Hip-hop artist Kween G: Making 'the right kind of trouble'

WHEN Marrickville-based hip-hop artist Kween G saw her band's name on a festival billing alongside some of the American hip-hop artists she idolised as a child, she knew she was on the right path.

"It was like a dream come true and it was confirmation to us that we were doing the right things," she tells the Inner West Review. "The reason I do what I do is I know I can express myself and take difficult conversations and have them through art - it's easier to understand and more palatable. Art and activism go hand in hand and art can inspire policy."

After a bit of a break from full-length releases, in April this year Kween dropped her latest EP - Sensible Rebel - which she completed with the help of an independent artist grant from the Inner West Council. She celebrated the release with a big launch party at Lazybones Lounge and Grill in Marrickville, where she performs regularly as part of AfroMbollo - an African fusion band put together by Senegalese percussionist Yacou Mbaye.

"Sensible Rebel is something I'd been working on for some time, the title came from my good sister Nancy Denis who describes me as a sensible rebel - because I do very rebellious stuff but a good kind of rebellion. I make good trouble. I go out and challenge systems and ask questions about why things are the way they are," Kween said.

"That's the way I see things, any kind of positive change you have to rebel in some form and go against the grain and challenge the status quo. I'm not the things I'm expected to be, I'm a stereotypical Ugandan girl because I've grown up here and faced my own challenges."

Kween - now 36 - was born in Uganda and spent her early years there before coming to Australia in 1991 with her brothers when her father was granted political asylum. Her formative years were spent in Western Sydney watching hip-hop video clips on TV with her brothers and freestyle-rapping with her friends.

"I'm the only girl in my family so I grew up in a very masculine environment - and I take some of those qualities on myself. My older brothers got me into hip-hop music. When we were listening to hip-hop when we first came to Australia we saw other black people, so for us it was something we could relate to," she said.

When it came time to leave home, coming to Marrickville felt like a natural move for Kween who'd been connected with the community since her childhood.

"I've been coming here since I was about 10, dad used to take us to the Addison Road Community Centre. All the huts had different multicultural communities and there was an African hut there - on the weekend they'd have gatherings and drumming and dance," she says.

"Addi Road really gave me a feel of the community vibe - I just have an attraction to the area too, I love the food and the shops - and when I first started coming here it felt like a place where you could do things and produce things."

With so many live music venues and independent recording studios, Marrickville seems a natural fit for a musician as well. Kween describes her music as "rebellious, lyrical, hip hop" which is "consciousness raising". As well as the American hip hop acts like Lauryn Hill and Queen Latifah she saw on MTV growing up, Kween has also taken inspiration from the types of music that were popular in Africa when she was growing up like Soukous, a kind of dance music from Congo.

"Lauryn Hill stuck out for me because it was the first lyrics I wrote. She had this song called Zion on her album The Lost Ones and there was just something about that song," Kween says.

"I remember writing down the lyrics from a tape, I'd pause the song, listen to a word, write it down. When I finished writing it down and I looked back and I recited it, it made me want to write my own lyrics about my own life."

Sistarhood of the Killaqueenz

Kween shot to the spotlight in the noughties as one half of hip hop duo Killaqueenz. She and Belizean Bombshell, who she met when they both performed in African dance troupes at the closing ceremony of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games, toured Australia on the festival and club circuit and even graced stages abroad in New York and Belize. They released their first album Sistarhood through Central Station Records in 2009.

"At the time I don't think we actually realised it but we achieved a lot of firsts - we were the first African female MCs performing in a lot of spaces which were usually dominated by white males. We wouldn't see many other people of colour, especially from an African background, so we felt like we had to represent and be visible so other people can come through and do it," says Kween. "We were challenged a lot, and we had to prove ourselves a lot. But it was fun."

One of Kween's most memorable performances from her Killaqueenz days was the Good Vibrations festival in 2010 which saw the pair billed alongside American hip hop artists they had listened to growing up.

"That festival is the best festival ever, and that year we toured with Salt-N-Pepa, Busta Rhymes and Naughty By Nature. We got to meet them and hang out with them and we gave them our album. I was like, 'how the heck did this happen?'," she says. "When I left high school to pursue music I was so unsure that I'd be able to meet people who could put me in these places."

2010 also saw Kween's work within the community acknowledged and she was awarded Young Citizen of the Year by the former Marrickville council. Away from the stage, Kween was putting in hours at Addi Road giving back to the community she called home.

"As a teenager I spent a lot of years at Radio Skid Row and I eventually went to work there in the capacity of station manager. Community radio, in general, something I found connection to because it was a space that allowed local hip-hop and R&B to be played, any time.

"I don't talk about it much - but with my upbringing I could have gone a really different way and done some hectic stuff. I had to really fight to not follow some of the bad examples around me. But music and radio saved me. It kept me busy, I was too busy to go out and make trouble."

The importance of Addi Road

Fast forward, and Kween - now a mother of two - is still involved with Addi Road. She joined the board of directors for the organisation in 2020.

"There's always a reason for me to be down at Addi Road. As I got older it was a place that meant a lot to me. Being a part of the board has been a really good experience, I've learned a lot. Addi Road has definitely been a place that makes sure - even though the area is changing - that those things that make the area what it is, around grassroots activism and community building, can keep going."

One of the campaigns Kween has been instrumental in as a member of Addi Road is the #RacismNotWelcome campaign which was created in partnership with the Inner West Multicultural Network. The campaign was personal for Kween whose daughter, Yaa - now 7, was told by a group of girls on her first day of preschool she couldn't play with them because she was brown.

Independent councillor Pauline Lockie, who has faced her own experiences with racism being part Indonesian, brought a motion to council to erect 50 #RacismNotWelcome street signs across the inner west in November 2020. Only one councillor voted against the motion, claiming "there is no racism in the inner west".

"People think racism doesn't exist here, but we've got stories. The campaign won't end racism but it's a conversation starter - the community may seem inclusive for you, but it's not inclusive for many and it's important for us to be aware that there are people who feel excluded," says Kween.

"If anyone feels that the Racism Not Welcome signs are pointing a finger at them then that's something to think about. It doesn't say 'you're racist' and if that's how you read it then maybe you should ask yourself if you hold some racial biases in your heart that you need to address."

Never one to shy away from the difficult conversations, Kwen has also been vocal in her opposition to overdevelopment and gentrification. While the inner west is proud of its diverse community, Kween says many marginalised people have been pushed out of the area by soaring housing prices.

"When I moved here about 15 years ago it was a really affordable area. I remember the first apartment I lived in which was a two-bedroom apartment, right next to the station. I think we paid like $300. Marrickville was a really diverse place - every nationality was here - but gentrification and overdevelopment has really whitewashed the area. Who can afford to live here now? Who can afford the kind of prices we see? Not first-generation migrants or single parents," she says.

"These conversations are hard to have but it is very important because it helps us to understand the landscape we're in. And the reason why I speak out about this kind of stuff is for the children, I always think about the future generation. It won't go away if we're quiet about it."

Messages of hope

Through her music, Kween hopes to not only foster discussion about difficult topics but also create a sense of solidarity with women around the world. Her latest single The Light, which features vocals from American artist Drea, encapsulates this vision.

"The Light is a song that I wrote during the last two years of lockdown. The song talks about the amount of bitterness in the world at the moment and the effects of colonisation and how it still has impacts today - there are lines about displacement, violence and imprisonment. But it also has a message of hope, that we must carry on and keep rising, regardless of what goes on," she says.

"The video's produced by someone else I grew up with, Thriller Vision, and it features a beautiful sister from Afghanistan who fled to Australia with a group of 15 girls. She is in the video alongside Drea, who is actually from Alabama which is really impacted by the overturning of Roe v Wade. It's about a global sisterhood, and putting aside our individual issues and being part of the human race."

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