Slingshot Touring & Events is the longest running Hip Hop concert promoter in Australia, starting events in 1993 and then going national in 1995. Slingshot has been responsible for over 100 international tours and shows across Australia, and started off in the 1990s primarily bringing down US DJ’s, before expanding heavily throughout the 2000s and 2010s into a who’s who list of international Hip Hop acts
The director and founder of Slingshot, Trent Roden started as a professional skateboarding and snowboarding photographer in the late 80s. During this time he consulted for brands and companies such as Quiksilver, Mistral, SNP, Wave Rave and many more. He helped to launch the professional snowboarding careers of many of Australia’s top snowboarders from the early to mid 90s.
Slingshot magazine was born out of the frustration and mediocrity of the magazine business in Australia at the time. It featured stories on skating, snowboarding, Hip Hop, politics, conspiracies and comedy mixed with regular controversial stories regularly calling out wackness and injustices.
In 1995 Trent was asked by Modular to tour manage The MoWax Tour featuring DJ Shadow, Money Mark and James Lavelle across Australia. The success of The MoWax Tour lead to Trent and DJ Sheep touring DJ Q-Bert around Australia.
From that point, Slingshot solidified itself as a full time promotional company specializing in bringing American Hip Hop acts to Australia, and has helped to build the Aussie Hip Hop scene introducing and running events such as The ITF DJ Battles, Urban-Xpressions Hip Hop festival, Step Forward weekly Hip Hop club and many other special events along the way.
Since 1995 Slingshot has toured over 100 international artists to Australia such as The Pharcyde, Tha Alkaholiks, Company Flow, Black Eyed Peas, Souls Of Mischief, Lupe Fiasco, Ghostface Killah, Ugly Duckling, KRS ONE, MF DOOM, Blackalicious, Lyrics Born, DJ Krush, Roots Manuva and many many more.
Slingshot Asia was set in up to bring more acts to South East Asia from America and Australia. So far Slingshot Asia has been responsible for shows in Asia with DMC (from Run DMC), DJ Z-Trip, DJ Premier, DJ Spooky, Blackalicious DJ Total Eclipse + more. Slingshot Touring has won the prestigious 3D World Promoter Of The Year award twice, testament to the quality hip hop tours it has produced year after year across Australia, New Zealand and SE Asia.
