your boy barkindji building

we jump off the bridge
when we get home we play some didj

I’m guessing that the Wilcannia Mob is a group of kids from the Barkindji aborigine population northwest of Sydney. Chris Lemon-Red has been mad decent enough to let me hear a track called ‘Baakan DJi Boys’ credited to Aemon, Keith, Wally, Lendl & Collaroy. Wally, Keith, Collaroy and Lendl are definitely part of the Wilcannia Mob credited with the track ‘Down River’ (Sounds like Buddy on the last verse but I can’t be sure that it’s not Aemon).
I first heard ‘Down River’ at the very end of the uploaded Damage Control show around the end of July featuring Diplo in a cameo on the wheels (or files or whatevs) in Houston and you can hear it in the podcast called ‘Mad Decent Worldwide Radio # 6 - 4 Day Weekend Happiness Mix.’
‘Down River’ uses the didgeridoo as a kind of bassline with a beatboxed loop over it… all of it sounding very improvised on the spot and then chopped up and synced later in the studio. But the incredible Baakan Dji Boys vocals are what set the bar for the gulliest delivery of the year. Aussie kids Wally and Keith rock the field-recording mic with an accented growl of slang and ‘local talk’ that is new to my ears and instantly addictive. If you’re not a fan of the cathartic rawness that is ‘favela-funk-style-rapping’ you should probably turn away from ‘Aussie-aboriginal-child-rapping now. The raps are rough, simple and, sometimes, on-beat reworkings of rap phrases that have filtered into the Wilcannia area mixed with local slang and sing-songy chants and rhymes that, I imagine, could have been made up by the kids this summer… or possibly handed down by generations. Their references to fishing and ‘the bridge’ (possibly the Myers St. centre¬lift bridge of Wilcannia pictured above?) keeps the content local but when Wally says “Check my video clip on your TV screen!” on ‘Baakan Dji Boys’ you can hear that they’ve got ambition to get beyond ‘the bridge’… or at the very least he’s inherited the phrase meant to convey that type of ambition. Hopefully more information (and more rap-tunes from the Mob / Boys) will be surfacing soon via the Mad Decent camp. Get ready for more of that southern (hemisphere) rap.

Wilcannia Mob - Down River (Mad Decent Edit)