lirik lagu ziggy ramo - final thoughts
[interview: interviewer, & ziggy ramo]
hey, look, thanks so much for doing this
the idea is to introduce you to the audience
but we wanna talk about your music
pretty uncompromising lyrics
yep
but there’s a lot of—, what i really like about your music is that it’s so direct
yep
you cite your musical influences, or your influences, as charlie perkins and gary foley
and i think you know, that question of palatability
you know, with hip~hop you can certainly, you can pull no punches
you can say pretty much what you like, because the genre is known for that
i’m pretty much like a hip~hop nerd, i just—i live and breathe it
and, i live and breathе words, essentially
so, you know i’m very big into shakеspeare
i’m very big into my literature
but, you know, uh—, like if you look at shakespeare today
you know, he’s kind of, kind of feared by students in high school
because he just seems, you know, so beyond our level to kind of comprehend
as teenagers looking to, to study him
and the thing is, is like, when his works were, were being acted and delivered on stage
you know, like eighty per cent of the audience was illiterate
we look at it today, outside of the context, as being amazing
and obviously it’s amazing work
but the correlation between, for example, shakespeare and hip~hop is actually
you know, it’s— it’s very conjunction with each other
and um, i think hip~hop is essentially— it’s just, it’s just a genesis of literature
you know, it’s come from a long lineage
it’s first kind of credited around the 1970s, but everything has a genesis
nothing just comes from thin air, um
certainly not, yeah
you know, and um
around the 1970s, that was when there was a massive influx of caribbean immigrants in america
and they had such a rich knowledge of education
and they had this massive library, and they had a caste system
where different people had different roles in society, essentially
and they had one role, where it was essentially to memorise just hours and hours and hours upon of poetry
and it was to pass on knowledge around social issues
and, you’ve got some people that can recite a four~hour poem, it’s phenomenal
you know, and that kind of experience came on the boats, and then
you know, you also look at like, for example, like etta james, you know, she was scatting in the ’30s, ’40s
and that rhythm is a lot more aligned with what hip~hop is than i guess singing
so, yeah, there’s a long genesis, and for me, that really intrigued me
i really wanted to kind of understand it
because before, if i was into music, i was very much into literature
and very fascinated with words
i think i— i personally, i probably write a little provocatively
just because in my day~to~day life, i probably don’t have that freedom
now tell us where you, where you’re from, is the question i wanna ask you
yeah, yeah, um, so
as one blakfella to another
yeah, we’ve just recently re~discovered that we have wik ancestry
because dad’s grandmother, when she was taken, she was actually taken off country
for a while we thought it was kind of ’round cape york area, but, um
yeah, yeah, just recently, ’cause mum and dad had moved to arakoon at the start of the year
um, where dad’s princ~p~l and mum’s teaching up there
yeah, they rediscovered that actually, yeah, we have wik ancestry
and dad’s the first wik princ~p~l, um, which is pretty amazing
on top of that, mum and dad’s first teaching job out of teachers’ college was in north~east arnhem land
in gapuwiyak, um, on yolngu country, and they were adopted into the kinship
and, so, um, obviously when they had us kids, we were born into the kinship
so, we were also lucky enough to kind of have that connection on yolngu country
and, you know, that is as much as my family as anyone
regardless of blood or, you know, like, they’ve been such a big part of my life
and, i’ve been so lucky to have that connection to aboriginality because, you know, add to that connection of culture
yeah, um, and then pretty much just been moving around australia
doing big circles between perth, the east coast and arnhem land
i finished up school in sydney, and i just, i wasn’t sure what i wanted to do
so i returned back up to east arnhem land, and worked in communities with public health, with, uh, preventing chronic disease
and yeah, and then that’s when i gotta be passionate about health
so, i ended up moving back to perth then, and that’s where i’m based at the moment
you also have ancestry from the solomon islands
yeah, yeah, yeah
uh, yeah, so dad, um, yeah, he’s indigenous and solomon islander
and um, yeah, so his solomon islander ancestry brought across, um—
which is crazy as well, like, it’s crazy that this isn’t more commonly known, but
essentially, what it’s called is blackbirding, and yeah, it’s slavery
so, they were brought, um, across, uh, to mackay in queensland to work on the sugarcane fields, um
and that’s—, that’s— yeah, that’s essentially like, heh, i guess that’s what drives me
it’s— it’s pretty crazy to think, you know, like, the sugar industry is such a big industry in australia
and, it’s something we don’t talk about, the fact that it’s founded on slavery
you know, and a lot of australians are thinking, you know, we kind of love to say, um, lest we forget
especially with the anzac spirit, um, but then, kind of as soon as it comes to indigenous australia or anything, it’s pretty quickly forgotten, um
it’s amazing how few people know the story
yeah
of the, you know, indentured, well basically organised, industrial slavery that happened here
yeah
particularly in far north—, in north queensland and northern new south wales
yeah, yeah, yeah
and, um, and western australia as well, um, north wa
and, um, uh, pretty rampant actually, it’s actually—
and a lot of aboriginal people have that heritage too, and i’m one of them
yep, yeah, yeah, and that’s like, that’s just—
i’m one of them
haha, it’s crazy to think that, that like disconnect, you know, like that’s just—
how can you have— how can that kind of be happening in, um
i always kind of like to refer in inverted commas, um, to us as the “lucky country”
because it’s just like, um, if we want to present ourselves—
depends who you, depends who you ask
exactly, exactly, and i like, at the end of the day
i love this country, because it’s our ancestry, you know, and, um
it’s just crazy to me to think that, you know, we have the oldest, oldest people in the whole world
and it’s not something we’re proud of as a country
it’s, it’s not something we, we don’t really celebrate just how rich, um
the resources we have in, in terms of culture
that’s just baffling to me, that’s something i’ve never, ever understood
because i honestly believe, and i would like to believe that, you know, good, logical, kind, compassionate, people
once presented with the information, will kind of see the light
because, you know, i don’t see it as indigenous and non~indigenous issues
it’s just kinda, are you a good human being issue
you know, like, how are you as an individual okay with how our government’s suspending the racial discrimination act to pass intervention
there was genocide in this country, there was slavery in this country
and, those, those events didn’t just affect the past, but are continuing to affect today
in western australia, the incarcertation rate of indigenous australians is nine times the incarceration rate of black south africans during the apartheid
and how are we going to sit here, uh, in the “lucky country”, um, and, and accept that
that is, that’s disgusting, that is unacceptable to be happening in this country
it’s just crazy to me, you know
even, even the closure of communities, um, kind of throughout wa, um
what a lot of people don’t kind of, um, understand about that is
you know, the funding for indigenous communities, were, was a fed— federal funding
and then the federal government decided that it would then be state legislation
so, they gave all states a big lump sum of money to, to deal kind of with the financing and, and, of these communities
so, the wa government took that lump sum
and then said, “you know what, these communities aren’t economically viable”
totally disregarding the, the importance of being on country and the connection to culture
they didn’t even have a plan, you know, so like if you’re doing this for the children, what’s the plan?
you know, like you’re gonna close these communities and then where are those children gonna go?
there was no plan, there was no plan, zero community consultation
they were happy to spend eighty~three million dollars on that rollout
to invade our indigenous people’s rights
yet, you know, that’s seen as economically viable?
and it’s just disgusting, it’s really, it’s just so unacceptable that this is happening in our country
well, the intervention created a lot of jobs for non~indigenous people in indigenous communities
yeah
and there’s a huge, a huge costs in administration of the intervention, we know that it’s largely been a failure
but it’s—
yeah
it remains in place
and that’s the thing, it’s just been a change of policy
and if you actually look at what’s really happened, like, you know, in the 1990s
so, ten per cent of youth suicides between ages ten and twenty~four were indigenous youths
and to make up ten per cent of, of all suicides when we only make up two per cent of the population is just outrageous
but that same statistic in 2010, we make up 80% of those youth suicides
and in correlation to the intervention, you know, after the implementation of that legislation
suicide increased in the northern territory by five hundred per cent
you’ve got children, you know, ages five, recently suicide
you know, what child can not, you know, see a viable option in life, and they rather cognitively take their own life
like that is just unacceptable, that is, eh—
it honestly, it makes me quite emotional just talking about it
to think that, you know, we have children in this country
that look at their experiences as an indigenous australian and what they have to, to live for
and they decide that it’s not worth it
and that’s just, that is just so, that is heartbreaking for me
and i think that’s what a lot of australians don’t realise, that you know
we’re kind of forced to get on the horse and ride ahead
and try and make this change, but sometimes it’s just hard to, to not have time to mourn
because like this stuff is atrocious, you know, obviously, what was happening in kalgoorlie recently (yeah)
like, there was so much talk in the media and everything and
i just couldn’t believe the fact that people weren’t actually realising that there was a fourteen~year~old boy
like he, he’d just died, and he was never going to go home to his family, he was never going to grow a day older
and, we were all trying to argue the semantics about what did or didn’t happen
and it was just like, that’s a fourteen~year~old boy, that’s a real~life human being, that is no longer here
and, you know, we are so normalised and numb and conditioned to, to kind of, to not even budge an eyelid at that
and that’s just, that’s um, quite unsettling for me
i identify as indigenous and non~indigenous, you know, i cannot measure my blood in percentages
if i put my blood on a piece of paper, i don’t think it’s going to split up you know
like my arm isn’t white, and my head’s black, you know, one, you know, it’s— it’s all one
and so i identify as indigenous and non~indigenous
and the only— so i’ve kind of been privileged of seeing, i guess, the whole picture, um
you know, i’ve been brought up very close with my mother’s family
with my scottish ancestry and, you know, i love, i love all of my family
and you know, my mother is non~indigenous and i love– i love her to death, you know, um
it’s not at all, um, an individual attack on an individual non~indigenous person
it’s just looking at the confines of what has happened and the structures of society, but um
if you, if you look at the like the first accounts of, um, indigenous australians in english literature
i think it was by william dampier, who was a buccaneer, which is just kind of a nice word for pirate
and um, his, his kind of first encounters with indigenous people that he wrote about in his book
called ‘a new voyage around the world’ um, it’s really interesting because, um
because they’ve never really been addressed, it’s been allowed to perpetrate, um, for two hundred years
and, and, those, um, those ideas of what is indigenous and what is known to be indigenous by non~indigenous australians
is perpetrated, and it can be directly kind of linked to him
you know if you, if you look at his early writings, um
one of his first encounters with indigenous people was, um
he got off his boat, and he was, um, met with some indigenous people, and he saw that they were all naked
and so, he put down clothes in front of them, um
and in his mind, that was his payment for them to then work for him and carry his water, uh
but the indigenous australians just kind of looked at the clothes and laughed (haha)
and, what he writes about is that, you know, uh, you know they, they stood like a, uh, a group of monkeys laughing, um
and they seemed like they weren’t accustomed to carrying burdens (haha)
and i was forced to carry the water myself
um, and that attitude, you know, can be directly linked to events today
you know, like you, you look at that terminology, you know, monkey and ape
you know, you only have to go back to 2013 when adam goodes, um, was called an ape
and i think what troubled a lot of people is that
we, as indigenous australians, don’t get to choose who racially abuses us or who racially vilify us
and he was brave enough to put a face to that discrimination, and
it really troubled a lot of non~indigenous australians, that, that was a thirteen~year~old girl
um, and like you said, you know, because, the “other”, the indigenous, is inherently wrong
then, of course, a non~indigenous girl, you know, you know, wasn’t her fault, you know
and as adam— and that’s the other thing, is like, i cannot believe the backlash adam goodes got
because if you actually look at the way he handled that
you could not have been more of a gentleman, you know, if you were paid to
like he, he came out the next day, and said all he wanted as for an education for her
because, you know, she’s been conditioned and, and a part of a society that has, you know seen her to call him an ape as something acceptable
and he, he spent so much time in educating her and her family
and, and the backlash was just, i just couldn’t believe it
but, you know, you look at what a lot of non~indigenous commentators were saying about adam goodes
and it was like, they couldn’t believe that he wasn’t accustomed to carrying the burden of racism
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