Words by Christopher Kevin Au

West Sydney has spawned some of our favourite local hip-hop acts over the years, and a new event named TRACKS is looking to increase accessibility to the music industry for aspiring artists from the region.

It’s all going down this Saturday at Blacktown Arts Centre with the support of FBi Radio, MusicNSW and Elefant Traks – the longstanding label who have housed releases from the likes of Horrorshow, The Herd, Sky’High & more. The event will consist of live performances from emcees B Wise, Lil Spacely, Elijah Yo and DJ Ebony Boadu, which will also be preceded by an industry Q&A and the opportunity for attendees to hand in their music directly to FBi Radio head, Amelia Jenner. The best part? It’s all free.

The event is providing a window of opportunity for young and hungry artists, and with plenty of talent pouring out of the west, we’re sure that there’ll be no shortage of banter. Ahead of Saturday’s activities, we spoke to event organiser Ricky Simandjuntak about the motivations behind TRACKS, what he hopes to achieve, and changing notions of cultural identity in rap. See the full line-up details here, and read on below:

Where did the idea for TRACKS first come from?

Tracks is a collaborative project between FBi Radio, Blacktown Arts Centre, Elefant Tracks and Music NSW. FBi asked if I could help produce the event with them after some of my work with Sampa the Great last year. I guess all of us noticed this wave of amazing talent that was emerging in Western Sydney and we wanted to make sure we were getting behind that.

West Sydney has been home to its own independent rap scene for years now. What do you hope that events like TRACKS will do for emerging artists from the area?

We hope that TRACKS provides a platform for Western Sydney artists to learn about the different ways they can pursue a career in music, by meeting and speaking directly with other artists and industry professionals who are at the forefront of hip-hop and music in Australia. We wanted to change the idea that the music industry is this impenetrable fortress for which only a few could enter, by making the day accessible to everyone. We’ll cover topics ranging from getting your music heard, building a fan base and getting yourself booked onto shows. It’s a chance to network and meet other people you may want to work with in the future and to submit music for airplay on FBi Radio.

We also thought it was time to change the idea that you have to travel into the city to experience good music. One of the ways we think we can do this is by bringing the music back to some of the the overlooked parts of our city. You now have music events like The Plot and Red Bull Sound Select spearheading this change, and we wanted to contribute to this by curating shows that feature exceptional local talent.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRgj09YNOl8

There seems to be another huge debate over accents and the Australian identity in local hip-hop after the controversial SBS Viceland documentary. What are your thoughts on this, especially in a multicultural area like Blacktown?

I personally don’t have a problem with accents, if the rhyme’s tight then it’s right. I don’t agree with people who claim that rapping in an Australian accent wont get you noticed overseas – B Wise and Remi are two of my favourite artists, and I see them both having the ability to break the international market because they come with so much steez. Style is as important as substance. I don’t think anyone has the authority to tell an artist how to express themselves, but I think there is something that can be said about finding your own style. Some artists have it right away, others need to keep experimenting until they find it.

What I feel is happening is that many artists are just simply disregarding all the rules and are trying everything and anything. The amazing thing about the internet is that no matter how weird, wonky or out of the box your ideas are, there’s someone out there who will dig it – it’s just up to you to find them. What an amazing time to be alive.

There are many reasons why artists may alter their accent in their music and I feel that the discussion around accents is often reduced to ‘oh, they just want to sound American’ or ‘they’re not real’ – which to me is just lazy thinking. I feel that the accent debate is a symptom of bigger issues surrounding cultural identity. I find it really interesting to observe the way young people are starting to redefine what being an Australian is. They’re defining it for themselves while they explore their place in the world through music. This journey takes time and each person will come to their own conclusions based on their own experience.

50% of Blacktown’s population come from other parts of the world, and most young people still retain very close connections to their parent’s cultural heritage. Then you have a large Indigenous population (approx 20% of the entire population) living there. Think about it, the oldest and the newest living side by side. In Western Sydney you see all these cultural influences colliding, merging and mutating – Western Sydney has its own unique slang and accents. 10 years from now, who knows what Australians will sound like, what they’ll eat and how they’ll dress?

Despite all this diversity, racial tension is the least of our problems out west. We grow up together, we eat together, we celebrate religious festivals together. This gives me hope that the rest of the world may be able to find a way to get along one day. Hip-hop culture plays a big part in this. This is not something to be scared of, rather I believe something we should celebrate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZIM_fBmWv4

Engaging with youths in Western Sydney, what is their take on rap music? Who are their idols and what are their inspirations?

I think it’s important to note that Western Sydney is the starting point for rap in Sydney, period. Starting with the first Indigenous rappers like Another Black Connection, Brothablack and South West Syndicate to the styles of Def Wish Cast and artists like Figg Kidd who broke the mould of what Australian rap could sound like. Western Sydney is now home to so many different styles and approaches to rap. It continues to evolve with artists like B Wise, Manu Crooks, Cult Shotta, Kerser & Fortay continuing to forge their own unique styles and audiences. Talent runs so deep, we haven’t even started talking about the producers.

When I was growing up rap was still really new, you had to go looking for it. Now nearly every kid and probably every adult could tell you the name of at least one urban artist. If you look at the many different ethnicities in Western Sydney, rhythmic music plays a big part in many of their cultures and much of these sounds are being sampled and used in urban music. I used to love sitting in Polynesian churches to listen to gospel singers, watching African kids dance to Afro beats or watching Arabic kids play their drums. Filo kids would be dancing anywhere they could find space too. There’s so much flavour in the west. There’s something in urban music that connects us all. We all love a party.

Traditionally American artists were the biggest inspirations, but recently a lot of different sounds have crept into kids playlists. Now you have Grime, Soca, Afro Beat, New Wave, Future Beats – man, it’s hard to keep up. What I’ve noticed is that each area in the west has artists that are known to the kids in those areas, not just because they recognise them from being from their area but because the music is at an international level. Manu Crooks is known from Bankstown to Blacktown, but he has also built a following now in Europe and the US. Kids want local heroes they can identify with.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rgfDSpwiys

Tell us about the lineup of artists and speakers you have curated for TRACKS. What do you think each of them bring to the table?

We’ve teamed up with Blacktown Arts Centre to put on a free show for all ages. Headlining the show is B Wise, who by now needs no introduction. He really is the big bro to many new artists and is an example of how to do things the right way – hard work and dedication. Supporting him we have two exciting artists local to the Blacktown area – Lil Spacely who recently released the banger ‘You Know it’ (produced by Miracle, another Blacktown local) and Elijah Yo, a 19 year old Tongan-Australian who has talent way beyond his years. Ebony Boadu will also be DJing for us throughout the day and into the night.

We also have a deep line up of guest speakers who are offering valuable advice to new artists. Amongst them are Hau Latukefu, MC and Radio Presenter at Triple J who won the first Aria award for an urban artist with his group Koolism; Amelia Jenner, who is the music director here at FBi Radio; Corey Webster aka Nooky, a young Yuin MC signed to Bad Apples who is paving the way for Indigenous artists; Charles Lomu, a local MC, youth worker and barber who’s exhibition Garage Barbershop will also be on display at the centre; DJ Ziggy, tour DJ for Sampa the Great and the visionary behind Dream Factory studios; and Kat Dopper, our amazing event producer who helped put this event together.

We also have Travis Banko from Laneway Festival and Lunatic Entertainment, Dale Harrison from Elefant Tracks and Captain Franco from Halfway Crooks weighing in as well.

Are there any more plans to hold events like TRACKS regularly in the future?

There are two more shows planned for August and October this year, and we definitely see the potential to build this into something much bigger in the future, especially given the amount of talent we are seeing through this project.

I would encourage everybody who is not from the west to take the time to explore it. Use events like these as an excuse. We are really lucky to live in such a culturally diverse city and we spend so much money travelling abroad to experience other cultures, when in reality they’re a train ride away. Hip-hop culture to me really is about understanding each other through cultural exchange.