‘Revolutionary hip hop’ and systemic racism in Brisbane
Rebecca Barrigos speaks to radical artist Grammar, from the Brisbane Music Group, on the eve of his Grammarfications national tour.
What’s the connection between music and politics for you?
It’s for the people. The power is in the people. That is the connection; it’s so strong. And we’ve seen it, with so many great socially conscious artists who have sadly come and gone. But their message will never be forgotten. If you’re an artist, and you have that platform, and you’re not being even somewhat political then maybe you should put the mic down and have a really good think about being an artist.
Who are the political artists that have influenced your work? How have they shaped your consciousness about what hip hop should be about?
The way I see it is, Bob Marley and John Lennon, Malcolm X and Tupac Shakur were all speaking the same, the same message. They were just on different platforms.
You’ve spoken before about how you attend the World Refugee Day rallies every year. Do you think that artists have a responsibility to be activists?
Artists not only have a responsibility to use their platform in some activist way, but I think that artists are creative activists.
You hail from Brisbane’s south side, Woodridge. This is a community facing police racism, institutionalised violence against the people. Recently, Red Flag reported the story of Sheila Oakley, an Aboriginal woman who was tasered in the eye by police ...
That is totally unacceptable. I’m disgusted, I’ve already made plans to leave, because of the racist experiences I’ve had in Queensland. In Sydney and Melbourne it’s not like this, people have learned to get along.
Over here, Brisbane, Queensland and probably some other states as well, such as the Northern Territory, they’re still holding on to the ugly history of this country, this invasion. Don’t call yourself a first world country when you’ve got Indigenous people in remote communities with no roofs over their heads, no clean water running, no electricity and no medical attention.
These are basic human rights ! You know how many international laws they’re breaking on a daily basis in 2014? It’s been going on for 236 years and counting, and they’re getting away with it somehow through global powers. I have no respect for this system here in Australia.
Can you talk about some of the problems facing young Black and immigrant women and men in your community?
One thing’s for sure and one thing’s for certain. The thing that’s for sure is that the problem with the community in Logan is not a problem of the people. What is for certain is that the problem’s the system.
Woodridge is one of the only places in Brisbane where you get out at the station and there’s a bottle shop. Then you walk one hundred metres down the road, and there’s two bottle shops there. Then you go towards, Kingston, where I live, and there’s two more bottle shops. Go to a high-end, middle class area and tell me if they have more than one bottle shop in that area.
Another problem is that they’ve built these suburbs, like Logan and Inala, like the projects in the United States: strictly for low-income people who don’t matter to the system whatsoever. They put alcohol all around us; lord knows they probably put the drugs around us too. It’s a self-destructive system that is placed around the people.
And the government knows exactly what it’s doing. Every time there is a court case in Logan, you’re referred to Legal Aid. I just found out that the funding for Legal Aid is provided by the government only if the client is pleading guilty. If you plead not guilty you have to pay a $1,000 minimum fee. It seems like the government is paying for institutions like Legal Aid to have people easily locked up in the system – incarcerated.
Police harass us in ways you couldn’t believe. You’ve got Indigenous families whose kids get followed to school every day by police, and get stopped at any time. I heard this a week before reading about Sheila Oakley, and I was horrified.
At first I thought Sheila might be a white person! But when I saw her picture I knew why the cops did this. You will never hear about police tasering a white person in the eye, you’ll never hear of them going to that extent, to treat them like they’re less than human.
If you look at the history in Australia as an example, you'd see that for a long period of time Indigenous people in Australia were systematically classed as non-human, as less than human. That’s just a glimpse of the systematic problems that we have in my community and in Australia as a whole.
You do a lot of collaborative work with a lot of MCs including Murri MCs and other socially conscious hip hop artists. Your track “So Sophisticated” was featured on this year’s Brisbane Blacks Invasion Day Mixtape. What do you get out of working alongside these artists?
Working with fellow political artists is an opportunity to raise political awareness. Working with these artists raises the bar for awareness.
Tell us about where you grew up and your musical influences
I was born in the United Arab Emirates. My parents were fortunate enough to escape the violence and conflict brewing in Somalia. We mainly lived in Abu Dhabi. I moved to Australia at nine years old – to Sydney with my mother, a single parent, my two brothers and two sisters in 2001.
My brothers went into ESL in high school, but I was too young for that so I went straight into primary school not knowing a word of English. That was one of the difficulties of moving to Australia. It took me two years to learn English.
As soon as we moved here I was in love with urban music. Music created by African-Americans. Two years later my brothers and I went into a record store in Blacktown and bought our first hip hop album, Dr Dre’s The Chronic.
What led you to pick up a mic?
I would say the love of urban music and hip hop! From the moment I stepped down in Sydney airport in 2001, I developed a love for hip hop. I had all the brand new albums before they even came out.
In 2006 we moved to Brisbane. I got a Digital Audio Workstation software ”FL studio” and I started playing around with it. Before you knew it, I had a hip hop instrumental. I was heavy in to making beats after that. For three years, I was making beats, full length tracks.
When I was eighteen, my friend and I contemplated doing this rap stuff. We agreed we had the love for it. I said, ”You write a rap tonight, and I’ll write a rap, a full verse, and we’ll meet and show each other.” And after that I thought if I could write a good verse, I wanted to master the writing process exactly how I mastered the beats.
I bought a notebook of 200 pages and filled it up – I still have it. And that’s when I knew I was ready. That’s when I went and got beats, and that was my first CD/musical project, 10 Thousand Grams of Dopeness, which was released digitally via Brisbane Music Group on April 20, 2013.
If you had one message to get out there to your audience, what would it be?
Political awareness – being aware of the issues that face us on a daily basis. I think everyone is suffering and being persecuted by a global corrupt criminal system. Political awareness is what I want people to get out of my music, more than anything.
Tell us about your Grammarfications tour.
The tour’s name was inspired by the title track ”Grammarfications” which is the lead track off my new sophomore release The BMG Tape, which was released digitally via Brisbane Music Group on 27 December, 2013.
The Grammarfications Tour will be a live music experience like Australia’s never seen, with the level of talent. There’s myself; Brisbane Music Group producer and DJ Styles Don P; Tarms ETC who has over half a million views on his “Road To Redemption” song on YouTube; the Imperial Minds Collective out of the Gold Coast; and Kuranda native Sistah Shorty who will be our female act on our BNE date. It’s Brisbane Music Group’s first national tour and my first headline act independent tour. This will be an experience that Australia will never forget.
We also have a music video for Grammarfications the song in the works, which will be released as promo for the tour on our YouTube channel.
Do you have a last word for Red Flag readers?
Try your best to be independent, politically aware, by any means. Open up a book, switch off the TV, and change up the way things are for the greater good. And also download my music at Bandcamp.com, and join us on our tour!
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Grammar will be speaking at Socialist Alternative Brisbane’s special meeting
“Apartheid Australia: Racism from Invasion to Today”
6.30pm, Tuesday 11 March at 136 Boundary St, West End (above Vinnie’s op shop).
The meeting will also feature Indigenous and African speakers, including Sam Watson, veteran Indigenous rights activist, participant in the 1972 Aboriginal Tent Embassy and co-founder of the Brisbane chapter of the Australian Black Panthers
Catch Grammar on tour on the following dates:
Brisbane: Sunday 23 March at Alhambra Lounge
Sydney: Friday 28 March at Space Night Club
Melbourne: Thursday 3 April at Whole Lotta Love
For more details and pre-sale tickets
Brisbane Music Group Presents: The Grammarfications Tour 2014
