FEATURE:
The Digital Mixtape
IN THIS PHOTO: Australian rapper Barkaa (who is a Malyangapa and Barkindji woman) photographed for GQ in 2020
Australia’s First Nations Queens
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I came across an article…
IN THIS PHOTO: Miss Kaninna/PHOTO CREDIT: Tristan Stefan Edouard
from the end of December from The Guardian that discussed Indigenous women from Australia merging the world’s oldest living cultures together with Hip-Hop whilst also wrestling with racism and social injustice. I was not aware of some of the queens of Australian Indigenous Hip-Hop and whether more is known and explored around the world. How many of these artists get played and celebrated in the U.K. for example? It made me want to dive more into that world and highlight that clash of these amazing artists fighting against racism and injustice whilst also producing the most amazing and powerful music. I am going to end with a playlist feature music from Indigenous queens. There are these incredible First Nations women who are releasing music that is moving and important. Malyangapa Barkindji rapper Barkaa is one example. There are these empowered and inspiring Indigenous artists who have found a way to weaponise their voice:
“When the Indigenous hip-hop artist Charmaine Jasmine Armstrong – also known as Dizzy Doolan – started spitting rhymes 22 years ago she was one of a handful of women in Australia’s rap scene.
There was no one to teach her how to put songs together, promote herself, apply for grants or even upload music. In the early 2000s the Australian scene was dominated by white men – groups like the Hilltop Hoods.
“There was no other female rappers that I knew of really doing their thing,” Dizzy says. “There was no one to look up to, apart from your American groups.”
Two decades later Dizzy is part of a growing number of Indigenous female artists across Australia. They are merging the world’s oldest living cultures with a comparatively new genre of music: rap. They’re also ushering in a new wave of hip-hop that wrestles with racial politics, Australia’s bloody past and social injustice.
In far north Queensland, Dizzy, a Takalak, Agwamin, Gureng Gureng and Wokka Wokka woman, grew up listening to jazz and blues. At 16 she released her first rap song, No Shame – a message about not letting that feeling hold you back.
“My mum’s sister passed away, so I was at a very down point,” she says. “When I discovered songwriting and rap, I was like, ‘Oh, I can put on my pain and struggle and make it sound cool.’ Turning your pain to power.”
At 18 she recorded her first song on to CDs and would walk the streets of Brisbane, putting them into letterboxes.
“I was like, ‘How can we get this music out?’ I had no iTunes, there was nothing like that – we barely had access to the internet.
“But the beauty about hip-hop is you only need a pen and paper. I started with no beat, just banging on the table.”
As mainstream Australia’s taste for rap developed, so did Dizzy’s career. From chasing small gigs in Brisbane she went on to support huge international artists including Fatman Scoop, T-Pain and Akon. Now 38, Dizzy has just released her first full album.
“I wasn’t valued as much as a male would be in the industry,” she says. “But then, you use that, you take that and you use that as power, and prove them wrong.
“Nowadays there’s a big movement of more female artists in the scene, which I’m so excited to see.”
Struggling with backlash
Many female hip-hop artists have found their success has been tainted by racism. Miss Kaninna, who is of Yorta Yorta, Djadja Wurrung, Kalkadoon and Yirendali heritage, knows this well.
The artist was crowned the 2023 Unearthed artist of the year for her single Blak Britney, which shot to number one on Triple J within a fortnight of its release.
“I’ve had so many positive things birthed out of releasing Blak Britney, but I’ve also experienced more racism in the past eight months than I ever have in almost my entire life,” she says.
Miss Kaninna says the backlash is exhausting – but it drives her to make more music.
“Indigenous people have found a way to weaponise their voice that can reach farther,” she says. “Like, if you thought the Blak Britney or Pinnacle Bitch was hectic, like these motherfuckers aren’t even ready”.
Maybe not artists or a genre/scene that has yet to gain exposure wider around the world, I thought it was interesting reading about Australia’s female First Nations rappers and their work. Articles like this and this also expand on the great names changing Australian Hip-Hop. The struggles they have faced and how they are turning that backlash and prejudice into something constructive and compelling. Below are just a few examples of the amazing rappers who warrant greater attention and spotlight. As we head through this year, different genres and styles of music will come to the forefront. It would be good, if in years to come, the music of Australia’s First Nations queens…
IS better known.