.

Why is this record perfect? It's probably quite easy to sit back and say "well of course he was going to be critically acclaimed, look at his subject matter, he basically walked in to a classic". True, speaking from the heart, rejecting violence and embracing cultural revolution in a time of incredible racial upheaval will probably win you some fans. But I bet you haven't heard CyHi The Prynce's new mixtape have you? Did you hear Killer Mike's R.A.P Music? Did you go out and buy Tetsuo and Youth? The point is that not just anyone can do what Kendrick has done here, and a lot of it can be attributed to the brilliance of those around him. Sounwave, Flying Lotus, George Clinton, Rahki, Thundercat and LoveDragon are all on hand to soundtrack the movie that Kendrick is acting in. The wonderful funk throwback feels so much more immediate than anything Prince has done lately, and the only person you can truly compare it to on the same mainstream scale is D'Angelo. The way that Institutionalized begins almost like a slow burning Marvin Gaye song, but morphs so stunningly in to a Parliament riot (complete with yet another Win for Snoop Dogg). The way in which These Walls provokes a crazy inner groove, and yet still grounds itself with a swelling of orchestral dark clouds every now and then so the party atmosphere doesn't pervade too much. The free-reign jazz of For Free? then bleeds in to the effortless SWAGGER of King Kunta, which makes so much more sense as part of the record than a single. Kendrick has a team of writers around him, and major label backing. CyHi doesn't. In an interview last year, he was asked whether Dre was on the record (he is, but only via phone on Wesley's Theory). Kendrick replied that Dre was a consultant, and that he was such a useful resource because he "knows the frequency of a snare drum that listeners enjoy hearing on the radio". The sonics on TPAB are just dirty enough to have you reaching for your afro comb, but so wonderfully polished that they do not once sound dated, and probably still won't in a decade's time. Try telling that to Joey Bada$$.

Will Kendrick be the champion of change he seeks to be? Probably not. G-Unit will come out in a few weeks with a tape about beating people up for their chains and flying in G6's. It is ironic that in such an age of enlightenment and information immediacy that people like Kendrick have even less of a voice than 2Pac and Malcolm X. Whilst the power of words appear to become more important with time, their true power to provoke action seems to diminish the more we are exposed to them. Everyone likes to be seen doing something. No-one seems to enjoy doing it.

As he said on Institutionalized: "Fuck am I s'posed to do when I'm lookin at walkin licks? / The constant big money talk about mainsions and foreign whips / The private jets and passports, presidential glass floor / Gold bottles, gold models, sniffin up the ass for / Instagram flicks, suck a dick, fuck is this? One more suck away from wavin flashy wrist / My defense mechanism tell me to get him, quickly because he got it / It's the recession, then why the fuck he in King of Diamonds? No more living poor, meet my four four / When I see em put the per diem on the floor" Institutionalized. It's going to take more than a hit record to reverse indoctrination, but if this is the first step, it's been made by a true genius.

Gluten Free Hot Cross Buns Recipe

If this is your first time baking Gluten Free, caught up in the holiday spirit and the fact that buying commercially produced GF Hot Cross Buns is irreversibly expensive, you're in for a treat. Not only are these infinitely better than buying them from some faceless corporation (like Grandma's Gluten Free Bakery, pfft I'm better than that old woman!), the sense of achievement is unmatched. Well, in the world of first time baking it isn't. They're devilishly easy to make!

I won't bore you. Except to say that the first batch I made I burnt because my oven is incredibly temperamental, and these can be easy to burn (apparently). The second and third batches were perfect. Thankfully I now have a fridge full of them. Not for long..

Ingredients:
3 Cups GF flour blend (I used 1 cup Tapioca starch, 1 cup Buckwheat flour, 1/2 cup Sorghum flour, 1/2 super-fine white rice flour)
2 tsp Xantham gum (omitt if your GF flour blend has it already)
1/2 cup Brown Sugar
1 satchet instant yeast (about 4 tsps)
1/2 tsp ground cardamom
1/2 tsp cinammon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp allspice
1 tsp salt
1 tsp lemon juice
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp apple cider vinegar (any vinegar will do)
3/4 cup warm milk (100 degrees F)
2 extra large eggs + 1 egg yolk (room temperature)
4 tbs of Butter, melted, cool
3 tbs of coconut oil (in liquid form, can substitute for butter if you don't have any)
1 cup of Sultanas (or currants, dates, choc chips, whatever takes your fancy. I used M&Ms I had leftover for my last batch)
1 cup icing sugar mixture
1/4 cup cream

Method:
1. Combine half the sugar and the warm milk together, stirring to dissolve. Add the yeast, and allow to stand for about 5 minutes whilst the yeast proves (it is ready when it starts to become bubbly and smells yeasty).
2. Combine the flour blend, the xantham gum, the rest of the sugar, the spices and salt in a stand mixer bowl, and mix until completely combined
3. Add the Lemon Juice, Vanilla, Vinegar, Eggs, Butter, Oil and the proven yeast/milk mixture to the bowl.
4. Mix on a low speed with the Dough Hook in place to combine. Once combined, mix on a high speed for about 6 minutes, brushing down the sides with a spatula to ensure it all gets incorporated. The aim is to have a very stick dough but not runny, like traditional GF bread dough. You want to be able to shape and form it, but if you touch it it's very sticky. Alternatively, you can do this by hand. I usually use a fork (I know..), and it takes some elbow grease but you must work hard to combine everything. Once the dough looks right, add the Sultana's, and mix briefly until they are distributed throughout the dough.
5. Line 2 baking trays with baking paper. Using a 1/3 cup as a scoop, and a wet spoon to shape, scoop the dough out and shape it in to the form of a small roll. Space them about 2 inches apart. You should make around 9.
6. Place in a warm place to rise. You want them to be about 150% of their original size.
7. Pre-heat the oven to 190 degrees (170 fan forced). Brush them buns with the cream. Place them on the same shelf if possible, in the middle of the oven, and cook them from 20-30 minutes. You will know they are done when they sound hollow when tapped, the top is a nice light brown, and they don't collapse or fall apart when you try to bend them. Keep an eye on them, lest they burn!
8. Cool on a wire rack. When they are cooled, combine the Icing Sugar mixture with enough water to form a thick paste. I didn't bother piping the crosses (cause I am terrible at piping), but if you are a perfectionist, fit a plain tip to your piping bag with a relatively small circumference, and pipe your crosses on. If the mixture is too runny, add more sugar, if it is too stiff to pipe, add more water.

Enjoy

Rating: 9/10

When you review a movie, it is often prudent to reproduce some of the plot in order for those who haven't seen it, or have no intention of seeing it, to be able to follow what you are saying. Judging from the fact I went to a showing a week after it opened, at 1:30pm on a Wednesday, and it was sold out, it's safe to say you've seen it. I will spare you.

The movie is pure insanity. Imagine giving the kid at your school who played with matches, an entire arsenal of flamethrowers. Then, throw him in a room with every other kid who ever played with matches, with similar arsenals, and let them do whatever they want. The chaos that ensues might come close to describing exactly what happens in Furious 7.

Ever since the third movie in Tokyo was met with a lukewarm response, the Fast series has endeavoured to pile on top of each iteration the kind of special effects that would make Star Wars seem like a plausible occurrence in the 1970s. In much the same way that The Rock stacks his pancakes of a morning, the Fast series has gotten more and more outrageous. From the beginning of Fast Five, when Dom is encased in a miliatry spec bus on his way to prison, and the team hijack it, basically destroy and explode it, as Dom casually walks out of it with nought but a scratch on him, the director has pushed the envelope of just how much absurdity an audience is willing to handle in order to be entertained. If you thought that ridiculously long runway in Fast 6, at the end of which they shoot down a plane (with Dom in it) whilst Dom walks out free as a bird was a little bit implausible, you may find yourself scoffing at the brilliance of Fast 7.

I say brilliance, because it genuinely is. I mean, who in the world sits at their computer and thinks that Paul running up the side of an overturned bus as it slides off the edge a cliff isn't quite exciting enough? Who then decides to have Letty turn up, 4 wheel drifting her American muscle car so the back wheels are inches from that same cliff, whilst Paul flies through the air, grabbing hold of the spoiler, and miss death by mere milimetres? Who decides to jump a Lykan between 3 sky scrapers? Who decides that Hobbs should turn up unnanounced and drive off a bridge, crashing in to a drone, and surviving in good enough health to then shoot down a helicopter with a hand gun? I mean come on!!! Maybe one or two of those things, but there's about 10 in this movie that just defies conventional imagination!

If you're tired out just reading that, Fast 7 is not for you. The plot is not laughable, but it's more unlikely than a Vin Diesel lean bulking cycle. Who is that weird man who drinks Belgian beer? Why is he so intent on helping Dom and his crew, to the point where he almost lays down his own life? How did Hobbs know where the drone was in order to take it out? How, if they were able to manually override the security system of an entire Abu Dhabi sky scraper, is that system then able to override them? And how does everyone else get out of that situation? How does Deckard keep turning up all over the place? Who in the world is Mando? If you thought any of those things during the movie, you thought waaaaaaaaaay too hard.

The problem is if you scratch at the surface, the whole thing begins to fall apart. The acting can be, at times, just truly horrible. Vin Diesel is like a slug on valium unless there is a fight scene. He delivers lines as if he has been the victim of a botched lobotomy, and his words of wisdom about family are fresh and emotional only due to the horrible implications of what they mean off screen. The Rock is The Rock. He is like Arnie. He delivers these incredible one liners that, in isolation, sound ridiculous, but in the context of the movie they are like a shot of adrenalin, they pump you up and have you jumping out of your seat screaming "Fuck yeah get that up ya!!". (Don't do this cause they may ask you to leave the cinema if you do it too many times). Letty is even slower than Dom though.. Her performance is static and wooden, she is the action version of Nicole Kidman. Her facial expression barely changes, and if she has ever experienced joy in her life, it was many many moons ago, because she seems incapable of portraying that on screen. The saddest part is the marginalisation of Tyrese and Ludacris. Luda is actually a decent actor! If you watch him closely he rarely misses a cue and rarely seems out of place amongst his more experienced cohorts. Tyrese is hilarious! He does get a role in this movie, but it is just comic foil, whereas in 5 and 6 he was one of the leading lights, his personality shining through the cold steel of Dom and Letty. Almost every line he delivered was met with laughs, and, in contrast to Dom, Letty and even Hobbs at times, it feels natural and organic rather than scripted.

Paul Walker, and I refer to him as Paul throughout this review and not his on screen character of Brian because to all of us Brian is now Paul. His performance is on par with that of his performance in the rest of the series. That is to say, he is stellar, and he stands out against the rest of the crew. The movies have been cast so brilliantly. Paul is the energetic, loveable, relatable guy who takes the route most of us would take. The way he gets out of conundrums and dangerous situations is not based on crazy plots or insane ideas, he does it using common sense and intelligence. His energy is infectious.

On Paul, the director and his staff must be commended on an incredible performance. It is obvious at times that he wasn't there for some scenes, but in no way does it take away from the movie, and if you didn't know the back story, you wouldn't recognise it at all. It's brilliant.

I just listed a bunch of negatives, and yet gave this movie a 9/10. It's an absolute riot. The action, the energy, the absurdity. If you go to the movies to be entertained, this will satisfy. You will be happy paying your $25, or whatever Event Cinema decides to gouge you out of. It's more fun than a Rock cheat meal! The cinematography is just awe-inspiring. How you can make a car jumping between sky scrapers look real is beyond me. The plot is fine. There are no 'OMG I didn't see that coming' moments outside of the insane action, but it moves along very nicely. The only truly poor part was when Dom is 'brought back to life' not by resuscitation, but by Letty regaining her memory. It loses a solid point for that. Despite that fact that tears were running down my face at that point, it was more due to the fact I knew what was coming rather than what was happening on screen.

The tribute. The whole movie is a tribute to Paul Walker. The way he illuminates every single scene he is in. It's not heavy handed in the slightest. If you think Paul telling Mia he loves her over and over is out of place, you haven't seen the previous movies. Their love, whilst not a focal point or even a particularly well-executed out plot point, has always felt genuine and real and never forced. It's a testament to the two strongest actors in the franchise that they have skirted around some poor script writing and cobbled together a believable relationship.

The ending is a tear jerker. It is the best thought out, best written part of the entire movie series, period. It isn't sappy, it isn't heart-wrenching. It isn't even part of the movie. Think of it as an additional ending, separate from the movie. But it's brutal. If you have invested as much time and emotional energy in to this film series as I have, Paul's death was already a difficult thing to deal with. Seeing him on screen like that, and knowing the relationship the actors had off the screen was serious.

RIP Paul Walker. What a way to be immortalised.

Gluten Free Anzac Biscuits Recipe

You don't need wheat or even oats to enjoy the satisfying, delicious crunch of a well-made Anzac bikkie. Follow me..

If you don't have GF self-raising flour, it's easy to make. For every cup of flour, add 2 tsps of baking powder, and a little salt.

Ingredients
125gm Unsalted Butter, chopped
1 Tbs Golden Syrup
1 Tbs Honey
1 Cup Gluten Free self-raising flour
1 Cup Rice or Quinoa flakes (can be found in the health section of your supermarket)
1 Cup Dessicated Coconut
3/4 Cup Almond Meal
3/4 Cup firmly packed brown sugar
1-2 Tbs hot water

Method:
1. Place the butter, Golden Syrup and the Honey is a saucepan and cook over medium heat, until melted and combined
2. Combine the Flour, Rice or Quinoa flakes, Coconut, Almond Meal and Sugar in a bowl. Stir to combine. Add the Butter mixture and the hot water (1 Tbs at a time until you have a workable, not sticky, cookie dough). Mix well to combine, and knead gently so it comes together in a ball.
3. Wrap the dough up in plastic wrap and pop it in the freezer for 15 minutes to harden up. Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees celsius (160 degrees celsius for fan forced ovens).
4. Arrange the dough on baking trays lined with baking paper. Cut them in to whatever size you wish, and they can be as pretty or as rag-tag as you want. Place them on the baking trays so that they aren't touching, and bake for 15 minutes, or until golden. When they are done, allow them to sit in the trays for 5-10 minutes, until they are solid enough to handle, then transfer them to a wire rack.