Kutcha Edwards

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Our next guest, I think it’s very appropriate that we have him here. He’s a singer-songwriter, highly respected here. He is also an activist and he’s come to speak a little bit about his career. Won’t you please give a warm welcome to Mr Kutcha Edwards [applause].

Kutcha Edwards

Is this working? It is.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

How are you doing today, sir?

Kutcha Edwards

I’m good, Jeff. We were talking before. The opportunity for you [points to audience] as singer-songwriters, musicians, people within the industry itself and what is music, and what can it do. For me, music is more than just the audio and the sound that resonates. It’s an opportunity for me, obviously being this color, in this country, and people sort of try to suggest that it’s not like that. Even sitting in this audience, and only seeing one other black man, person, is difficult. In introducing me Jeff, I have to acknowledge that me being not born of this country, Melbourne, I have to acknowledge the traditional owners of Melbourne, the Wurundjeri people, in their customs and their beliefs, because if I don’t do that, as an indigenous person of this country, I’m not adhering to laws and protocols that have been here not for 217 years, since Captain Cook sailed in his “great endeavor.” I am a descendant of peoples of this country for over 100,000 years. I have to acknowledge that of country. I might as well go straight into my talk, huh?

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

I don’t want to assume knowledge, necessarily, of some of the history, so if you want to try to synopsize that a little bit for everybody, so they have an understanding…

Kutcha Edwards

To understand why I have got the opportunity today, to talk in front of you, you need to understand where I have come from. I’m a proud Muthi Muthi man. Not from this state, Victoria. I’m from near South Wales, born on the Murrumbidgee River, which flows into the Murray, which the Murray flows into South Australia. The Coorong in South Australia. Before I actually start, I want to give you an understanding. [stands up, picks up a box, walks toward the audience] Is there anybody, willing to put their watch, or their wallet, or their phone in this box? Now. Can you do it? Are you willing to do it?

Audience Member

Yeah.

Kutcha Edwards

You’re not getting them back. Can I have it? You’re willing to put your phone in there?

Audience Member

Can I get the numbers out?

Kutcha Edwards

No, you can’t get the numbers out of it. Honestly, you’re not going to get your phone back or your wallet.

Audience Member

It’s for you.

Kutcha Edwards

I’ll own them, and I’ll do what I please with them.

Audience Member

I’ll give you my watch.

Kutcha Edwards

Your watch?

Audience Member

Yeah.

Kutcha Edwards

Not many people are willing to do it, why? Can somebody answer me? Why are you not willing to hand over a watch, a phone, a wallet? Can somebody explain why?

Audience Member

Because belongings.

Kutcha Edwards

Belongs to?

Audience Member

To the individual.

Kutcha Edwards

OK. Did you hear that? Could you give that answer again?

Audience Member

It doesn’t belong to you.

Kutcha Edwards

It belongs to the individual, the owner of what is in here.

Audience Member

Yeah. The value.

Kutcha Edwards

The value of it. The value of a phone is what? 100 bucks.

Audience Member

Maybe messages in there from an ex-girlfriend.

Kutcha Edwards

That’s why you want her back. Yeah, well that might be why I want it! My mother and father had to hand over six children, me being 18 months old, and we’re worried about a watch. Or a phone. How’d that feel, guys? Because of politics, and because I was born this color, in this country, my mother and father had to hand over six children. I was born in 1965. Then 1967 comes along, gives indigenous people, Aboriginal people, the opportunity to become citizens, finally, in our own country that we’ve been in since time began. Or because the white man says, “OK, we’ll let you become citizens in your own country.”

Do you know what, we were part of the Flora and Fauna Act of Australia. So we were considered alongside trees, shrubs, animals and dirt. What a load of shit. We get protective over a phone, a watch, and a wallet. What are our most prized possessions? They’re our children, and my mother and father had turned over six. It burns to my core, even today, having to explain to visitors to this country, what is really happening in this country. Rips my freaking heart out. But I do it so that the world understands what is really happening in this country. When I had the opportunity, Wolf called me or I called him and said, “Yep, I’ll do it.” For you to not only listen to me, and get an understanding of where my music is coming from and where it’s going, it gives me the opportunity to tell the world, the reality, of what is happening. That is why I jumped at the opportunity.

At 18 months old, put into a children’s institution in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne, and there I lived for 11 years in a dormitory sort of setting, with a lot of other non-indigenous kids. Having to do so, when you’re forcibly removed from your mother and father, you are not only taken away from that setting, you’re taken away from your traditional lands. You’re taken away from what makes me Aboriginal, my knowledge, of not only my lineage to my forefathers, like I’ve said that have been here. I am a direct descendant of two skeletons that were found in a place called Lake Mungo, in New South Wales.

Muthi Muthi people, my clan, are the southern caretakers of Lake Mungo. They found two skeletons, that were carbon dated to over 60,000 years old. I am a direct descendant to those bones, to those people. I am so proud of that fact, yet in the white man’s eyes, I am only 40 years old. How hypocritical can that be? Now, I saw my mother when I was six years old for the very first time. She came to the children’s home where I was, and I was at primary school and I had to run all the way home to this cottage. I saw my mother, and I didn’t know who she was.

It took her seven years to convince authorities that she has the right to have her children back, so I went to live with her. I lived with her for five years, and in that time, they were probably the hardest five years of my life. Your mother and father are supposed to know every characteristic that you have. They know what time you usually get up, Jeff, don’t they? Your mother and father, when you’re living with them. They know what you love to eat and what you don’t love to eat. Who your friends are, who your enemies are. My mother knew nothing.

People would look at me and suggest, “Kutcha, you are Aboriginal, why don’t you speak in native tongue?” Because Aboriginal people were denied to speak it. Our own language. Who speaks a language other than English here? That’s great, man. The only language I know is English. The worst tongue ever known to man, English. George Bush speaks English. John Howard, the idiot speaks English. I went to live with my mother, and they were hard. They came down to Melbourne in 1985 and I went to a school not much different than this, but it was a school that taught us not only about how to become a nurse, so I’m a qualified nurse, but they taught us the politics of what makes an Aboriginal. Once I found out the policies of why I was put into a children’s home, I saw red… I turned on society itself. But I started abusing from within, internally. I started delving into heavy shit, drugs and alcohol and rebelling against society itself.

This all came to a head eight years ago. I had a heart attack and it was a scare for me. Music, I suppose has soothed the beast inside Kutcha Edwards. Along with friends of my who are well known, Paul Kelly. Paul Kelly came to the school two weeks ago. Paul Kelly is a very dear friend of mine. Paul Kelly actually produced this album here, Cooinda. Cooinda was the children’s home that I was in. I wanted to name it Cooinda for that fact. To let people know and start debate, “What do you know in Cooinda?”

“Well, Cooinda was the children’s home.”

“Oh, I didn’t know you were a children’s home.” That starts debate.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

When you went to the children’s home, this being the government policy, to remove the Aboriginal children from the families, you went to an integrated children’s home. What was that like amongst the children?

Kutcha Edwards

I lived in Cooinda, the cottage itself. There was about ten different cottages. Orphans, I suppose. We got told when we were kids that, “Your mother and father are dead and this and that.” They talk shit. They deny you the truth for their own gain.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Did you sense, even at that age – you were quote/unquote orphans – but I guess, there were white orphans amongst there as well?

Kutcha Edwards

Yeah.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Did you sense that they had any sort of acknowledgement or was it different?

Kutcha Edwards

You’re living for the day, for the moment, you don’t understand that this was all a politically motivated policy. It is proven to this day that Australia had two policies enacted… To be honest, South Africa adopted policies from here, from Australia. Australia had policies after the Second World War, the White Australia Policy. No African or Asian was to immigrate during that time to Australia. There was also the White Australia Policy and the Assimilation Policy, where Aboriginal children were forcibly removed because of the interbreeding, I suppose.

If there’s an overseer at one of the missions who has his way with any woman he likes, in the way that he likes, of course there are going to be children of mixed color. Then children were forcibly removed. My mother and father are as black as me, but because of the policies at the time, they forcibly removed children that they thought weren’t being looked after… used it as a tool to do what they wanted.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Your sort of awakening, as far what had happened to you, came when your mother found you, correct?

Kutcha Edwards

My mother found me when I was six years old. First saw me when I was six and then I went to live with her when I was 13. To be honest, I was in a choir at primary school. I loved singing in a choir. To be honest, I fell into music. Every time I got drunk, every time I got shitfaced, I’d be singing. People would say, “Kutcha, why don’t you start a band?” I started singing in this band called Watbalimba. Watbalimba is a eastern state down Gippsland way, a Kurnai Gunai word, an Aboriginal word for dance. Watbalimba was the band name. I started performing in this Aboriginal band, singing English, but singing about the Aboriginal struggle.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

What sort of music would you describe that as?

Kutcha Edwards

It was, I suppose rock music. There were about 11 men in this band, but 11 freaking egos too. We were always arguing… I’m somewhat of a lyricist who likes to take control of what we’re going to sing about. That band fell on its ass and didn’t last for very long. Then I had a few experiences in… I had a band Blackfire. Blackfire was a band that sang about the struggle of indigenous peoples and that’s where the activism started to come and we were writing about “give us back our land.” Anybody here heard of a band called No Fixed Address? You heard of No Fixed Address?

No Fixed Address was a very famous band here in Australia by a guy named Bart Willoughby. Bart Willoughby is a drummer and his band, No Fixed Address, was the first band to put the foot in the door. Not only put the foot in the door, but to kick the freaking door down and say, ”We’re not taking it anymore. We’re going to stand up.” It was a move towards using music as this activist tool. Actually the very first concert that I ever went to, I wasn’t much of a person for concerts, I went and saw Robert Cray at a place called Festival Hall in east Melbourne.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Blues guitarist. American blues guitarist Robert Cray

Kutcha Edwards

Yeah. The Strong Persuader tour, and his music just kicked me in the face. I went home and wrote my very first song. It was a blues song called, “Roll With The Rhythm.” I haven’t actually got it here today, but I went home and wrote “Roll With The Rhythm.” I remember the very first poem that I wrote. I was in secondary school, in high school. Humanities teacher said, “Kutcha, can you write a poem?” And I wrote this poem and I look back at this poem, everybody looks at life in hindsight and I look at this poem and I think was 13 years old…

It goes, “Trickling down a waterfall, freely one by one, forming into clouds of spray glistening in the sun, crushing to disaster, my water drop is done, left the short life of loneliness and gathered back as one.” I sort place of myself as that one drop. Being with my family, separated, but then in hindsight, coming back. I’m one of 12 kids, by the way, I’m ninth in line. I lost a brother last year to alcoholism and he was very close to me in the children’s home. We look at people, all of us, we look at suicide as being this quick answer to a problem that’s been pestering us for – I suppose forever. I look at alcoholism as the same thing. It’s a prolonged approach to the same situation.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

You said Robert Cray was your first concert. Previous to that, I’m sure you heard music. On the radio, did you…

Kutcha Edwards

I remember listening as a kid to this beautiful, soulful sound of Karen Carpenter. Karen Carpenter, obviously we’ve all heard her beautiful tone and her beautiful… the lyrics were a bit weird for me, but that’s Richard’s doing. She had this great, this great tone. But you’ll hear when I sing that the resonant... Songwriting for me is this, I was explaining to Jeff before that now, I suppose as a songwriter and a lyricist, I go into juvenile justice centers, jails, schools and talk about, I suppose, my experiences and my experiences with songwriting. Are we ready to…

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Do you want to play?

Kutcha Edwards

I’ll play a song.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

A little piece of something?

Kutcha Edwards

Yeah. This song…

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Firstly, what is this device here you have?

Kutcha Edwards

You ever seen one of those? [Holds up instrument]

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

We got a lot of technical people here, so you know…

Kutcha Edwards

Who has ever seen one of these? Up the back? What is it?

Audience Member

I don’t remember.

Kutcha Edwards

It’s called an Omnichord. It’s made by Suzuki, so it’s obviously from either Korea or Japan. This was bought by a friend of mine nearly six years ago. My mate and brother, very close friend of mine, Paul Hester, played for Crowded House. Last year, took his life and we don’t what for. That is up to him. I had a lot of media trying to chase me, trying to get me to say what I wanted to say about Paul, but what I had to say about Paul is between me and Paul at the time. He was a great supporter of not only me as an individual, but me as an indigenous person. He bought me this for my birthday about seven years ago.

I wrote this actual song, not on this instrument, but an instrument that I borrowed off him for about six months. He said, “Come around Kutcha, it’s your birthday tomorrow. This is all in a couple of days and we’ll put on barbie for you.” So, I went around there and I said, “I wrote you this song.” I played this song. Can you hear that?
(music: Kutcha Edwards - unknown track / applause)

In talking about people who’ve passed, they’re always with us and I conversate as if he was sitting right here and he is, poking me in the ribs as we speak. My brother who passed last September and my mother. I lost my mother in June this year, who is finally at peace. She doesn’t have to argue with bureaucrats or people who don’t understand any more. I just flew back yesterday. I was up in the north of the state, talking and writing songs with students who were going through their own problems at the moment with people who’ve passed in their school.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

You want to explain a little bit about that, as far as what you recently did, this little trip that you made and what the purpose of that was and what the circumstances were?

Kutcha Edwards

I was asked by a niece of mine – the most stupidest question is the question you don’t ask – but my niece she said, “Uncle Kutcha, can you come up to my school?” This was when the Commonwealth Games was happening here in Melbourne, or as we term them the “Stolen Wealth games.” She came and saw me at a show and she said, “Uncle Kutcha, can you come up to my school?” As soon as she said it, I said, “Yeah. You just organize it and I’ll come up.” At the start of the year, there was a freak accident, a car accident, where a car skittled close to 15 children and killed about eight of them, and the car driver drove off, but he got apprehended.

A lot of the kids up there are still trying to come to terms with that. So, I went up to the senior school and the last couple of days have been writing a song, not so much to write about that situation but for them to have the impetus to start the ball rolling. I was explaining to Jeff and Wolf, I like using analogies and saying… but a marathon starts with one step. If they can learn how to express themselves in song writing, rather than going down to the park, getting somebody else to buy them a bottle of whatever and drinking themselves to oblivion. Talking to somebody and expressing it in that way is more powerful than the trip that they might have on that bottle of alcohol or that chuff.

That’s, I suppose, what I do. I go to jails and sit with supposed bad people. But sometimes a pat on the back is more powerful than a six-month term in a lock-up. I’ve slept in gutters. I’ve seen the other side. I’ve been to hell and back. Close to death is fairly scary. That was eight years ago, and I haven’t touched one drop, one smoke, one snort, in eight years. As soon as I came out of that hospital, that was it for me. My son was nine when it happened and he turns 18, not this Saturday but Saturday week. I didn’t want him to go through the same thing that I had gone through with my father, so I said, “I will not only try to change my life, but anybody that has the opportunity.” That’s what life is all about. It’s about opportunity.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

You mentioned with Blackfire being part of a movement as far as politics or addressing messages in your music. Did you take inspiration from protest music or activist music from countries, from here, what sort of stuff inspired you?

Kutcha Edwards

With Blackfire I got the opportunity to travel to China three times. I got to travel to Taiwan, Mexico, Japan. To travel the world and not have to pay a cent to do it was great. I remember going to China the very first time and going to Guangzhou and we would walk down the street and people would just stop and walk over and want to touch the skin.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Because they’d never seen …?

Kutcha Edwards

Never seen a person of my obvious stature but of my color as well. The opportunity I had there was amazing. Non-indigenous people in this country would say, “Kutcha, you talk a hell of a lot about politics,” but the reality is that I was put into this situation. You back a dog up into a corner with a stick and prod at him all the time, he’s bound to bite. He’s bound to get aggressive and want to attack, but I find that if I can debate the situation – we have journalists in certain papers in Melbourne here who are dead-set racists and their knowledge of Aboriginal people is they went to school with one back when they were in primary school. If you want to know about indigenous issues, come and talk to the horse. Don’t talk to the jockey. Come and sit with an Aboriginal person and you’ll get the real deal. Don’t think because you watch Rabbit-Proof Fence that you know what I’m talking about. I read it in a paper… Come and talk to the horse and you’ll understand where we’re coming from. That’s the problem. If you don’t know how to fix up the wiring in your house, go see an electrician.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

How segregated do you think the society is?

Kutcha Edwards

Here?

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Yeah. Still. There’s a history of moving Aboriginal people to settlements.

Kutcha Edwards

Still a long way to go. It’s a hell of a long way to go. They would rather sweep all of us under the carpet. The street gets their knowledge from what I was just talking about, gets their understanding from journalists or from the TV or from a movie. I go to a lot of schools, to a lot of businesses, to talk about cultural immersion and how to deal with indigenous issues, but they are still trying to fix the problem, rather than coming to us and saying, “How can we fix this problem?” They think they know and they don’t.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

In the brief amount of research that I’ve done I’ve seen it written that part of the issue is that governments will claim that there’s no central authority, or there wasn’t at a certain point, for Aboriginal people. Is that a legitimate claim?

Kutcha Edwards

Well, there are over 500 nations within Australia itself before, BC, before Cook. To suggest now that there is multiculturalism in Australia is a load of bullshit. We had all different laws within each clan, each tribe, but two years ago they had a central organization called ACLEI, which was a central body, a central organization, that had representatives from each area, each state, each region within that state, that represented Aboriginal people.

That form of law, that form of body, is the [west’s way] of politics, I suppose. The old way was elders would decide, sitting council, and decide what would happen. A lot of that law, that just law is being lost because elders are passing at 50-60 years old. In reality, I’m 40, so I’m getting close to that status. To call me an elder would be ridiculous, but that’s the reality now. Any questions?

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

I just want to pause, make sure… has anyone anything they want to ask at this point?

Kutcha Edwards

Yeah.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Can we get the mic in the audience up?

Audience Member

There it is. How you doing?

Kutcha Edwards

Good.

Audience Member

I just had a small question. I’ve traveled to a few Third World countries, a lot of war-torn countries, specifically the Sudan, where my family’s from. I noticed that the youth, people have been oppressed, the kids attach themselves to hip-hop. I would go through the streets there and see kids who were fighting in the civil war and they’d be listening to songs from Tupac as inspiration to them. I wanted to know, do Aboriginal youth listen to hip-hop or what kind of views do they get from it?

Kutcha Edwards

They’re into it too here. I have a friend who is from the States. His name is Wiley J Miller. I don’t know where he’s from, but every time... Snoop came over here just recently, and Ja Rule. I think Nelly was here. He manages, I don’t know how he does it, but he gets in there and he gets tickets. A lot of our kids have the opportunity to go and see these people. They’re dressing that way, and I don’t deny them the right, but as a singer-songwriter myself, I would prefer that they attached themselves to songwriters from here. But that’s what’s happening all around the world. If they’re getting into music because of Tupac and so forth, it’s better them do that than going around smashing heads, you know what I mean?

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Blackfire was recording in what period?

Kutcha Edwards

’83 to ’89.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Right.

Kutcha Edwards

’89.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

I’m curious. That’s actually very fertile time in American hip-hop as far as activism and conscious musical content. Did that have any sort of bearing on any of the stuff that you did?

Kutcha Edwards

No.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Or, did you see it? Did it get over here and into the communities?

Kutcha Edwards

No. We were more into rock. How long’s hip-hop been going for?

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

On record, since 1979.

Kutcha Edwards

Well, it didn’t get over here until probably mid or early ’90s.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

On a widespread level, you mean?

Kutcha Edwards

Yeah. But they’re dressing ... That track suit and all. I sort of look at our kids and think, what’s his name, Ali G… You know what I mean? I don’t know. It’s a shame being an indigenous person in this country, and our people trying to mimic something from the States, do you know what I mean?

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Right.

Kutcha Edwards

It’s hard to deal with. I’m getting to an age where ...

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

I mean, you took inspiration from Robert Cray. It’s probably a similar situation for them, taking inspiration from artists from the States.

Kutcha Edwards

We’re all influenced by the States, brother.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Anybody else have anything they want to interject at this point? It’s a fellow guitarist here.

Audience Member

Hello.

Kutcha Edwards

Hey buddy.

Audience Member

We’ve actually met a few times. I don’t expect that you remember me.

Kutcha Edwards

You’re the guy from ...

Audience Member

Broadmeadows. My last time I met you was quite funny. You were doing a show in Broadmeadows at [inaudible]. We also both know Wiley. Wiley’s from Utah.

Kutcha Edwards

Utah, that’s it. Wiley’s a funny character.

Audience Member

Yeah, OK. But, last time it was quite funny actually. The last time we met in Broadmeadows, you were doing a show. I walked into this massive tent, and I think you were just talking about the two major Chinese languages or something. You said, “Is there anybody in this audience who’s Chinese?” It was right about that time I’d lost my voice completely, so I wasn’t going to put my hand up. I actually shrunk into the corner because I knew people would be pointing me out. Then sure enough, the table next to me is like, “Young man. Young man.” I’m like, “Oh, no.”

Then you starting saying to me. I was just like, “Can you tell him that I’ve lost my voice.” “He’s lost his voice.” It was quite funny. It was quite embarrassing. What I really wanted to ask you was, I just want to move away from the political side of it for a little while, because I’d really like to have that conversation with you at some other point. What I’d really like to ask you is, over the centuries and over the millennia, oppression has always, always caused awesome art. Not just music, but let’s say, if we go back to the ’80s, political and even musical oppression caused punk. If we move back before then, the blacks that were oppressed in America, they formed jazz and before then even blues. You know what I mean? The slaves in Brazil...

Away from music now, in Brazil, you know the white masters oppressed them and they weren’t allowed to do martial arts, and so a certain form of martial arts was born, being capoeria. Where do you stand? What do you think about that? It’s quite a heavy thing to deal with, to go, “OK, there’s oppression, however, oppression generally, if we look back through history, causes awesome things to happen?”

Kutcha Edwards

You’ll find, and this is where it’s different for me. It’s different for me because I have been politically motivated, whereas traditional peoples, traditional Aboriginal people, because they sing in language and because they still have connection to culture as such, that their song line is sung. They are singing about country, they are singing about why the long-necked turtle does what it does. Why the snake, the [inaudible] does what it does, and how it does it. Why the rain rains at that certain time of day. Why the winds will create a storm.

Their song line, their singing is not about politics. It’s about country, it’s about their connection to country, their lineage to the oldest people in the world. Their music, and I shouldn’t say “their”, because they are me too. You know what I mean?

Audience Member

I understand.

Kutcha Edwards

My form of my song line is now with a foreign instrument and with a foreign language. I am still culturally relevant and culturally correct, except I have been pushed into the corner because of politics, and this is the only form of language that I know.

Audience Member

There’s no doubt about that, I’m not questioning that whatsoever. What I’m saying is though, apart from song content, oppression generally, in history, outside of exclusively Australian history, but all over the world in all contexts and throughout time, we’ve been finding that music or art in whatever form generally comes from, or generally, can come from heavy oppression.

Even now I think, we’ve had a lot of lecturers come in and a lot of them have been saying this is a turning point in history. It’s really either going to go one way or another, and that’s certainly true. That’s a form of oppression, like information oppression or whatever you want to call it. I just want to get an idea of how you feel about that.

Kutcha Edwards

What I said before is, some people create music for the wrong reason. To me, music is just not the resonance of the note of the sound. To me, it’s an expression of who I am and where I come from. I can’t explain it more than that. It’s who Kutcha Edwards is now. Music is just a small part of my existence here. Education is more ... I cop it every day, racism every day in some form. But, rather than going and punching somebody in the face, I would rather educate them. That’s what this does for me. Music can educate the uneducated, hopefully. Does that answer your question?

Audience Member

Thank you, sir. Yes.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Let me ask you something else. I mean, obviously, this is your life. This is what you do, what you love to do. How much apathy from a younger generation do you sense? Or, do you feel like you’re ever pressured creatively to maybe not be so pointed in some of your messages, as far as making music? Ultimately, it’s entertainment for people. Is it something that you think about in terms of, “Maybe I’m getting too heavy right now with this. Do I need to lighten the mood to do things?”

Kutcha Edwards

That was a period of time with Blackfire, we were getting too serious about the content, about land rights and about pollution and about all these other day-to-day problems. But, that’s why this album, this new album that I’m bringing out, is more to the lyrical content, and what I am singing about is more to do with universal love.

I found that, when I was back on the turps [drinking], people don’t want to hear you. People don’t want to listen to you. He’s blabbing on because he’s pissed or stoned off his rocker, you know what I mean? People like Paul Kelly wouldn’t come within a bar of me when I was on the turps. Two years ago, three years ago, he got asked to write the official theme song for the opening of the new museum here in Melbourne.

It was a $20,000 commission to write a two-minute song. He said, “OK, I’ll do it,” not knowing that he had to go film a movie in South Australia. He said, “I’m double booked, but I’ve got a guy who I think can do this.” He rang me and said, “Could you do it, Kutcha?” He wouldn’t have done that five years ago if I was back on the slops. No way.

It’s about networking. I suppose I wouldn’t be where I am today if it wasn’t for the assistance of great people like Paul Kelly and people who have stood up for indigenous issues as well. We have a lot of [inaudible] here who will stand up and support the trees from being logged or whatever, but they won’t stand up for certain issues. But Paul Kelly is one of them.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

You want to play anything off of the CD to give us a little taste of what you’ve been up to?

Kutcha Edwards

Yeah. This song was written in prison with four or five nephews of mine. Ironically, time is all they have. So we wrote this song here.

(music: Kutcha Edwards – “Time is All I Have” / applause)

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

You said that was written or recorded in ...

Kutcha Edwards

That was written with about eight of my nephews in one of the maximum security prisons here in Victoria.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

They’re all incarcerated?

Kutcha Edwards

Incarcerated, yeah.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

All eight of your nephews are incarcerated?

Kutcha Edwards

Yeah.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

For what sort of ... ?

Kutcha Edwards

For all sorts of, I suppose, crimes. But, I look at it in a sense where, to me, every law that is passed by this government, or governments prior to before, or after invasion, 1798, is a false law. Whose law are they breaking in reality? There are thousands, upon thousands, upon thousands of laws that are broken every day. Laws that were here in Australia prior to Captain Cook coming here. I look at it in a different light, Jeff, you know. It’s hard, it’s hard for me to go in there and see my people incarcerated for trivial little misdemeanors, you know what I mean? But that’s life. And that’s why I do it. I go in there to let them know that they are still a part of community. They have community out here in the bigger picture, you know.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Do you feel a connection to the caucasian artists from Australia?

Kutcha Edwards

Yeah, yeah.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Obviously, you collaborated with Paul Kelly, he’s a dear friend of yours. You’re searching to carve your place, establish your own identity as an indigenous person, but do you feel like the musical lineage of white musicians in Australia is something that you feel, I don’t know, in any way a part of, or do you feed off of it?

Kutcha Edwards

The reality is here in Australia, if I was to bring out… I brought this CD out, what year was it? 2002, 2003 [holds up CD]. I went to the record store, I went to the record store in one of the major shopping centers here, and I said, “Excuse me,” and not to be egotistical, I went, I said, “Excuse me, have you got a Kutcha Edwards CD here?” And they said, “Yes, it’s in world music.” What is more Australian that an Aboriginal person singing about himself or what he has been through, or about this country. And to find my CD in “World Music” was a bit of a kick in the teeth. That’s how hypocritical the music industry is here. The everyday Australian doesn’t want to hear about the plight of the Aboriginal person. It’s hard for me as an indigenous performer to sell my wares, so to speak.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

That must be a concern. You’re going to require the support of a white record-buying audience in order to survive.

Kutcha Edwards

Yeah.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Correct?

Kutcha Edwards

But making money doesn’t motivate me. Telling the truth does. And that’s why I do what I do. That’s why I write about everyday issues. I don’t write about things that don’t affect me, or haven’t affected me. To me, the song that you just heard, “Time is All I Have,” is going on an album that will go to manufacturing, probably the end of next week. I’ve got to mix down one more song, master that song, master the whole CD and it will go to manufacturing. It will cost me about $700-$800 to go to manufacturing. I’ll probably get a thousand CDs made, but I won’t go to a record label. I’ll just sell them myself and distribute them at gigs. I don’t want to be hell bent on trying to get them distributed to Darwin and all around the world. If that happens, that happens.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

What has your experience been with record labels?

Kutcha Edwards

This album here actually was signed by Shock Records. A lot of lip service. A lot of lip service is given with the industry here you know. I’m not in it to make, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars, I just want to get my music to wherever it can go. Wherever. And if every student here gives me their address and 20 bucks, I’ll send it to you. Yeah, yeah.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

You’re constantly performing.

Kutcha Edwards

I’m constantly performing.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

I would think that if that’s how you’re primarily – you’re reliant on to distribute your self-pressed, self-produced copies, I would think that would be…

Kutcha Edwards

Well that’s what I do. In any form. I don’t know, to sell a thousand CDs in a year, that would be fine. All I want to really do is sing about who and what I am, and where I have come from. If I get the opportunity to go overseas again, and get offered to come to the school in Florida next year, I’m only joking, yeah. I’m asking you to take me to the school. Wherever. I just want to keep on doing what I’m doing. It doesn’t faze me if nobody buys a CD. The work that I do is more important.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Does anybody else have anything they want to ask or interject.

Kutcha Edwards

Yeah, buddy.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Just going to wait for the microphone.

Audience Member

I just wondered what the state of indigenous media is here in Melbourne. I live in Sydney, we’ve got [inaudible] up there. It’s wicked. I just wonder if there’s anything similar.

Kutcha Edwards

[Inaudible]

Audience Member

Yeah, yeah. I just wonder if there’s anything like that down here.

Kutcha Edwards

Pardon?

Audience Member

I wondered if there was anything like that down here.

Kutcha Edwards

There’s an indigenous radio station called 3 Kool n Deadly. Cullin being the nation of Aboriginal people here. C-U-L-L-I-N. But we spell 3 Kool and Deadly, 3-K-O-O-L-N-Deadly. But that’s an indigenous radio station in Preston. But I do radio, I actually came straight from radio to here. I do radio for 3CR, 3CR, which is not indigenous radio station, but has had indigenous programs for the last 27 years. So, that’s who I broadcast for. The last four years, I’ve produced shows live from four prisons in Victoria live to air. That had never been done before in Australia. Received a human rights award for such programs, and it was never done before, but…

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

You received an award in 2001? Is it correct? What was that? How did it make you feel?

Kutcha Edwards

I don’t talk about it because I want people to see who I am and what I am rather than to see what I have done. But I was awarded Indigenous Australian of the Year 2001, for my work that I do, not only here in Victoria, in Melbourne, but around Australia. I was also in that same year awarded Male Artist of the Year – funnily enough in the Australian Music Awards, the ARIAs, there is no indigenous component in the awards, so Aboriginal people started their own awards and I was awarded Male Indigenous Artist of the Year.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

I was curious to know if that was a category that had existed from…

Kutcha Edwards

The Deadlies.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Yeah.

Kutcha Edwards

The Deadlies are created by indigenous people. In the Grammys in America they have soul, they have indigenous, you know, Native American sections, they have all these genres. But in Australia, there is no indigenous component in the Australian music awards, and we thought that was a slap in the face, so we created our own.

Audience Member

I don’t understand the word indigenous.

Kutcha Edwards

Indigenous is Aboriginal. The white fellows’ word for Aboriginal people.

Audience Member

But it means something? Indigenous?

Kutcha Edwards

Indigenous means the traditional people of this country.

Audience Member

Oh. I didn’t hear indigenous music until now in Australia.

Kutcha Edwards

Have you ever heard of a band called Yothu Yindi?

Audience Member

No, they never play on radio, or we had not any guest playing local music.

Kutcha Edwards

OK.

Audience Member

I heard country music, but I didn’t feel it is really from Australia.

Kutcha Edwards

Where are you going tomorrow? Do you know where you are going tomorrow?

Audience Member

No.

Kutcha Edwards

You don’t know?

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

We don’t tell them anything.

Kutcha Edwards

I could take you to the Melbourne Museum, or to the Aboriginal radio station.

Audience Member

Yeah, I would really like to see the music that is made originally from Australia.

Kutcha Edwards

See, there is traditional, which is with yidaki, with didgeridoo. And then language, and then there is contemporary indigenous music.

Audience Member

It is only in museum, like it has passed, or there is something evolving and continuing over…

Kutcha Edwards

Over here?

Audience Member

Like the Aboriginals. They have perpetuated their culture, or it is something from the past that you see in museums? Like the pyramids in Egypt and the old ancient Egyptian civilization? It doesn’t resemble at all Egypt today.

Kutcha Edwards

To me, in answering this question, what I am singing in English, whatever I create, whatever I create as an Aboriginal person…

Audience Member

It is new?

Kutcha Edwards

Is indigenous music to me. It is Aboriginal music. It’s being created by an Aboriginal person. It might be in English, it might be with this weird instrument, but to me what I create, to me is Aboriginal music. Do you know what I’m trying to say?

Audience Member

OK. Are all the most the contemporary Aboriginal people, they express in your type of music, which I think is like folk music?

Kutcha Edwards

Folk.

Audience Member

Yeah?

Kutcha Edwards

Yeah.

Audience Member

You don’t have Aboriginal who express in…

Kutcha Edwards

Language.

Audience Member

Who mix ancient sound with the English, which is the…

Kutcha Edwards

There’s a band called Yothu Yindi. They were from far north, the Northern Territory. The top end of Australia. The simple fact that I sort of explained that invasion to this country Australia, the southern states were hit more prominently than the top end of Australia. They still speak language in their native tongue, and sing in native tongue, and play with the old instruments that they’ve been playing for thousands of years. Down here, because of invasion, colonization, that we, like I said, we were forced not to speak language.

Audience Member

You cannot learn at school?

Kutcha Edwards

No, it’s all lost. It’s …

Audience Member

It’s a [deliberate decision to make you] lose the language?

Kutcha Edwards

Yes. Probably if we were to go to archives in Canberra and to study language at University in Canberra where all the archives and all… for some unknown reason, all our artifacts, some of our skeletons, some of our people, are still in cabinets in museums around the world. Any other people around the world, they would get buried in a dignified way. Our people are still in cabinets in England. You know what I mean? So, it’s about acknowledging that culture to us is more than just an artifact, it’s our knowledge to country, it’s our spirituality. To me, because I don’t speak lingo, doesn’t mean to say that I am not a culturally alright Aboriginal person to talk to.

Audience Member

It’s not a dying culture. It’s still alive and it can...

Kutcha Edwards

In all different forms. Where are you from brother?

Audience Member

I am Lebanese.

Kutcha Edwards

Lebanese.

Audience Member

Lebanese, but we have the same type of occupation in the region. They try to crush the culture, like they don’t let people speak or you cannot learn. I thought maybe it’s like sort of apartheid.

Kutcha Edwards

Like in America, you have Arapaho, you have Sioux, you have all the different clans of Indians and they all speak different tongue. But here in Australia, the same thing. All speak different lingo. We’re not all the one person. Governments talk to us as if we are the one person. You know what I mean? We are all different nations.

Audience Member

You have schools. You have Aboriginal schools?

Kutcha Edwards

Not as such, no. We are forced to assimilate.

Audience Member

You are forced to assimilate?

Kutcha Edwards

Yes.

Audience Member

OK, it’s crazy.

Kutcha Edwards

It is, I know.

JEFF “CHAIRMAN” MAO

Got some more questions.

Kutcha Edwards

Good question. Thank you brother.

Audience Member

Hello, my name is Anna.

Kutcha Edwards

Hello.

Audience Member

Would you like to play us some traditional music? Would you like to play us some traditional Aboriginal music?

Kutcha Edwards

I would love to sing lingo, but I can’t. Here, I can sing you a song.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Are you asking if he has any CD?

Audience Member

For traditional language?

Kutcha Edwards

No. I am what is called an urbanized Aboriginal. Brother in the back there. That’s what I mean, Anna, is to me what I am creating today, what I have been creating, is all Aboriginal music to me because it comes from this Aboriginal person right here. Because I don’t speak lingo, or I don’t play yidaki, doesn’t mean that it’s not indigenous. Ten Canoes, to be honest, I haven’t seen it.

Audience Member

I would like to know, is there a place here in Australia where the Aboriginal people are more concentrated, like lots of them?

Kutcha Edwards

Central dessert. Alice Springs, a town called Alice Springs in the Northern Territory, where all the clan groups, all the dessert people come in from the dessert and congregate in this place called Alice Springs. People would say, “Look at this one lot of people.” They’re all different nations of Aboriginal people. You’ll find that you go around to all the states, all the main cities, you’ll have urban Aboriginal people living in these... You know you go to Sydney and they’re in Redfern, you go to Adelaide and they’re probably in Port Adelaide. You go to Perth and they’re in Fremantle. We are a dispersed people, you know. You walk up the street here in Richmond, you’re flat out trying to find an Aboriginal person. You know what I mean?

Audience Member

I’ve just saw one girl in the club since I’ve got here.

Kutcha Edwards

Pardon.

Audience Member

I said since I’ve got here I just saw one Aboriginal girl in the club.

Kutcha Edwards

There you go.

Audience Member

I also want to know is there a place where the Aboriginal language is being taught, maybe to kids?

Kutcha Edwards

Language for the southern states, and Melbourne being a southern state, and I suppose Adelaide and Sydney, like I said before, a lot of our language has – well it’s in hibernation, if you can say that. It’s not lost, but it needs to be reclaimed and got out of textbooks in museums and all our possum-skin cloaks, and all our boomerangs, and all our spears, and all our bones that are in filing cabinets, in white-fellow buildings around the world. I would love to know my own lingo…

Audience Member

[inaudible]

Kutcha Edwards

I suppose it would. My brother has studied genealogy and Canberra. I would love to speak in my language. I would love to sit here and sing every lyric in my native tongue, but... pardon? Well, come back in five years. Is that when they’re coming back? Come back in five years and I will have all my lyrics hopefully interpreted. You know, I could get it interpreted into my tongue, but it wouldn’t be mine? Yeah, that’s what I’m saying. I could probably... like the young fella who was sitting here before. I can sing a song in Chinese, I have learned to sing a certain song in Chinese, and it is a shame for me to say that I can sing in Chinese and not my own lingo. I was forced to speak this tongue here, and it was all I was taught as a child.

Audience Member

Are there any like Aboriginal people like in politics? Are you represented in the government?

Kutcha Edwards

In the Australian political scene, there have only been two indigenous politicians. One being Senator Neville Bonner. He was back in the late ’70s, he is now passed, and there was a guy just recently, Aden Ridgeway. He was in the Democrats I think. They are the only two politicians in the history of politics here in Australia. Now, the reality of that is that would the wider Australian community ever sit and let a black man represent them at the round table? I don’t think so.

Audience Member

Are you still denied of maybe some rights, certain rights, I mean today?

Kutcha Edwards

I would say yes. We are denied land rights. Why do we have to prove to the visitor of this country that it is ours? You know what I mean? Why do we have to go to the High Court of Australia to get a piece of paper to say that this is our country, and always was, and always will be? It seems hypocritical to me to do so. At least in South Africa, the majority of people with this color, to turn the tables… sweet brother, sweet.

I suppose, I am going to be involved in a concert on the 27th and 28th of October at the Melbourne Concert Hall, where I think it’s about 25 songwriters, indigenous, Aboriginal songwriters are coming together, not to collaborate, but to perform pieces that have been performed as struggle, as freedom songs here in Australia in a concert called Black Arm Band, and to give a different, I suppose, genre to the music that we are used to hearing. I have written a piece specifically for this concert. A song called “Is This What We Deserve.” A song that explains why do we deserve the deal that we’ve been dealt. In answering that question, it would be great if we could get ... But I think Hugh Masekela is actually coming over for this concert, to perform “Free Nelson Mandela,” that song, at this concert. We would love to sit with people like Snoop and musicians of that caliber, who are well-known right around the country, around the world, the globe, to sit and maybe collaborate and maybe do stuff like that.

The opportunity is not there. They fly in, do their shows, fly out. We would love for people to understand the plight when they come to Australia and sit with us, but they sit with the promoters and whoever, and it’s hard. It’s hard to even get your foot in the door.

I would love to, brother. I would to do it. I would love to see that happen, but you know ...

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

I mean, obviously there’s no simple answer for this, but what, in your estimation, would it require for Aboriginal people to reach the equality that is desired?

Kutcha Edwards

All it needs is opportunity, really. It comes back to that. If Paul didn’t come here two weeks ago, Paul Kelly I’m talking about. If Paul Kelly didn’t come here two weeks ago to put the thought in the mind to talk to Wolf, to get to talk to me. It’s about opportunity. It’s about me, when I get here, and when I have got here, to hopefully plant the seed, drop a stone in the middle of the pond. The effects will be felt. What is that saying? The butterfly effect.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

The ripple effect?

Kutcha Edwards

Yeah.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Is there anything you want to say, I guess towards conclusion here, about everybody’s opportunity here, as far as what they’re expressing. I mean, everybody’s doing their own thing. They’re expressing themselves in whatever ways that fits them, but it may not be a political voice. You talk about opportunity. You want to address that at all, as far as opportunity to be heard by other people?

Kutcha Edwards

Yeah. Can I sing a song?

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Of course.

Kutcha Edwards

It’ll explain. Like I said, I lost my brother last September. September 9th. I went back to my traditional lands, back up in New South Wales. We believe that, when somebody passes, whether they’re two days old or 90 years old, that they become ancestors. They become our spiritual guidance, our ancestors. I went back to country. I went back to country to mourn properly. To let my brother… I suppose, feel him properly. On traditional country, spiritual country. My mother, my mother in passing in June, she had fought the fight to the very end, and passed away. I got a phone call. She passed away on the June 5th. I got a phone call at about 8 AM that morning, and they said I had to travel nearly two-and-a-half, three hours to Gippsland, to the hospital. She passed away at ten o’clock that night, but we waited and waited and waited for the oldest brother to turn off the machine.

I wrote this song that I’m going to sing two days after she passed, and I sung it at her funeral. This is what, I suppose, songwriting is, for me. Songwriting for me is more than just words slapped on a bit of paper. It’s a tribute to my mother for being… If it wasn’t for her, if it wasn’t for her fight against something she believed was wrong, I would have been lost to that assimilation policy, which put me in the homes to take me away from her and my father in the first place.

I wouldn’t be sitting here expressing my knowledge or my belief in knowledge of who and what I am. I would have been lost to the assimilation policy. I sing this song in tribute to my mother and any other mother who has had to deal with what she had to deal with. I thank you for the opportunity guys, but I’ll sing this. I’ve got a gig to go to tonight anyway. Yeah.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

What is the title of this song?

Kutcha Edwards

This song is called ... My nephew, my nephew Shannon. Like I said before, I’m one of 12 kids – 12 children, and I’m ninth youngest. My nephew Shannon, he is my second eldest sister’s first son. My mother, his grandmother, reared him up since he was a little tiny kid. My sister, because of, I suppose, having to deal with what we had to deal with, couldn’t ... When you’re not taught how to love, or if you haven’t been loved, you find it hard to give love.

My sister is one of those people who, rather than… Yeah, she gave her son to my grandmother to look after. Her son to his grandmother, my mother. My nephew lent over my mother, so he is practically the 13th child. He lent over his nan when all the machines were turned off, and he saw that she was struggling to breathe, and he looked at her and he said, “Nan, just go to sleep. We know you’re tired, just go to sleep.” That resonated. I remembered that. The song’s called “Tired Eyes.”
(music: Kutcha Edwards – “Tired Eyes” / applause)

Her name was Mary Lou. Mary Edwards.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

I’ll say thanks to Mr Kutcha Edwards.

Kutcha Edwards

Thank you. Thank you.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Appreciate it. Unless anybody has any more questions they want to ask him?

Kutcha Edwards

If that gives you a bit of an idea of who I am and where I come from, I thank you guys. Thank you.

Audience Member

Thank you for that beautiful song. When Paul Kelly was here, you mentioned the Dreamtime, and I don’t believe I know anything about them. Could you explain?

Kutcha Edwards

The Dreamtime?

Audience Member

Is it time?

Kutcha Edwards

Dreamtime. It’s like, to try and explain it is, have you ever seen that movie? I think Val Kilmer’s in it. It’s a movie, but I’m trying to associate how to explain it. He is a Native American, and he’s working for the FBI. He has to go back and try and work out how these murders occurred in this Indian community. In going back to this indigenous Indian community, he sits and talks with this old uncle, old fella, old Native American fella.

He also talked about shapeshifting, how the indigenous American Native people shapeshift. They can become the wolf or the eagle or the crow, and they can shapeshift into this animal. To us, to explain it in, when we pass, when we go to what you call heaven. You might call it heaven or wherever it is, we go to the Dreamtime, and we become the totem that we are given, as Aboriginal people. That is, to try and explain it, that is our belief as traditional peoples of this country. We go to the Dreamtime. Trying to say we go to heaven or hell, but as indigenous people we go to the Dreamtime.

We have messages from the other side every day of our lives. It’s how we interpret their messages as to how we can deal with… I don’t want to sound coy or try and sound as if I am bullshitting, talking crap, but there are messages every day in certain things that the environment does. One of them is that, when a willy wagtail flashes in front of your face or annoys you to the point where you’ve got to shoo it away, that willy wagtail is sending you a message that somebody very close to you has passed.

That has occurred to me a lot lately. If that can explain that question, I hope it has.

Audience Member

[Can you explain] song lines?

Kutcha Edwards

The song line.

Audience Member

Yes.

Kutcha Edwards

Yeah, what I am doing here today is my song line, my destiny. Somebody’s song line is practically their destiny. There is a reason and a purpose for everything that we do. Singing about why the weather is the way that it is or why that tree sits where it sits or why the rocks are formed in that way is… Traditional people will sing about that, and that is their song line, because they are singing of their country, of their way of life. Does that explain that? Yeah, cool.

Well anyway guys, thanks for the opportunity.

[Applause]

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Give it up one more time for Kutcha Edwards please. Thank you.

Kutcha Edwards

Thank you.