Rising hip hop talent Danzal Baker aka Baker Boy makes his way to the stages of Woodford Folk Festival from the remote Northern Territory community of Milingimbi.
“I grew up with a mad passion for dance,” Danzal says.
“I got into rapping late last year and now I’m pretty much Baker Boy as a rapper, dancer and performer.”
Danzal already has music in his blood, being related to the emerging musicians Gawurra and Yirrmal and is known as ‘the fresh new prince’ in Arnhem Land. He has also made his own, significant cultural impact by being the first to rap in his native dialect of Yolngu Matha.
“I wanted to do something different and something that I wanted to do in my way and not be someone else because otherwise it’d be a challenge. The best thing you can do is be yourself and do something different.”
On his track ‘Cloud 9’, Danzal uses the language of his ancestors to elucidate what he’s been through, even as a young man, to get to where he is today.
Coming from a remote community and having experienced how isolating it can be, Danzal says the song is a celebration of how far he’s come. “'Cloud 9' is pretty much all about being strong, not being tamed and being a leader,” he says.
“There are some other things as well, like I say ‘I’ve been through all this but I kept going, you couldn’t stop me’.
"For me personally, I went through racism and finding it hard to live in the city as well; all of that stuff. I fought through it and it’s about being on cloud nine.”
Originally a dancer, and now having made the crossover into rapping and hip hop production, Danzal uses his creativity as a force for good and works with children in remote communities to encourage a positive approach to education as a way to better themselves.
“There’s not much happening in remote communities, especially when it comes to opportunities,” he says.
“There’s pretty much nothing there so it’s hard to see young kids graduating school in a remote community and trying to get out.
“It’s hard for them to get somewhere they want to be, but staying in school is important and my role is to tell them if they stay in school, get an education, learn more that that knowledge is power; you can end up going outside remote communities and exploring the world, taking the next step.”
Danzal is determined to take his music as far as he can go, with dreams of one day soon being able to tour the world. For now though, he has a number of shows before the end of the year including a performance at Woodford Folk Festival.
“It’s really unexpected and it’s amazing, so I’m getting pumped,” he says.
Danzal currently has two singles out under the Baker Boy moniker, ‘Cloud 9’ and ‘Marryuna’, which features Yirrmal.
Next year, Danzal hopes to build on this year’s success by doing more shows and working on his next release. “I’d like to play a lot of festivals, that’d be amazing,” he says, “perform alongside a lot of amazing, talented people and hopefully have an album out.”
