(Read Part 1 of the interview series here.)

 Illustration by Geoffrey A Thorsen

DJARMBI SUPREME.

Tensions can arise when a young professional also wants to try their hand at art, especially when that art is their “outlet for all the dodgy shit [they] would love to be able to say everyday but they know isn’t politically correct”. Djarmbi Supreme is the pseudonym of a 29 year-old Aboriginal health education officer, who writes lyrics that would make most of his colleagues cringe, or at least reconsider whether this closet “sociopath” should remain in their email network. Although, that’s only because they view Djarmbi Supreme within the hospital that they work in and not from within the parallel universe where the self-described “cage rattler” exists.

“I’m a new-school version of Barry Humphries. Djarmbi Supreme is like Sir Les Patterson. He’s a concentration of all my sleaze-bag, outspoken instincts that I actually have. It’s an extension of me. It’s not me, but just an outlet for me to be able to produce exactly what my instincts are telling me to do and not wonder if it’s somehow going to affect me personally…”

MS: So you do the Djarmbi character so it doesn’t clash with your professional life?  DS: Yeah, that’s one of the big reasons I’m fairly anonymous. I try to make it clear that it’s just a stand-alone entity. Because of the work that I do I have to be able to retain a certain amount of respect socially, in the community and professionally. When I’m at work, I’m someone who people are supposed to listen to and trust my words and actions. I’m an educator. If they heard the music that I’m making as Djarmbi it would be really hard to retain any respect. It’s a technique of being able to have this outrageous personality as well as have this sensible professional career at the same time.

Professional wrestlers are not at home in costume smashing their kids over the couch. They are just regular people when they are off duty. That’s what it’s all about. Finding out how you can be an authentic artist or entertainer and just keeping it there. I still dip in and out of it. I’m on Twitter all day as Djarmbi Supreme but I’m still at work doing my stuff. I kind of get a thrill out of thinking I’m getting away with something. It’s an indulgence. I’m pretty vain in that regard.

You seem to want to elicit anger through the character Djarmbi Supreme. Where does your anger come from? 

There was a lot hard shit in my youth and teen years. I sort of battled a bit. I suppose I learnt how to express all that through other avenues instead of lashing out. I’ve seen my role models being not very good at doing that, which made me better at it.

Can you tell me about what happened with Andrew Bolt?

[Andrew Bolt] went to court and was found to be negligent in his journalism and was found to be a racist by law. Since then he has been attacking people and perpetuating the Darwinist theory that light-skinned Aboriginal people aren’t authentic and we’re sponges on welfare. Through his careful choice of words, he has basically got a whole army of ignorant people thinking that he is true and everything he says is gospel because it makes so much sense to them because they haven’t got enough education to know any better. He is sort of like Davros or something. He has all these little Daleks running around aiming their lasers at light-skinned Aboriginal people but they don’t have brains of their own to actually stand back and learn. They refuse to learn. So I wrote a fake open letter to him. It was a play on the fact that lots of people in the community were writing open letters to him and feeling like they had to elevate their language to reach his level. I was trying to make a point that we should be lowering our intelligence to communicate with him because he is such a fucking bottom-feeding, shit cunt. I took it down to the street level.

He’s trying to label me as a sponge because the work I do is government funded. Well, fuck. He is funded by Gina Rinehart. What’s worse? How can such extreme conservative thinking be mainstream and accepted? You asked me before about what makes me angry. That’s it. How does that get through the gates? People think they are scared and sitting in danger so they think we need to freeze Australia the way it is.

I’m interested. You are seemingly misanthropic at times but you also work in healthcare.

Well, I don’t hate humans. I’m just a fucking snob.

(Read the full interview below)I’m an extreme snob. So it doesn’t just extend to people suddenly loving Angus beef after having no particular connection to food whatsoever. I’m a snob in the social sense, but also in the sense that I just fucking hate people being dickheads and I’ve got really stern standards when it comes to how I think people should be. Like people being good. It doesn’t necessarily reflect my behaviour but the way I look at the world is in terms of social justice, anti conservatism, anti-racism and anti-protectionism and all the fucking ethics that are normal for Australian politics at the moment.

People are giving me material. They are just making it so easy to be a commentator. I used to have to go looking and pinpoint people, but now I can just turn on any commercial television program and just find someone who’s reflecting what I hate about society.

How did you come to work in healthcare?

It’s been like a transition. I dropped out of school at the start of year 11 and I just fucked around for ages; smoked heaps of weed, rode skateboards and did graffiti. I then went to art school for a few years, did screen-printing, had an epiphany and realised that I hadn’t contributed anything to the world, apart from some t-shirts and heaps of vandalism. I did fuck all and got jealous of people like my mum and my step-dad who were out there actually working to help other people and to create a better society. So, I jumped out of screen-printing where I was in a factory doing nothing and worked at an aboriginal boarding school out in Healesville, which inspired me to do things for other people. Some sort of mantra, or whatever, was like “if I’m good to other people then I’ll be good myself”. But really, it was just good work. It just feels nice to know you’re impacting positively on the world.

What do you think your kids will think about your music?

I don’t know. I just hope that rap music is really popular when they find out about it and try and learn what it is that their dad does. Like, if they know or have some level of respect for lyricism and for D.I.Y ethics and underground art in general, then I’m sure they’d have to be proud but I suppose they might be embarrassed.

I was thinking about that. You hate the ignorant and mainstream middle-class Australia, but you really like Neighbours? Why? I just love it because it’s a fish tank. It’s a postcard from Australia that gets updated five times a week. I don’t appreciate it for its artistic value or its social credit. It’s just this disgusting little white suburban snap shot. It’s intriguing. I hate so much about Neighbours, but that’s what keeps me going. I hate that there are no ethnic people on Neighbours but when there are, they just get kicked out straight away. I reckon I’d be a really good Neighbours writer. I’d love to be on Neighbours. I’d go in and kick some ass.

Your music seems funny – there is humour in it, even though there is anger in it as well. Does Djarmbi Supreme fit into Australian Hip Hop? What do you think of Aus Hip Hop?

I don’t think it should be a genre. I think Hip Hop in general should be totally genre-ised and people should just fit into slots. You can’t just call something ‘Hip Hop’. You can’t just say this is rap music in a barrel. Every rapper is as different as everyone’s thumb print. With Hip Hop, anyone with baggy pants or a sideways hat and a pair of Jordans just listens to all this shit? Nah, they don’t. Someone along the lines has tried to commercialise something that is impossible to commercialise completely.

There is a huge grey area where there are people like me. I’m not a rapper, but I do rap and I make rap music. I’m probably more of an author.

~

The Quandamooka traditional owner is working on a new concept album based on Alice Cooper’s album Alice Cooper Goes to Hell. It’s titled Djarmbi Supreme Goes to Hell. 

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