Strait-talking hip-hop star Patrick Mau salutes oral tradition

Torres Strait performer Patrick Mau melds the unique rhythm and language of hip-hop with indigenous stories.

Patrick Mau weaves stories into his performances.

As a teenager growing up on Thursday Island in the Torres Strait, Patrick Mau began toying with the unique rhythm and language of hip-hop, the musical genre that began booming out of the US three decades ago.

With an ear tuned to acts such as Public Enemy and De La Soul, his first attempts at songwriting were more about crafting playful lyrics that made his friends laugh.

“There wasn’t a storyline to it — it was just about seeing how to make slick lines rhyme with each other, through metaphors, flows and syntax,” said Mau, whose stage name is Mau Power.

It was a high school assignment to study a landmark work by Australian singer and songwriter Archie Roach, however, that opened his eyes to the possibility of self-expression through song.

“One day in high school, I came across a song called Took the Children Away, and then I got introduced to the Charcoal Lane album,” he said, referring to Roach’s 1990 debut.

“That changed the way that I saw how music can be a purpose for storytelling. (Roach) was an artist who had a story that was so personal yet so universal, and I began to learn about the history of Australia through that context, especially indigenous history. It made me more interested in saying, ‘OK, what are the stories that I can put together?”

Today, Mau will continue that oral tradition when he performs at Yarrabah Band Festival.

The annual concert — held at Jilara Oval in the north Queensland community of Yarrabah, about 55km east of Cairns — was founded by the Queensland Music Festival in 2013 to bring live performances to a region that rarely sees full-scale productions.

The hip-hop artist will perform alongside musicians such as sister duo Vika and Linda Bull, the Yarrabah Brass Band and songwriter Paul Kelly.