When Glen Anderson was playing sport with his schoolfriends, he was suddenly surrounded by police who ordered him to lay flat on the ground.
rights
High Hopes
Bruce Springsteen
Columbia
Released January 17, 2014
www.brucespringsteen.net
A recent documentary on veteran US rocker Bruce Springsteen asked fans to describe their hero in three words.
The responses, compiled in the film Springsteen & I, were fairly predictable: "Badass, sensitive, perfect"; "Hope, energy, power”; “Earnest, inspiring, intense” and so on.
The non-Springsteen fans reading this could probably think of a few far less kind words. But if I were to choose three, they would be: "Open to interpretation."
"Every time you see in the media someone's been killed by police it always just happens to be an Aboriginal," says radical rapper Provocalz. It's 9.30 on a Saturday morning and the south-west Sydney spitter is telling Green Left why he made his hard-hitting horrorcore track, "Cop Shot".
Forever
Kayemtee
Impossible Odds Records
2012
www.impossibleoddsrecords.com
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.
The Cold Chisel frontman is famous for allegedly bedding more than 1000 women early on in his career. But Indigenous femcee Kayemtee has taken his band's highest-charting song, "Forever Now", and given it a radical twist.
Eklectic Methodz
Jpoint
Northern Orphanz Recordings
www.northernorphanz.webs.com
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.
Standing Strong Yung Warriors Payback Records Released April 2012 http://www.yungwarriors.com.au "We wanted to do everything on this album," Tjimba Possum-Burns tells Green Left Weekly. He is talking about Standing Strong, the aptly-titled second album by Yung Warriors. On the record, the Aboriginal hip hop crew he fronts with his cousin, Danny "D-Boy" Ramzan, take listeners on a journey from hard-hitting politics to straight-up party tracks.