In an exclusively commissioned performance featuring a 10-piece band and specially-made visuals, Ziggy Ramo Burrmuruk Fatnowna will present his debut album, Black Thoughts, in a live-streamed performance from the Sydney Opera House on Saturday 29 August 2020.
The performance will be presented as part of the Sydney Opera House’s From Our House to Yours digital season as a hip-hop reckoning through love, compassion, dispossession and systemic racism envisioned for listeners from all walks of life.
Sydney-based hip hop and freestyle artist Ziggy Ramo’s full-length album Black Thoughts was completed in 2015 and then personally shelved for five years. It is an opus that journeys through collective trauma and spiritual renewal that was released in response to this year’s global Black Lives Matter movement to critical acclaim.
“When I wrote this album I didn’t think I’d be alive to see it released,” said Ziggy Ramo. “It’s surreal to think that I’ll now get to put this message on such an iconic stage. I’m humbled to be allowed to share my story on Gadigal Country. I hope this performance can create further conversations that Australia needs to have. Always was, always will be Aboriginal land.”
A fiercely rapped reflection of Ramo’s pain and passion for unity while weaving a rich tapestry of Aboriginal Songline traditions, Ramo has reimagined the album into a multimedia performance featuring brass, strings and a full live band, augmented by newly commissioned animated illustrations by Kamsani ‘Kam Barni’ Bin-Salleh (2018 WA Young Person of the Year).
Ziggy Ramo – an artist whose political lines and personal life blur into an iconoclastic voice reminiscent of Bob Dylan, Nina Simone, The Clash and Archie Roach – brings to life a powerful new statement of vulnerability and force through the global language of rap in a uniquely commissioned live performance that will make you smile, dance, cry and hold onto your community through the interweaving terrors of COVID-19 and colonial history.
Ramo’s releases include debut EP Black Thoughts (2016), as well as singles Same Script (2017), YKWD (2017), A to Z (2018) and Pretty Boy (2019). In 2017, Ramo picked up West Australian Music (WAM) titles for Indigenous Artist of the Year and Hip Hop Artist of the Year, as well as triple J Unearthed Artist to Watch. He followed up with explosive live performances at Splendour in the Grass and Falls Festival in 2018.
Ziggy Ramo’s Black Thoughts will be live-streamed from the Joan Sutherland Theatre – Sydney Opera House on Saturday 29 August 2020 – 9.00pm. For more information, visit: www.sydneyoperahouse.com for details.
Image: Ziggy Ramo – courtesy of Sydney Opera House