JPoint

JPoint is building up a strong body of work - and not just in the music world. 

The Indigenous emcee runs his own record label, produces music for other artists and has a string of releases under his belt. But he is also competing above the belt - by entering his first body-building contest. For JPoint, it's been a transformation.

"I was 125 kilos, so I was really overweight," says the 33-year-old. 

“But I just set small goals every week, I’d go for a kilo or whatever.”

The rapper, from Innisfail in Far North Queensland, shed nearly a third of his weight to get down to just 85 kilos.

“Right now I’m up to 94, 95, because I’ve been bulking up,” says the emcee, who is looking a little more stubbled and relaxed than he did in his sinew-and-singlet rap performance in Sydney a few months earlier.

“But I’m about to change my diet again and cut up so I can be ripped. I was going to compete last year, but I tore the muscle in my neck. I couldn’t move my arm for a while so it really put a halt on everything, but this time, this June, this year, coming up, I’ll grace the stage. I’ll be closer to 80 kilos, but I’ll look like 100. You end up looking bigger when you’re cut. You’ll see.”

He chuckles quietly, but he does not take body-building lightly - it has helped lift a great weight off his shoulders. As he raps on his debut album, Eklectic Methodz:

Society put me in a chamber
Threw away the key for my bad behaviour

And:

The casual listener might think he’d been jailed, but he is rapping about a prison of his own making.

"When I was in my 20s I was overweight and didn’t have a job, didn’t really have money," he explains. 

“I was caring for my grandfather, which was cool, but I felt like I wasn’t really doing anything with my life and I was just wasting away. In Innisfail you just drink and when the weekend comes it’s like big benders and everyone just drinks their lives away and gets up to maniac stuff.”

Innisfail is famous for it. When Cyclone Larry devastated the fruit-producing town in 2006, former deputy mayor George Pervan was quoted on commercial radio asking southern Queenslanders to "send up a truckload of piss so we can all get fucking drunk". JPoint felt he was trapped.

“I guess I was blaming society,” he says. 

“I felt like they had put me there and had forgotten about me. But that's just being a young man and not really having the clarity or the vision to see what you could become. I just kind of blamed the world, you know, for being bad. I put myself in a chamber and blamed society for doing it, but it was myself, just having so much self-hate. When you’re in a destructive mode, you just feel like you’re in a dark place. There’s no light and you just can’t help anyone.”

Now, the rapper is helping young men who are imprisoned for real, at Cleveland Youth Detention Centre.

“I moved to Townsville when my grandfather passed away, four years ago,” he says. 

“I started making songs back when I was in Innisfail, but coming here opened up more opportunities for me. I started working at the detention centre straight away, like three months after I moved here. My mate Johnny Row, he was making tracks with the juveniles, and then I took over.

“So that in turn helps me with my writing - my writing’s really evolved, my music and my beat-making, because I’m making songs every day with the boys, that’s my full-time job. Some of them have been there for a long time, as long as me, because there are boys who reoffend all the time. It’s sad but it’s also good, you know. It’s really rewarding to build these relationships. They’re like little brothers to me, so I end up falling in love with them, you know, like in a big brother way. So I’ve gone from being in a chamber to being an idol for young boys at my work.”

His idol claim is no idle boast. It seems JPoint was the only Aboriginal artist to feature on Obesecity 2, the latest compilation from hip-hop heavyweight label Obese Records, with his track “Super Fly Aboriginal”.

His second self-produced album is due out on his own label, for which he designed the eye-catching logo after professional graphic designers could not quite get it right. He is planning a national tour. He makes an ideal idol.

"There's a lot of little clones coming out of Cleveland, which is funny, but I try to tell them, 'Don’t replicate me. I’m flattered, but just be yourself.’"

As with his weight-lifting, he realises the gravitas of the graft. 

“I have some guidelines,” he says. 

“I tell them you’ve got to tell your story and even some kids will come in and use the word ‘nigger’. It doesn’t happen that much, but when it does I tell them straight away: ‘Back home, do you use that word around your family? Do you really use it around your friends all the time? It’s a terrible word and it’s not our word anyway.’

“So straight off the bat I say back to them the words that they would use, like ‘bala’ or ‘sissy’ or ‘cuzzy’ or ‘cuz’ or ‘bruz’, you know, things that you use every day. Then I’ll go back to: ‘Do you use “nigger”? Because to be honest, that’s not a word you use.’ They kinda understand straight away. I say: ‘Look, just tell your own story, tell it how you see it and people will think that’s cool.’ And it ends up being cool and they end up changing, you know. But I’m not forcing them. I’m just letting them know it’s cool to be themselves and they don’t have to put up a front.”

On his track “Hip-Hop’s Destruction”, JPoint gives a bum rap to rappers who put on a false front. The track brings to mind a quote from one of the founding fathers of hip-hop, DJ Kool Herc: "To me, hip-hop says, ‘Come as you are.’ We are a family. It ain’t about security. It ain’t about bling-bling. It ain’t about how much your gun can shoot. It ain’t about $200 sneakers. It is not about me being better than you or you being better than me. It’s about you and me, connecting one to one.”

JPoint agrees. 

“The real hip-hop is people see a way of telling their stories or it’s a way of expression,” he says. 

“But then there’s the other hip-hop. So there’s the pure speaking your heart or letting people know what your story is and just telling the truth. And then there’s this other thing where people see it as a way to make money and it’s such a Catch-22. It’s not that easy - because everyone can make a song and the internet’s just blown it wide open - to kind of come back to being yourself.

“Just tell your story, don’t try to wear a mask, like saying you’re this high-flying millionaire type. There are people who can do it, like Flo-Rida and stuff, but when there are other rappers, like, locally, who try to portray that gangster image, it just doesn’t work. People have wised up to what real is, so they respect you if you just tell your stories and what you know. They respect your music and they want to get involved in it, but if you’re going to become something that you’re not and play this role - and especially a negative one at that - that time’s kind of passed.

“I guess it just comes back to role models and the guys who are portraying stuff - younger people want to become them and rap like them, and it’s just not viable.”

One of JPoint's hip-hop heroes, Tupac Shakur, reflected both sides of hip-hop. But JPoint has grabbed one of Tupac’s grittiest tracks, "Brenda’s Got A Baby" and taken the lament for teenage mothers several steps further in “Brenda Had A Baby”.

“That’s my favourite Tupac song,” says JPoint. 

“It’s pretty personal and it’s pretty classic, but also because of the content, with the young girl having a baby and she’s got no help. That happens a lot. So I just wanted to elaborate, because the baby is the victim too, the mother dies.”

"I just wanted to explore it," says JPoint. 

“I don't know if Tupac was going to go back to it, but the baby goes through some bad stuff in my version, then it comes out good, the ending is good.”

She finds there are people pure in heart
Who’ve worked through adversity and chose the path
Of the righteous, they give her strength to succeed
The skills and abilities to chase her dreams
She’s a woman now and I believe she’ll survive
She walked through the flames and came out alive

“The whole thing with young mothers, that’s just a big problem,” says JPoint. 

“At my work in juvenile prison, even today, one of the boys, his girlfriend came and brought the new baby in to show him. And that happens a fair bit, it’s not like a one-off - these boys are fathers and they’re just kids themselves. It’s ridiculous.

“I’m happy for them because creating a life isn’t something to be frowned upon, it’s a beautiful thing, having a child, but then you feel for these kids - do they actually know what they’re getting involved in? It is life changes and it’s fun and games, but then they’ll leave and try to get a job and then they feel like there’s no option so they just resort back to crime and then they go to jail and then the child grows up with no father.

“I just wanted to kind of continue the story, it’s purely out of love for the song. I just wanted to see if I could make it go a bit longer and to kind of show there was a way for the little girl to get help and she breaks the cycle in a sense. They always want to try to fix these problems with the crime and youth and all that but it’s got to, you’ve got to go back a generation - or go back two if you have to - and fix the problem there. You can’t just… it’s like putting a band-aid on a big open gash, you know.”

On the same mixtape that contains “Brenda Had A Baby”, JPoint goes back a few generations in his own family and proves that sticking to your own story can be as rich a mine of material as any.

I spit words, verbs, paragraphs and pie graphs
But that's maths man? I’m just making you laugh
But get serious
Monster maniac hype original
NQ born, half-Malay Aboriginal
Terrorist! Bomb threat! Sound the alarm
And move to the exits before you’re harmed

"A lot of Aboriginals in Innisfail, they have Malay or Chinese blood in them, from the immigrants," says JPoint. 

“When I grew up, when I was only a little fella, my grandfather would teach me Malay and talk about his father - his dad was full Malay, from Malaysia, and his mum was Aboriginal. So I kind of carried that one.

“But if you come to Innisfail, the Aboriginals, you know, we have that same 'look’, that Asian-Aboriginal look. So I like to chuck it in there because I’m proud of being Aboriginal and being Malay. I’d say I identify more with Aboriginal, but in the later part of my life I really want to learn more and travel over there and try to reconnect with family and stuff. I’m trying to get back to both sides of my roots.”

South-east Asian trepang traders were bartering with Aboriginal people at the Top End of Australia long before they were colonised by Europeans.

“Yeah, the East Timorese,” says JPoint. 

“Especially one of the tribes somewhere, there’s a strong Aboriginal influence, so our people look like theirs and theirs look like ours - and that’s from back in the day trading women and stuff, so you’re not just breeding with the same people.”

That multicultural mix is reflected on the track that closes JPoint’s album, a showcase for the artists on his record label.

"I just wanted it to be unique and have some totally different perspectives," says JPoint. 

“Paddies, he's a Torres Strait man; I’m Aboriginal; Paulie, he’s half Aboriginal, half Torres Strait; Tha Rash, he’s Aboriginal-Malay; Johnny Row’s Caucasian, he’s Greek; the Baptist, his mother’s English and his dad was from Tuvalu; Stevie Mitchell - PBoy - he’s Aboriginal, his brother is Anthony Mitchell of The Cowboys [The North Queensland Cowboys rugby league team]; Robbie Gore, he’s Caucasian; DB’s Caucasian; Smizler, he’s Caucasian.

“I don’t see boundaries, my best mates are whitefellas or Filipino, everything. I personally just like to show all the guys who are on the label and they’re very diverse so that’s something very cool.”

Like a lot of his friends, JPoint - who was born John Edwards - did not know his own father. It’s why he named his record label “Northern Orphanz”.

“Me and Johnny Row, we created it,” he says. “In Innisfail where all of us boys hung out, we’ve got grandparents, all of us, and we have our mothers, but we never knew our fathers. So Johnny didn’t have a father, I didn’t have mine, a lot of my close mates didn’t know theirs. My cousin Joe, he just met his dad, like, three years ago. I had my grandfather and he basically raised me. I hardly dealt with my mum - I was at my grandfather’s all the time - so he raised me up, and I had good uncles. My grandfather was so awesome. He meant the world to me, you know.”

Naturally, JPoint was devastated to lose his grandfather, but he has had plenty of loss in his life, as laid out on his track “This Is Not Goodbye”.

I sit back, reminisce, think about you
Jason Dwayne Edwards, I think about you
Big brother, seven years senior to my age
Role model to a boy who was naked to the flames
Of a lifetime without you realm of the physical
The day you went away, mum was sad and hysterical
People are saying to me they've been where I’ve been
So they must have lost a brother at the age of 14
Damn, the whole event was a straight-up mess
There’s been a hit and run and we have no suspects
Police don’t care, another Murri man gone
But I love you brother Jay, in my heart, you live on

So as the years go by our family life rebuilds
But nothing stays the same, so something’s got to give
Then the news, three uncles lost at sea
They’ve sent a search party, have to wait and see
So I start to stress, consumed, anticipation
Out at the Ramsays’ place, that’s my relations
Silence, tears, then the phone makes a sound
Voice on the end, uncle Tim’s been found
That’s a miracle, feels like a state of relief
Catch my breath for a second and I start to believe
But there’s no second call and it never gets better
Shed a tear for my uncle Tommy and Uncle Edsa
I miss you, gentle and kind words with wisdom
But I was too young to sit down and listen
Hard head, but I grew, and I flipped my direction
Rearranged my path and I heed every lesson

Johnny Edwards, uncle, grandfather and dad
Many titles you held, the best friend that I had
Raised me up from birth, taught me right from wrong
Gave me shelter and love, kept me safe and warm
And for that I was grateful, overcome by love
You gave me sense and a purpose and that made me strong
A cornerstone in the family, foundation of rock
Even though there were loved ones, you cherished the lot
So when you needed my help, I put your life in my hands
I carried the weight 'cause I was proud of the man
Who gave me a gift I could never repay
'Cause your life was priceless, nothing more to say
So when the phone call came and they said you’d passed
And the walls came down and the world got dark
I was truly hit hard and it made me sad
To lose the life of a man I called grandad

"It was a very tough time for me as a young fella, losing my only brother," he says. 

“It was hard on my mum, she always carried that with her.”

But for JPoint, the pain keeps on coming. 

“She actually passed about two weeks ago, so I'm dealing with that right now. She had a lot of health problems. She didn’t want to stop smoking and had triple bypasses and all that.”

Indigenous Australians experience much higher death rates than the non-Indigenous Australians across all age groups and for all major causes of death, the federal government notes.

“Yeah, well, it does feel like I have a bad run with it,” says JPoint. 

“But with my mum she was diabetic, had heart problems, went for a triple bypass and then a quadruple one, she had a stroke about two and a half years ago.”

JPoint’s mother was just 59. Life expectancy for Indigenous Australians is still far lower than for non-Indigenous Australians - 11.5 years lower in 2005-07, the latest statistics available at the time of his mother's death. In some communities - such as Wilcannia, made famous for the Aboriginal hip-hop track "Down River" - life expectancy is as low as 37.

“You know, other people around her age - Indigenous - have passed away in the last three or four months as well,” says JPoint. 

“So there’s been a fair few funerals. There’s a funeral that we have to go to on Friday and then a week after is my mum’s. We had to delay hers just because there were other Indigenous people in her age group who were passing away, so it’s a big problem. You know, we’ve got to get on top of this - what the hell?”

On JPoint’s hook-laden heavy-hitter “Hip-Hop Head” he raps: “My life, I keep it simple like a bassline.” 

For the rapper, this is the key to health, and the key to life.

“I like to not make goals extravagant or big - so, small goals,” he says. 

“The distance is far, but the goals in between, there’s heaps of them, so I set simple goals every week. Keep it as simple as I can, keep my diet as simple as I can. My family have diabetes and heart problems, so that’s another reason why I had to start working out and just eating healthy. Even my music, keep it simple.”

He also sees the battle he had with his own health as like the battle against Aboriginal injustice - a topic he tackles to the ground in the seething “War and Rez”.

"You know all the Aboriginals that were killed just before the turn of the century," he says. 

“Massive tribes getting killed and stuff. Even up where I'm from, there’s a national park up there called Palmerston, and the guy [Christie] Palmerston who came into the Innisfail area and explored, he ended up getting some trackers from another area. But they went in and they gave gifts of, like, meat and stuff to the tribe up there and poisoned them - a whole heap of Aboriginals over at my place - and, yeah, they named a national park after him. My uncle, he’s up in Darwin, he did a whole thesis on it and it’s documented.

“With my family, like, my grandmother, she was under the Act. You know when Aboriginals couldn’t go from one place to another and they had to let the police know and they couldn’t have their own money and they had to be trading for rations and there was a lot of taking wages away and stuff like that?”

The Aboriginal Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act was used to strip Indigenous people of their human rights.

“It goes back to all that nonsense," says JPoint. 

“That’s in our bloodline as well, we have documents. My grandfather told me stories of people living on the outskirts of town, getting less money and all this other nonsense - expecting Aboriginal fellas to work the same, as hard, for half - even less - and then having policemen taking the money away and giving you some rice and flour or whatever and just... ah... it’s ridiculous. But we’re getting it back, we’re working on that.”

Just as he slowly won his battle with his demons, so he believes his people can win back their rights. The key is in taking it little by little, kilo by kilo, one rhyme at a time.

“The distance might be far, but so long as you’ve got small goals, just travel,” he says. “You get there eventually.”