His first at film school in 2006 was an award-winning short documentary B.L.A.C.K., a film focusing on Indigenous hip hop artist Will Jarrett, aka Wire MC, from the Gumbaynggirr country in Bowraville on the far north coast of NSW.

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"The film explored his music and what it spoke back to and Grant's current film is really a contemporary extension of that film."

Grant's love for hip hop started early, with Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five's song The Message.

Originally drawn to the B-Boy elements of hip hop, like many local koori kids, including his cousins Andy and Ralph Saunders, soon his attention moved to the lyrics.

"They were so powerful and reflective of what African American people were dealing with on a daily basis; institutionalised racism, the criminal justice system, over-policing, and we're still seeing that today with the recent murder of George Floyd."

Grant said hip hop is a vehicle for the oppressed and marginalised and gives a voice to social justice issues affecting African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans and other minority groups, including our own Indigenous people.

"Their voice resonates with our people here and our own struggles with social justice.

"Aboriginal people and other minority ethnic groups connected, at the very early stages of the hip hop movement, as far back as the early '80s when many white Australians and Americans saw it as an inferior form of music. Ironically Aussie hip hop, until more recently was dominated by white Australian hip hop acts.

"After the NWA Straight Outta Compton came out in the early '90s, the gangster element became commercialised, so the record industry pushed this angle of hip hop and pushed artists to outdo NWA with stories of gun play, misogyny, acquiring wealth and all the negative elements that turn many older generations off hip hop music and culture.

"It became a commercial product.

"There are now so many groups doing well commercially with content coming out that is, to say the least, bland and moving away from the original voice of hip hop. Think Nicky Minaj, G-Easy and all the mumble rap artists. Thankfully we have more conscious US artists like Kendrick Lamar, Logic, K.A.A.N and Trae the Truth also sharing some popularity.

In Australia he said we now have emerging voices that are a reflection of social justice issues here in Australian and are finally being heard on public national radio station Triple J

"Audiences are embracing those voices and a new sound in Aussie hip hop.

"We have Briggs and Trials from AB Original. Their Reclaim Australia album in 2017 was played on Triple J and won album of the year.

"Baker Boy is pushing cultural revival and survival of language through hip hop and you also have Dobby, Remi, Wire MC's son Tasman Keith, Ziggy Ramo and Sampa the Great."

All are featured in Grant's latest film and with whose music he also wishes to promote through the film.

"I don't want to downplay non-Aboriginal groups, including Hilltop Hoods, TZU and Bliss N Esso but these groups have enjoyed a lot of mainstream exposure.

"Hilltop Hoods paved the way for artists like Briggs and used their notoriety in the Australian music scene to support Indigenous acts. They've got their own label, invited artists like Briggs to record them, to support their shows and to feature them in their music videos.

"Now Briggs owns his own label."

The Birdz track Black Lives Matter, hotly rotated on Triple J in 2016, is what initially motivated Grant to make his film.

"It speaks directly to the events in Kalgoorlie, of 14 year old Aboriginal boy Elijah Doughty who was killed by a white vigilante by running him over in his ute. The Kalgoorlie Riots were in response to this man getting away with a charge of manslaughter with his charge reduced to what equalled one of a traffic fine. Then the sentence was reduced after it was appealed, and this man is now free.

"A white man got away with murder and a reduced sentence, while Aboriginal people get convicted and serve more prison time for stealing a piece of pizza."

He said it spoke to the imbalance in justice in Australia.

The song also references other instances of Aboriginal deaths in custody, including TJ Hickey in Redfern and Mulrunji Doomadji in Palm Island. Both took place in 2004.

"They're events that affected me and these issues have affected many Indigenous people since the original Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody (RCIADC), dating back to 1991.

"The injustice has been prevalent in the Australian criminal justice system ever since, with a majority of the 339 recommendations born out of the RCIADC still not implemented.

"We still have incarceration rates higher than anywhere in the world.

"Fifty per cent of people represented in juvenile detention are Aboriginal.

"A couple of years ago when I started the film it was 100 per cent Aboriginal people in juvenile detention in the Northern Territory.

"It's always a high figure in the Northern Territory, and in Western Australia it is also disproportionately high.

"Thirty per cent of people incarcerated in Australia are Aboriginal while we make up less than three per cent of the overall population.

"Those statistics speak volumes about the inequality in our country and in our court system," said Grant. "It's an unjust system and desperately needs reform like the reforms we are now seeing being enacted in the US since George Floyd's murder at the hands of police."

He said the deaths in custody of Indigenous people have been a "blip on the radar" in domestic media compared to the media attention given to George Floyd's death and other African Americans.

"We have tens of thousands of white and black supporters in the street in America demanding justice for African American lives, but until recently in the wake of Floyd's death what did we get? A handful or at best 800 came out for Kumanjayi Walker in Alice Springs (at the end of 2019)."

He said the word riot isn't a term that accurately defines what has been happening.

"It's not a riot. Black people refer to it as an uprising and a chance to let the world know, enough is enough.

"The frustration and anger got to a tipping point, and you've got to let people know what's going on, and if we let it continue we will keep seeing Indigenous deaths in custody.

Grant said his film looks at the "shared history with the United States, Black America, indigenous people and the poor relationship with the justice system."

He said he hopes current events encourage more people to turn out and agitate for social change and our political leaders to respond and enact necessary justice reform, which is the main objective of his film.

To support Break It Down Under go to https://documentaryaustralia.com.au/project/break-it-down-under-the-revolutionary-voices-in-australian-hip-hop/

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