‘What is it, 1991?’: Prominent rapper slams move to ban controversial song

When Yorta Yorta rapper Adam Briggs heard that both the NSW premier and education minister were criticising the playing of a track by fellow artist Birdz in a primary school this week, he had two thoughts.

First: “Sick. Birdz is gonna get way more streams. I hope it puts him back in the charts!” And second: “What is it, 1991? If there’s any way of showing how far behind Australia is, leave it to the premier of NSW to put us on the map … It’s not like it’s Ice-T’s Cop Killer.”

Rapper Adam Briggs: “Anything that paints Australia in a bad light is always going to be controversial.”Credit: Edwina Pickles

The song that made headlines is Bagi-la-m Bargan: a 2020 hit featuring Butchulla songman Fred Leone, co-written with Trials, who forms half of A.B. Original with Briggs. It was originally made for the critically acclaimed NITV documentary Looky, Looky Here Comes Cooky. It was ranked number 30 in Triple J’s Hottest 100 that year.

Told from the perspective of a Butchulla warrior watching Captain Cook roll into shore, the song was being used instead of a school bell in the lead up to, and during, Reconciliation Week, in a public primary school in Sydney’s south before an anonymous parent complained to 2GB (the radio station, like this masthead, is owned by Nine).

The father said he felt the song’s lyrics – which call Cook a “white devil” and “murderer without licence” – were inappropriate and led to his son asking him if there was “something wrong with being white”.

NSW Education Minister Prue Car also spoke to 2GB sympathising with the father and saying “anything that creates any sort of division we can’t have in our schools”. Premier Chris Minns suggested schools should go back to traditional bells while also making a pointed remark about genre: “Rap songs, in general, [are] probably not the best for NSW schools.”

Though the school did not receive any direct complaints from parents, the song has now been pulled from its rotation and the school’s leadership has been counselled about making “appropriate choices” in the future.

It’s a move that Briggs, who also owns the record label the song was released on, describes as “pretty concerning”. “What is suitable for schools then?” he asks. “[To say] rap music isn’t suitable for schools … that’s very telling. Are we saying black music isn’t suitable for schools? What’s the take here?

“If they do like half a second of research they’ll understand that hip hop music is the biggest genre on the face of the earth and has been for quite some time.”

Australian hip-hop is a genre that routinely deals with issues of colonisation, violence and dispossession, and it’s not unusual for Indigenous artists to explicitly rap about Captain Cook too. In fact, when Trials told Briggs there was a blowup over a Cook song this week, he thought he was talking about one of their most well-known A.B. Original tracks. The group gained popularity – and some notoriety – for protest songs like January 26 that take aim at white Australia’s denial of black history.

“In the scheme of things, [Bagi-la-m Bargan] is a pretty palatable song,” he adds. “It’s not that outlandish … It’s factual.”

This is a point that’s also made at the start of the song’s music video. “The dominant narratives of Australian history neglect the fact there was an active Aboriginal resistance against European invasion,” a title card reads. “This song is inspired by this resistance and the fighting spirit that we carry with us today.”

Rapper Birdz and Butchulla songman Fred Leone perform at the National Indigenous Music Awards 2022.Credit: Mitch Fresta

“It’s funny how Australia likes to pick and choose its history,” Briggs says. “It doesn’t like this song, but it will throw its arms around I Was Only 19 [Redgum’s 1983 folk anthem told from the perspective of a soldier from the Vietnam War].”

Ultimately, considering the frequency of these kinds of cultural flashpoints – which Briggs has also faced from his own work – the rapper describes it as a “non-event”. He suggests the education minister should instead focus on things like the retention of Indigenous students at school and how the curriculum embraces Indigenous students.

“There are bigger things at play than what gets played before the kids go to school.”

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