DRMNGNOW is an artist you may have seen popping up in Melbourne over the last few months in particular, if you’re a local hip hop fan. With his new single “Indigenous Land”, the Yorta Yorta artist brings forth a striking portrait of the land we have been inhabiting and the acknowledgment of our history that so often is ignored.
Produced by River Boy, “Indigenous Land” is simple in its approach but goes in hard, with DRMNGNOW’s vocal delivery coming through strong.
“Indigenous people have been living in harmony with land in the most beautiful of way across the globe since time immemorial.” he says. “We have done this, guided by intricate eloquent beautiful systems of protocol so special that describing will never truly capture the essence of. This is fact.”
“The enormity of this significantly evidenced truth (even by Western modes of evaluation) unfortunately seems something people have difficulty grasping the extent or meaning of. Contrary to what appears the belief of vast swathes of people, simply bringing about catastrophic colonial disturbance to that connection never granted some form of authorisation and legitimacy for those indigenous systems to cease to exist. This simply is not the case.”
“To build just relationships in this land as best we can with a horrific history of genocidal implementation in tow, we need to truly acknowledge and gear change towards showing true support behind the fact that it is Indigenous lands we are all living out our lives upon.” DRMNGNOW furthers. “We have gone down the path of so many diversionary conversations only to still find ourselves trying to get back to square one 51 years on from the ’67 Referendum.”
“As a result, the matters of grimness of the current state of life generally across this land is intense. Though some who have benefited from the privilege of exploitation of this land and resources and structures thrive in bubbles; the land is largely desecrated beyond repair, with the social structures and fabrics on this land similarly entrench in withering disarray. The idea of a “Fair Australia” is evaporating inevitably as it always was bound to, for it never was in any shape, fair from the moment first fleet arrived in 1788. We are not getting back to square one in this land until we acknowledge we are all living on stolen Indigenous Land. It simply cannot occur.”
Check it out below!
