When Yorta Yorta rapper Adam Briggs heard that both the NSW premier and education minister were criticising the playing of a track by fellow artist Birdz in a primary school this week, he had two thoughts. First: “Sick. Birdz is gonna get way more streams.
I hope it puts him back in the charts!” And second: “What is it, 1991? If there’s any way of showing how far behind Australia is, leave it to the premier of NSW to put us on the map ...
It’s not like it’s Ice-T’s Cop Killer .” Rapper Adam Briggs: “Anything that paints Australia in a bad light is always going to be controversial.” Credit: Edwina Pickles The song that made headlines is Bagi-la-m Bargan : a 2020 hit featuring Butchulla songman Fred Leone, co-written with Trials, who forms half of A.
B. Original with Briggs. It was originally made for the critically acclaimed NITV documentary Looky, Looky Here Comes Cooky .
It was ranked number 30 in Triple J’s Hottest 100 that year. Told from the perspective of a Butchulla warrior watching Captain Cook roll into shore, the song was being used instead of a school bell in the lead up to, and during, Reconciliation Week, in a public primary school in Sydney’s south before an anonymous parent complained to 2GB (the radio station, like this masthead, is owned by Nine). The father said he felt the song’s lyrics – which call Cook a “white devil” and “murderer without licence” – were inappropriate and led to his son asking him if there was “somet.