Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples

John Pilger: White Australians would like Aboriginal people to disappear

Noted journalist John Pilger directed and is the lead investigator in an extraordinary documentary, Utopia: An Epic Story of Struggle and Resistance. Pilger incisively and tenaciously reveals the brutal conquest and continued racist treatment of the Aboriginal people in Australia. Against this appalling historical documentation of conquest, discrimination and neglect, Pilger also highlights the continued resistance of the original inhabitants of the land stolen by British settlers.
Briggs

Rapper Briggs takes his homeland to the nation

Briggs is 598 kilometres from his hometown of Shepparton - and he's missing his bed. "When I'm at home I don't have people ringing me up telling me I've got to get out of the house," says the rapper, sitting on his hotel room's balcony in Sydney.

Renegades of Munk put the fun into funk

Renegades Of Munk Renegades Of Munk Released September 2014 Impossible Odds Records www.renegadesofmunk.com Mark Munk Ross says he has learnt to make his music more appealing by injecting a big dose of humour into his hard-hitting songs. "I try to make them humorous, which then makes it accessible to fans that might not be that political," says the man better known as Munkimuk, the "Grandfather of Indigenous hip-hop". "But they are still digesting it, whether they know it or not," he says. "Smart game plan I think."

Plenty of meat in Bunz's raps

When Glen Anderson was playing sport with his schoolfriends, he was suddenly surrounded by police who ordered him to lay flat on the ground.

Way forward for Aboriginal struggle

A forum titled “An Aboriginal Perspective on Inequality, The Intervention, Racism and Struggle” was held on May 6 in Adelaide. Hosted by the South Australia Aboriginal Coalition for Social Justice, the Socialist Alliance and SIMpla, the forum heard from an all-Aboriginal panel including Brisbane Aboriginal Sovereign Embassy member Boe Spearim and Northern Territory-based activist Amelia Kunoth-Monks.

Rapper Mau Power has the power to make change

Mau Power's new album takes listeners through the big changes in his life - and the first of those came when he was jailed. "In 2001, I got incarcerated," the Torres Strait Islands rapper tells Green Left Weekly.

PHOTO STORY: Sydney's Yabun Festival marks Survival Day

January 26 is officially celebrated as Australia Day, but for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people (and anyone who values the truth) it is known as Invasion Day or Survival Day. This is the day when British colonial authorities arrogantly laid claim to this continent, opening an era of brutal dispossession, genocide and racism.
Jimblah in Fireproof.

Jimblah grasps Australia's burning issues

Most people fear fire, but Jimblah embraces it. The element flares up again and again in the rapper's searingly original work - from his first album, Face The Fire, to the one that just rose from its ashes, Phoenix.

Mansell refuses Australia Day award nomination

Tasmanian Aboriginal activist Michael Mansell said he was grateful for the thoughts behind his Australia Day award nomination but that he “would be a hypocrite to accept it”. Mansell has been outspoken about the offensiveness of Australia’s national day celebrating the invasion and dispossession of Australia’s Aboriginal people. He has participated in Invasion Day rallies held by the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre for many years.

Indigenous emcee Eskatology raps for refugees

A Dose Of Reality Eskatology September 2013 Download free here www.eskatology.com On his latest EP, A Dose Of Reality, Adelaide-based emcee Eskatology raps about the refugees he works with. "I've worked with many refugees in my job as a youth worker," says the rapper, who is giving the 10-track EP away as a free download.

Impossible Odds place a strong bet on sovereignty

Bring The Sun Out EP Impossible Odds Classik Nawu Coldwater Band July 2013 www.impossibleoddsrecords.com "Land rights is a load of crap," says Kaylah Truth. They are not the kind of words you'd expect to hear from a radical, politically-savvy Indigenous rapper. But Truth, of militant Murri hip-hop group Impossible Odds, says she has learnt from bitter experience to pursue sovereignty instead. On the band's album, Against All Odds, she raps: I no longer need my fists to fight I just write whenever those emotions do arise

Barbara McGrady: pictures worth a thousand words

Visions in Black and White - Images from Indigenous Australia Redfern Community Centre, Sydney Until June 24, 2013. www.headon.com.au "Ngurragah," says Barbara McGrady, and smiles. The word, pronounced "nuh-ruh-gah", is one of her favourite utterances. But this committed activist and community photographer won't be using it to describe her latest exhibition, being held as part of Head On, the second largest photography festival in the world.