In this current egomaniacal era of hip-hop, when Kendrick Lamar and Drake are stamping their feet over who the better rapper is and when Jay-Z compares being called a “capitalist” to the N-word, it is almost reassuring to have a potent reminder of the incendiary power of rap for a greater good – from a furious little Australian album.
Dobby, the Murrawarri-Filipino drummer and rapper (he calls himself a “drapper”), has put out what might be the most genuinely radical hip-hop album of the year, titled Warrangu: River Story, which is about the degradation of the Murray-Darling Basin. But the 30-year-old – real name Rhyan Clapham – doesn’t view his strangely brilliant, pedagogic album as a step that far from the millionaire rappers in their mansions, high on their own supply.
