Raspberry Cordial

Raspberry Cordial were a hip-hop group from Melbourne, Australia, made up of John Safran (vocals) and Chris Lumsden (keyboards). George Weinberg played drums on the first rehearsal, but was quickly replaced with a drum machine. They achieved some success, playing many live shows in Melbourne, getting heavy rotation airplay on the city's community radio, and famously coming second in the RMIT Battle of the Bands competition. Their concert backstage rider asked for two drinks - anything more came out of the band's $60 performance fee.

Cordial's first release was 1992's Melbourne Tram, an album only released on cassette of which John apparently has hundreds of unsold copies in his bedroom. Later in life, on his 2002 Music Jamboree series, Safran offered to send two copies of Melbourne Tram and an essay about the work to anyone who sent in their old copy, presumably worn out from overplay.

After winning a state government youth music initiative, Raspberry Cordial released Taste Test on CD in 1993. 500 copies were pressed, of which 407 were crushed after only 93 copies were sold. One of the songs from Taste Test, "University Elevator Music", is legally available for download in MP3 format from Triple J here. Raspberry Cordial broke up after their second release, following hurtful comments made by Safran's girlfriend.

Interviewed on Andrew Denton's Enough Rope in 2002, Safran remarked about the group that "the world wasn't ready for white rappers then" and that they "broke down the wall that Eminem's been able to walk through".