Reviewed on Saturday September 10
“Words with hate have power” poet Sukhjit tells the crowd early in the night. Unabashed in her exploration of being a Sikh woman in Australia, her words are brash yet warm. She speaks not to the crowd, but with them, as if the few dozen faces are old friends she would rather have a chat with than perform to. At one point she asks everyone to click their fingers when they are moved by her words; she wants the crowd to feel with her. Unsurprisingly, there are finger clicks after her every verse. Her voice has opened up the room.
Queanbeyan rapper Omar Musa introduces his hit ‘Dead Centre’ as a song ‘for those who are made to feel we’re on the fringes, on the margins, the outsiders … when really we are at the dead center”. A beautiful collision of storytelling in all its spoken forms, Musa’s performance features sharp, politically-charged lyrics, an exceptional DJ and throbbing beats. He and guest performer Hau Latukefu, rapper and host of triple j’s hip hop program have an incredible, infectious energy that can’t be captured in a studio recording.
Newtown Social Club is buzzed and wriggling when Western Sydney’s L-Fresh The Lion and his accompanying emcee take the stage. As the two perform tracks off L’s new album, Become, the air is alive with protest and passion. L-Fresh’s musings between songs are thoughtful and he proves understated and without ego. He is real in everything he says and does onstage in a way that so many are not.
“People have tried to make me simplified and watered down and placed in boxes,” L tells the crowd. “But as an artist, it’s my duty to give you the full picture.” L-Fresh performs his ‘full picture’ well, jumping and dancing with a smile on face to the jangly Bollywood-inspired chorus of ‘Get Mine’, before breaking into the scathing commentary contained within ‘Hold Up’, even taking the time to cite his mother as one of his biggest inspirations.
Refusing to be one-dimensional, it’s L-Fresh’s raw honesty that has every person in the room raising their index finger for his debut hit ‘One’. This feeling of unity stays with the crowd until the very last song, where L gets everyone to sing in Punjabi – possibly a Newtown first.
