Baker Boy gets real on his new album

Originally there was Djandjay “Daisy” Baker. Long before her grandson Danzal was born, local legend has it that she was the first Yolngu woman to marry a woman. balance. They flew on their honeymoon. Hawaii. miami Planet hip-hop. What they brought back changed Arnhem Land forever.

This is the opening montage in Baker Boy’s origin story. When the breakdancing boy from Milingimbi and Maningrida was released its ARIA-sweeping gela His 2021 album, his grandmother’s well-worn Grandmaster Flash tape and Fred Astaire VHS, were part of his history as the hottest rap party boy in the country.

That was it then. In his second album, he says, “I am an angel, but I can also be a murderer.” Djandjay. “I turned from a caterpillar into a dragon.”

“I named this record after my late grandmother, the matriarch of the family, because I inherited her boisterous energy and her saying, ‘Don’t be ashamed, be proud.’ [attitude]“He always encourages people around him to get up and dance,” he says.

“This new project was definitely about finding myself, finding a new sound, finding a way in music. Like trying different clothes, different genres; punk, rave, a little electronic, just trying to elevate sonically.” gela.”

Sitting in the green room of an empty Melbourne theatre, Danzal Baker certainly comes across as a new man. The whole country saw him reborn two weeks ago, shining from head to toe in white in his spectacular AFL final performance. No breakdancing. I just stand tall and scream. I’m not a silent soldier, my pigment is my pride, I’m like red dirt, golden chain, black knight, thick skin.

“Thick Skin “I wrote it after the referendum result came out,” he explains, referring to the defeated motion to introduce indigenous voices to parliament in 2023. “I was in the middle of working on the record and when it happened the atmosphere was heavy and dark and scary and it just killed the mood.”

Even before she led that chilling chorus of Thelma Plum, Emma Donovan, Kee’ahn and Jada Weazel, producers Pip Norman and Rob Amoruso suggested she “just write music, get all these emotions out.” And it ended up sounding so disgusting,” says Baker. “When I first heard that, I got goosebumps,” says Baker.

Battle Cry It’s the story of another soldier inspired not by the #BlackLivesMatter movement, but by the parochial backlash closer to home. “I know what it’s like to be a trending topic,” he says, “and it doesn’t feel good. ‘Why aren’t you using your platform? You’re not saying anything!’ I received many messages saying “

He shakes his head. “It’s very troubling to even try to make a statement about something that’s going on in the United States when people need to recognize that we also have issues with Black deaths in custody in our own backyard.”

The personal cost of this oppression is also on record. With verses from Minneapolis rapper Pardyalone, decreasing paints a hectic picture of road fatigue, fickle friends and high expectations. “The downside of these ARIAs [Gela won six] Are there a few important points you should pay attention to? says Baker, laughing.

But the overall thrust of the album – heavier sounds, the lyrics pressing faster and faster against the beat – becomes the driving force. Djandjay forward. While batsmen like Ziggy Ramo, Briggs and Yirrmal bring power from across the continent, Baker Boy’s secret weapon remains the power of his language and the act of using it.

“Inside Djandjay “I rap in three languages: my father’s language, my mother’s language, and English,” he says. “I was going crazy, writing lyrics in the studio, and I was like, ‘What did I just write? This is crazy!’

“I know people who don’t understand what I’m saying, but I know for a fact that when the family at home hears this, they’re like, ‘WHAT?’ they say. He hits his knees and collapses on the floor laughing. “For them, it’s a mic drop moment, that kind of vibe.”

The stirring sound of Yolngu and Burarra raps capture the essence of Baker Boy’s mission and the fine line between a world measuring success at the ARIA Awards and the aspirations he still holds for the community he calls home.

“Their [realise] “I think they can be 100 percent better than me,” he says. “I want them to see me and say, ‘If he can do it, I want to do it too.’ We are talented too. We should not worry about using English as a second or third language. ‘We can still thrive and we can still secure our dreams’.

“English was one of my weak points” at school in Milingimbi and Maningrida, Baker says. He laughs as he memorizes phrases he can say to impress his classmates. The learning curve continued at Shalom Christian College in Townsville; here indigenous children from all over the country brought more languages.

“I was kind of a quiet kid, but I still had a few words that I knew how to describe everything. But having a lot of English-speaking people around me helped… especially when they were mobsters themselves.”

Those years – boarding school, dance lessons, leadership programmes, work on the North Queensland Cowboys’ school raids, panel beating, construction and health-related “Year 13” courses – expanded his sense of possibility. But the power of communication continued to seek.

“I look at all these other cultures, like Japanese pop or K-pop or Descipop and stuff like that. When you hear some people rapping in their native language, you’re like, ‘Yeah, that’s it.’ Spanish rappers or something? That’s great. That stuff inspires me,” he says.

She recalls performing at the Riddu Riddu Sami festival in Manndalen, Norway, in 2018: “One of the things that scared me was finding out they were talking about Indigenous Australians in school curriculums! And I was like, ‘What?’ I said. “We need more people talking about Indigenous culture in school curriculums in Australia.”

He shares a dream that the Garma Festival in Arnhem Land could one day similarly expand its audience. “It would be so disgusting to have so many Indigenous people coming from all over the world and showcasing their culture. It would be epic.”

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ambitious for him DjandjayAs every artist would be on the eve of their second album. But beyond inevitable considerations of chart success and festival stages, his real ambitions seem simultaneously more solid and much bigger.

“with gela Baker Boy is so happy, excited, dancing, always positive, always bringing people together, etc. Open DjandjayI want to show that I am human. I can show emotion. “I can be vulnerable, I can be angry, I can be proud and I can be comfortable in my own skin,” she says.

“I want to make sure everyone can hear it that way and be able to say, ‘Wow, Australia! There’s a lot of languages ​​there’ and be proud of one of the oldest living cultures in the world. I want to take my language everywhere. Not just to teach it, but to share its pride. Like my grandmother taught me.”

Baker Boy Djandjay It comes out on Friday.