PHOTO: Jess Gleeson/BIGSOUND
This year, I was invited to be part of a BIGSOUND Keynote session that offered delegates an insight into different Indigenous perspectives in a global music industry. Along with Neil Morris, Ninakaye Taane-Tinorau and Chelsey June, I spoke about the experience of being a Pacific Islander and working in the Australian music industry. It was a full on session, but one I came away from with a lot of strong, positive feelings about.
Here’s hoping this sort of programming endures at an event like BIGSOUND, as I think it is important and crucial to have more voices represented. Thank you to Alethea Beetson and Tom Larkin for reaching out!
I’ve been asked by a few people who weren’t able to attend, to read what I spoke about, so I’ve posted my speech below (amended for context).
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Today, we’re hearing four distinct perspectives and cultural viewpoints as they have applied to the music industry and for me, the story I’m here to tell is that of a Pasifika experience in Australia. It feels particularly right to be presenting this type of talk in Brisbane, where I believe there to be one of the highest populations of Polynesians living outside of New Zealand and the islands. Australia, for many of our older generations was seen as (and still is) a place of high prosperity and opportunity.
Like our indigenous brothers and sisters here, our Maori cousins and I would imagine, our Canadian friends also here, the Pacific has had its modern society and culture formed out of the ashes of colonisation. Each island has grown into the modern age differently, yet the effects of imposed Western religion and generational trauma can still be found across the Pacific region.
But, as with any inherently creative culture, stories of struggle and achievement have formed the genesis of some incredible art across the mediums – visual art, dance, music.
In preparing for today’s keynote, I have been revisiting conversations I’ve had with a number of fellow Pacific Islanders who are in the arts and based in Australia to gain inspiration but also to isolate any defining threads within their stories that tie our community as a whole together. While casual racism belied many of those stories, there was also a lacking of confidence that many of us had felt at one point or another, instilled as a result of an industry either overlooking us for work because of the colour of our skin or judging/deeming us experts in a particular field because of our ethnicity.
I know this is sounding like we could be going down a rabbit hole of negativity – I promise it’s not all bad – but it is important to note these things as I do believe that experiencing hardships stemming from cultural misconception and ignorance has built a tough skin for all of us and an added drive to succeed.
In 2016, I wrote a two-part feature on diversity within the Australian music scene. The idea behind it was simple: working in music here, you hear the terms ‘Aussie rock’, ‘Aussie hip-hop’ – ‘Australian Music’. I thought, ‘What does that actually mean?’. For a country that claims to be one of the most multicultural, we’ve certainly seen continual whitewashing of our music industry on a public front and in the media over the years, despite some of the country’s biggest, most respected and most exciting names all representing different ethnic communities.
So with this in mind, I started reaching out to artists with the overarching question: What does the face of Australian music look like? The answer was that it didn’t have one. Certainly not now. The responses I received were great and in having conversations with musicians from across African, Asian and Pasifika diasporas, I learned so much more about the parallels in experience we have all experienced forging a career and general creative existence here.
To be a Pacific Islander in Australia, it can feel that – when it comes to a scale of success and failure – we’re either as valuable as the length of time a career in the NRL or Wallabies lasts, or we’re only good enough to be the bouncer at the club in the Valley, or a disposable tradie on a worksite. We’ve seen the Australian Government’s most recent outlying of love for Pacific Nations who are in very real danger of having our islands sink due to climate change many either flatly refuse to acknowledge or take seriously.
Where the Deputy Prime Minister of this country can be so aloof and reason that we will ‘CONTINUE TO SURVIVE BECAUSE MANY OF THEIR WORKERS COME HERE AND PICK OUR FRUIT’.
in a nutshell, this is a perfect example of how it feels to have those ideas or doubts about the country you live in, validated. What Minister Michael McCormack got right was that we do have the ability to survive - go back through the documented history of the occupation and systematic oppression of the Pacific Islands, that is a recurring thread. We are a people built to adapt. For so many artists who call Australia home, but whose ancestry lies elsewhere - our heritage is not a selling point until we begin excelling in our field. Then we’re proudly claimed. Key word: Claimed.
For myself, I count myself quite lucky to have had the career I have had so far. While I’m not ashamed to acknowledge the hard work I’ve done to get to a point where I can talk to you fine people about this sort of thing; I have been so honoured to work with people who I can see my own story - struggles and achievements - mirrored.
The music industry in Australia is a hard graft for anyone to be in, I believe. There are less seats at the table thanks to geographic isolation and a smaller industry market. - imagine what it is like to be stuck at the kid’s end because of your perceived marketability, value and contribution to the sector. That’s what it can feel like to be a person of colour working here.
What is promising though, and what I have loved about working with young POC artists, young Islander in particular – is that it’s becoming more and more evident that the tides are shifting. We’re seeing major movements of Pasifika representation in major media internationally (Moana, Taika Waititi’s Marvel successes, Fast & Furious: Hobbs & Shaw) and similarly, we’re seeing more and more artists from the Pasifika realm in Australia exceeding those old-fashioned expectations of what music people who look like us ‘should be’ playing or being marketed as.
There are the artists here who have long been paving the way and sharing their knowledge with a new generation. Just LOOK to this week’s program...
A main take away from this year’s BIGSOUND experience for me - and it’s been something I spoke with friends about last night - is the fact that when it comes to that question I was asking in 2016 of ‘WHAT DOES AUSTRALIAN MUSIC LOOK LIKE?’ - the answer is so vibrant and powerful.
Young people of colour are out here.
Young Pacific Islanders are out here doing their thing.
Finally, old heads are starting to turn and acknowledge them.
We have come from a long line of orators, navigators, warriors, leaders and creators. We’re used to the judgement and the struggle. However how our artists - and my three fellow keynotes will surely be able to attest to as well - move forward from that, harness that energy and create art that is beginning to form the new foundation of music coming out of this country is pretty bloody sick.