Love him or hate him, Campbelltown-born and bred emcee and stalwart of controversy Kerser is chasing legacy with today’s release of his sixth album Tradition, out today through his label ABK Records/Warner Music Australia.

Unless you’re a fan, you probably know more headlines than song titles. Beef with JB Hi-Fi. Beef with 360. Beef with Allday. Beef with triple j. Beef with Tracy Grimshaw. Beyond the scandals, however, are accolades that travel beyond click-bait news articles and polarising think-pieces.

Read any press release or artist bio, or listen to any of his songs, and it will soon be mentioned that Kerser’s career has been built from the ground up with no marketing assistance and no radio play. Now, while you can say that about other artists, you can’t always translate that into ARIA-charting albums and DVDs, revenue-generating YouTube subscriptions and sold out national tours.

Before his current success, Kerser was a struggling rapper from Campbelltown. Disenfranchised with the usual brand of hip-hop artists receiving national airplay, Kerser pressed up his own independent mixtapes and made a name for himself at the street level. Meanwhile, he cut his teeth in Sydney’s south-west battle rap scene until he was invited to compete in Australian a capella battle league Got Beef’s launch event in 2010.

Hungry for the opportunity, Kerser and his crew also performed a set during one of the breaks throughout the long day. Many underground rappers are used to playing small pub venues to a handful of disinterested punters, but the energy and passion of Kerser in 2016 could be found on that stage in Brunswick six years ago, despite the crowd not answering in kind.

“It was awkward as shit,” ‘The Sickest’ chuckles. “It was in-between battles and there were like four people watching us. And now it’s funny as, ’cause I go to Melbourne and I sell venues out from 1,200 to 2,000 people.” But on that thinly-populated pub floor you could never have foreseen the success Kerser has carved for himself, a difficult truth to admit for his detractors. “It puts a smile on your face but I think the actual haters, I think it spurns them more. But that just adds fuel to the fire for me.”

Those flames have been raging since 2011, when Kerser dropped his debut album The Nebulizer followed by a national tour in early 2012. “The plan actually went to work. From there I got back home from tour, got my pay from the album and the tour, realised I could make a living off this, put another album out straight away – and I wasn’t getting radio play or mainstream play or any help from commercial anywhere”.

Those embers have continued to blaze all the way up to new album Tradition, his sixth album in six years. “I said to myself, if I do 10 albums in 10 years, I think it’s giving me longevity. It’s a strategic plan and it’s a challenge for myself as well.”

A pillar of this design was his decision to build a fan base through social media and YouTube. “It was never my plan to approach the radio or TV.” Such a prolific work rate in a short amount of time would be daunting for most people, then throw on top the decision to ignore mainstream outlets.

“In Sydney I could see the scene and I could see what was going on, a certain style of rap and a certain style of subject matter that rappers would rap about. My music was nowhere near that and neither was anyone in my crew or what we were listening to. So we were getting ignored by the scene pretty much, and we went, ‘Fuck it, we have to make it one way or another’. And social media was an outlet where we didn’t have to hold anything back.”

It’s an entrepreneurial spirit which cuts out the middle man and delivers the product straight from the source. However, it can’t be ignored that for Kerser and his ABK225 crew-members, it felt like a rigged system. Conquering that opposition is an idea which informs Kerser’s career and is testament on the new record, but other than an overarching theme to his career, did that struggle also allow Kerser a, ‘I finally made it’ moment?

“I knew there was a buzz, but I didn’t know the longevity of it or how long people would be interested, to tell you the truth. Probably the sink-in moment was when I moved from Campbelltown down to the coast and was able to afford a house on the water. That was probably the moment. When I walked out the front and thought, ‘Fuuuuuck… I came a long way from rapping to four people.”

What allowed Kerser to resonate with so many fans across the country was that he represented the marginalised demographic of low-income families who feel like they are ignored by the government, society and Australian hip-hop.

“I can’t say that many [artists] have touched on it at all, to tell you the truth. If they have, I haven’t heard it personally. You never hear anyone talking about the lower community and how the upper communities do nothing for the lower communities. They mainly just point shit at it and point fun at it. It’s kind of a laughing subject to them.”

This class divide was on display in 2014 when Kerser was invited to Channel 10 to defend rap’s more controversial and outrageous lyrical content, to the panel’s incredulity, suggesting that the media may contribute to that lack of representation.

“Not all media but a lot of media have a part in that.” Kerser reflects on having to justify Lil’ Wayne and Bizaare lyrics. “They picked the worst possible stuff and it was like, ‘Now you answer for this, Kerser.’ Fuck. What!?”

Courting controversy has been business as usual for the Kerser and on new album cut ‘We The Type’ feat. JAY UF, Kerser offers a sequel to last year’s Tracy Grimshaw diss. “Out of the whole Next Step album, every interview I had, the question was, ‘You’ve got this line about Tracy Grimshaw… And it was literally one bar! And I’m like, ‘Out of the whole album, out of all 15 songs how come every interview has brought up this one line?’

“So I was like okay, I’m just gonna go at Tracy. This is obviously striking chords and there were headlines in the Sydney Herald and shit, ‘Kerser Calls Out Tracy Grimshaw’. I was like, ‘Wow, if they think that one line was bad I’ll give them half a verse on her’.”

But this tongue-in-cheek controversial streak isn’t a shock to a genre which spawned mainstream success for Eminem and Tyler the Creator, so why is Kerser so polarising? “I just think I’m too in your face, man,” Kerser looks back on his reception when he first started making noise. “The subject matters I was talking on, nobody in Aus rap really heard that. If you go back and watch Highest Man, we look like your typical trouble makers, so I think it wasn’t the look that the media or Aussie hip-hop wanted to get out there.

“I don’t think the Aussie hip-hop scene wanted me to make it at all. I wasn’t the next Hilltop Hoods. I wasn’t the next artist who reminded them of someone.” It wasn’t just the fans who Kerser felt rejection from. “I didn’t get any co-signs from anyone. Like I got distribution from Obese, so shout out to Obese for that, but no older rapper really came out and said, “Kerser’s sick, I like his stuff” they all sort of stood back and waited ’til I got massive.”

He pauses and takes that realisation in. “Yeah, I never really got a co-sign, bro. Which I couldn’t really give a fuck about, but I’ve never really spoke on that when I think about it. I wasn’t like, “Fuck, my plan’s not working! They all hate me!”

It’s funny to think nobody wanted to back the Campbelltown emcee, with 20/20 hindsight revealing a return on investment to the point where Kerser now refers to himself as the saviour of Australian rap music – but what does it need saving from?

“The lane of Aus rap I’m in couldn’t get on the radio, couldn’t get TV plays,” he says. “I kind of made a blueprint for artists that were gonna get ignored. ‘Ah okay, you can talk to your fans through social media’. Not that I was the first to do it but I was the first to solely make it from social media only. So I had that blueprint for artists who are were not gonna get heard or won’t get heard in the future.

“That’s what I want to be remembered by when I leave the game. I proved there was a way to make it even if you’re shunned by the industry. If everyone wants you to fail in the industry. I proved there’s still a way to make it.”

At least when you make it in the sense that Kerser has, people will sit back and give your due, even if the music isn’t for them. “Respect the hustle,” he quotes. “I hear that heaps man. I get a lot of messages like that too and comments and that like, ‘I’m not into your music but I respect your hustle, I respect your grind. Can’t knock your hustle but your music’s not for me.’”

But is this slightly insulting? “I see that as a compliment. I see them as being honest. Okay, they don’t like the music but they can see what I’ve done and give me props for what I’ve done. Instead of someone saying, ‘Your music’s shit you shouldn’t be where you are’.”

But if Kerser wasn’t where is now, where would he be? “To be completely honest, probably be on Centrelink, bro. Sitting around smoking cones in the house with my mates. Still being in a town house in Campbelltown.”

Perhaps one of the reasons larger Australia is confronted with Kerser is because he holds up a black mirror to those of us lucky enough to not hail from a low-income families whose only options are to pursue their dreams, with the odds heaped against them, or look for solace in substance abuse, a path which Kerser confesses to throughout his career and on the new album.

“It probably sounds hypocritical coming from me cause on my earlier stuff I was not encouraging it but I had lyrics which had drug references in it. I’ve always been honest with my music. The Nebuliser was partying type stuff and I was telling people what drugs I was on.

“No Rest For The Sickest was the following up album to that. That’s got some deep stuff on it, that’s probably my deepest album. That’s me confessing to a lot of drugs and touching on growing up and that.”

It touches on the trend of casual drug abuse found in recent hip-hop locally and internationally. “I definitely think lyric-wise with other artists, it’s like the pharmas are behind them pushing it. Like it’s cool to have a Xanax these days. It’s cool to drink lean. It was like that for me until I caught a habit on it and then I realised it’s the worst thing in the world.”

Kerser speaks with the confidence and maturity of a king whose dominion is an exemplar of his goals. Lurking beneath it all is that same charismatic battle rapper who first demanded recognition six years ago, a phase of his career largely responsible for his current success.

“You’d be crazy if you said it wasn’t. My battles were getting a lot of views and that built towards my music. And there was that rivalry with 360 that lasted until we battled and then went on after that. Definitely battling boosted me in some way.”

Which begs the question, is a return to his battle roots for the resurgent Don’t Flop Australia on the cards? “I don’t know. To be plain, it would really have to make sense. It’d have to have a big buzz around it. Which it would I think if I was battling anyway. I don’t know. I’m so focused on these albums and tour… To throw a battle in amongst that… I wouldn’t rule it out but it would have to be something big.”