Creator Tales

Aurora is a Meanjin based Arrernte-Afro-Carribean multidisciplinary artist. Her music (SOLCHLD), spoken word poetry, performance and playwriting explored the liminal space she occupies in her experience. Addressing themes such as identity, decolonisation, healing, home and relationships. Aurora maps the journey as she walks it, offering the lessons learnt along the way.

A podcast from Kaju Creative, Hosted by Dylan Prins

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Sitting down this week is Rudy Matoy - a being who’s dedicated his life to healing through many forms but mostly through singing and song writing. From the guidance of his old people Rudy has found himself travelling whilst weaving together language to help him communicate to a broader audience of people and their experiences. Through his music he hopes to apply these lessons and reflect in people the importance of healing through love and 'innerstanding'. We go deep and wide in this episode and have some profound reflections. Rudy's debut single, LOST is out now. 

Stream LOST here.

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Navin Kirubairajah was uprooted from Malaysia as a 16 year old and dropped into Pauline Hanson era South East Queensland along with his family. Despite this, he experienced a warm welcome in Logan where multiculturalism was still new and novel at the time. After going down the conventional south asian path in finance, he took a turn into startups then a COVID pause led him into Sustainable Transport and Micro Mobility.

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Huda the Goddess is the 2022 Australian Poetry Slam Champion and the subject of the Kaju Creative Documentary "Black Word Rising" which is currently in post production. In this episode, we get a sneak peak into how she never planned to win and deep dive into the journey of being on tour and some of the challenges portrayed in the film. This episode largely plays out as a monologue, as sometimes the only response you can have to Huda is finger snaps or a smiling nod. We end things with an equisite improvised poem that sums up the themes of the conversation. 

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Today we sit down with Chris Jay - a Reggae Soundsystem founder, community event organiser and facilitator who moved here from the UK many years ago. Chris talks me through a history of soundsystem culture, reggae music, and spins a few vinyls in the conversation including the first record he ever made, back in 1994.

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Today we sit down with David Raj Lawrence, a Drum and Bass DJ and mixed media artist based here in Meanjin. We find out what the mixed heritage diasporic experience was like for him in three different countries and what I enjoyed about this conversation was that we got to challenge each other's comfort zones. A content warning, discussions of racism here include the use of racist slurs, in the context of retelling experiences and examining internalised racism.

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Today we sit down with Kalpana Prasad, a Dancer and movement facilitator based here in Meanjin, we learn about the depths of creating a major work for Brisbane Festival, we dive deep into whitewashing and brown identity - she teaches me about snapchat, and Kalpana shows that us brown dudes - we’ve got a lot to answer for.

Today we sit down with Siki Daha, an artist largely know for his music, but who wears many hats with ease. We find what it’s like to not find yourself represented in an industry which wants to put you in little boxes to make you palatable for mass consumption, and also tap into the challenges of doing it your own way. We have a special guest in this episode, which is a neighbourly angle grinder that popped up just after we hit record. Enjoy.

A podcast from Kaju Creative