Everything has come full circle for the original kings of anthemic hip hop Naughty by Nature, as the trio gets ready to land on Australian shores, giving the Good Vibrations Festival a much-needed dose of the old skool. Talking to the trio of Treach, Vin Rock and DJ Kay Gee from their home of New Jersey, they’re fresh off of a visit to their former high school’s homecoming weekend celebrations, and ‘full circle’ definitely seems an apt way to describe how they’re travelling.

First getting together to form the hip hop trio over 20 years ago in Jersey’s East Orange, 1991 saw the release of Naughty by Nature’s most successful track O.P.P., which has since been handpicked as one of the top rap singles of all time by authoratitive hip hop publication Source, and dubbed the 20th best single of the 90s by Spin Magazine. Its catchy hook (“You down with O.P.P? Yeah you know me!”) has secured the anthemic track a firm place in hip hop history books, and the moment it reached number six on the Billboard charts marked one of the moments the genre made an official crossover into popular culture, a feat that few artists in hip hop had achieved at that stage. Several successful albums later, followed by a split in 2000, popular American music television channel VH1 presented the Naughty boys with the prestigious ‘Hip Hop Honours’ award in 2008, affirming their rightful place as true hip hop Hall of Famers.

“That’s not just an award for one song, or a single work, or one album; ‘Hip Hop Honours’ is like a lifetime achievement award which was designed just for hip hop. There’s nothing else like it that’s just for hip hop; a dedication to how much your music is appreciated. It’s official. Just like in sport, for example, when you’re looking for that rank or that trophy, that end of the year recognition… We are now one of those ‘greatest of all time,’ hall of fame kind of things.”

Reflecting back on the good old days (“The naughty 90s were the best era for hip hop ever, and we’re the best ever!”), and buzzing with a renewed pride courtesy of their VH1 trophy, producer Kay Gee and MCs Vin Rock and Treach decided to reunite, get back in the studio together and recreate that naughty flavour only they could create. The decision to craft the reunion album, however, was something the threy say was mostly about just giving the fans what they were asking for. “We didn’t decide, the people did. The people said, ‘we need our naughty anthem kings back in business. We need that boom back, because what’s going on right now, we don’t appreciate too much!’ So we said, ‘Don’t hate, we’re gonna come back and show ‘em how it’s done’.”

The album, aptly titled Anthem, Inc., is a nod to the group’s commitment to continuing the Naughty knack for creating those catchy, feel-good hip hop anthems; if it ain’t broke, then don’t fix it. With its release date set for the end of 2009, the past year has seen the group in high gear, promoting the first two singles Get to Know Me Better and I Gotta Lotta. Even without a new album dropping though, the boys are always hard at work.

“We tour all year round. We basically never stop touring. It was just a matter of giving the people some new music, so for the last year we’ve been recording the new material and then for the past six months we just started promoting the two singles off the forthcoming album. So we’ve just been in heavy promo mode trying to break the record.”

Yet like anything, touring can get old, and it’s often not as glamorous as you might think: “It’s a lot of stick and move, stick and move…you miss your home, your family, your friends and your loved ones…you see the places you could never live; you’re out there for a week and you got no choice but to just be there and hold it out…but you also do get to see enough of a place to think that you’d like to come back there for a vacation.“

On that note, the boys are most definitely excited to be bringing their flavour back to the “beautiful, beautiful” Australia in February, and promise to give all of us down under something most of us have never experienced: a good old-fashioned, classic ‘old skool’ hip hop show.

“It’s going to be crazy at Good Vibes; people are going to see flying. It’s going to be really old school, and there are going to be a lot of people who will have never seen a hip hop concert like that before, you know, with all of those classic artists they may have seen videos and stuff of but – to see them live now, some people will never have seen that, so the show’s gonna be that much more off the hook.”

Although they’re thrilled to be sharing the limelight alongside fellow hip hop icons Salt ‘n Pepa and Busta Rhymes, Naughty by Nature certainly aren’t afraid of a little competition: “Everyone’s got their anthems…we’re competitive, though, and we’re going to go onstage to break it down. It’s gonna be good; it will be a beautiful thing to experience.” Bring it on, guys.

For all your Good Vibrations needs, check out ITM’s Festival Page for loads of news, interviews and more. National dates below…

Sat 13 Feb – Centennial Park, Sydney
Sun 14 Feb – Claremont Showground, Perth
Sat 20 Feb – Parklands Showgrounds, Gold Coast
Sun 21 Feb – The Nursery, Flemington Racecourse, Melbourne