Mat Ward

  • Femcee Kayemtee raps for queer rights

    Jimmy Barnes is probably the most heterosexual man in Australia - but he has now inspired probably the best homosexual rap tune to come out of the country.

  • Heavyweight hip-hopper builds a fine body of work

    Rapper JPoint is building up a strong body of work - and not just in the music world. The Indigenous emcee runs his own record label, produces music for other artists and has a string of releases under his belt. But he is also competing above the belt - by entering his first body-building contest. For JPoint, it's been a transformation.

  • Rapper goes from petty crime to stealing the show

    When George Sambo was about seven years old, he used a wad of crooked cash to shout all his mates sausage rolls. The Queensland schoolboy couldn't have known then that those fatty rolls would set him rolling on a path to making phat rolling beats. But that's what happened.

  • Native Ryme bring heritage to hip-hop

    When you're representing a culture that has lasted 60,000 years, it doesn't matter that your debut album has taken a mere 18. "We've always prided ourselves on coming from a culture that's been a song and dance culture for millennia, you know," says C-Roc, whose rap group, Native Ryme, are only just releasing an album a generation after he formed the band in 1994.

  • Izzy n The Profit, the rappers who know no fear

    It’s midnight in midwest Sydney and Izzy n The Profit are whipping a crowd into a full-blown frenzy. The audience is tiny, but the rappers are leaping around the Rooty Hill RSL like they’re ripping the roof off a stadium.

  • Author charts long history of Islamophobia

    Islamophobia and the Politics Of Empire Deepa Kumar Haymarket Books 238 pages September 2012 Author Deepa Kumar says Liberal Senator Brett Mason is “so wrong” for moving a motion in the Australian Senate to condemn Green Left Weekly for its criticism of the NSW police.

  • Essential guide to the US election

    If you really want to understand the forthcoming US presidential election, read this book. Former corporate fraud investigator Greg Palast previously showed how the 2000 US election was rigged through "purging" black voters off the electoral rolls.

  • Sexism gives hip-hop a bad rap, says radical rapper

    "Misogyny is a huge problem in hip-hop," says radical rapper Marcel Cartier. "Even 'progressive' artists often fall victim to being perpetrators of sexist lyrics." The empathetic emcee hits chauvinists where it hurts on his new album, History Will Absolve Us.

  • Urthboy gives slacktivists a bad rap

    Has the internet turned activists into "slacktivists"? It's just one of the questions posed on Smokey’s Haunt, the new album by the persistently provocative Urthboy.