BONUS: Provocalz takes aim with fully-loaded album Only Built For Koori Linx

I'm staring down the barrel of a .38 Special revolver, nervously trying to remember the instructions on how to shoot it.

I'm trying to look as cool, calm and collected as possible.

Suddenly, an almighty bang erupts in my right ear, almost making my jump out of my lily white skin.

From the shooting gallery booth next door, I hear a faint chuckle. The laugh belongs to Provocalz, a Gamilaraay rapper who calls for Aboriginal people to stand up against police brutality - and shoot back in self-defence if necessary. He's invited me to his local gun range in Liverpool, south-west Sydney, to talk about his new album, Only Built For Koori Linx. 

On the 30-track album, featuring 20 other Indigenous emcees, Provocalz raps:

This is why I'm nervous.

I look round at the instructor, who saw me nearly knock my tray of bullets over as Provocalz fired his first round. The instructor shakes his head disapprovingly and points at the target. I take aim and squeeze the trigger as slowly and carefully as possible, hoping to redeem myself with a bullseye.

I miss.

Provocalz, who has plumped for a CZ 9mm automatic pistol developed in Communist Czechoslovakia, begins ripping through rounds at about the same rate he fires out albums - roughly four times as fast as everyone else. The target is shredded in no time.

As we walk back into the reception area, some new, timid-looking customers have arrived. An old, white guy behind the counter is regaling them with the story of "the first time" he got shot – a tale he must have told a thousand times. They laugh nervously.

Then the old guy says loudly: “How do you say 'Fuck you' in Lebanese?”

His workmate replies, as if he's never heard this one before: “I don't know – how do you say 'Fuck you' in Lebanese?”

The old guy grins and replies, in a heavy accent: “TRUST ME.”

Everyone laughs.

As Provocalz and I head for the door, the rapper says: “Welcome to Australia, where we crack racist jokes to break the ice.”

On his album track “Invasion Day”, which features dream-like music but nightmarish lyrics, he raps:

As we approach his car outside the gun range, he says: "Just being Aboriginal in Australia, whenever you meet a new person – myself anyway, I'm only ever speaking for myself – you're sort of expecting for them to say some fucked-up shit. You're like, 'Please don't be a racist!'

“I had a perfect example of that at my work. A truck driver came unloading his truck and he cracks a fucking full racist, fucking piece of shit joke about how only park benches can support fucking families instead of Aboriginals. The irony of it is, I'm at work supporting my family, I've got a wife and a kid, so I couldn't fucking jump all over his head. 

"I waited till no one was looking and took him up behind the back of the truck and said, 'You're lucky I don't punch your fucking head in, cunt.' He was gonna fucking cry and was shaking and shit, because he thought he could just say that shit with no consequence. It's fucked up. It's systemic, at every level of society, from the bottom to the top."

We get in his 1999 Commodore and drive past his childhood home, which has been sold, razed and replaced with the new occupants' McMansion.

“Too much fucking vacuuming, brah,” he jokes, then says ruefully: “Can't even fucking afford to live in Sydney no more.”

Sydney's average house price recently passed $1 million. The next most expensive city is Melbourne, at $660,000. Provocalz has had to move his family in with his mother after his landlord sold the house he was renting. His friends at Redfern's Aboriginal Tent Embassy have only recently won a 15-month battle to guarantee Aboriginal housing in the iconic Block.

He slips Koori Linx onto the car stereo and the words spill forth:

You might kill me, but you'll never kill the struggle
'Cause every muddy river started off as a puddle
Till it grew and grew and carved its way through the landscape
Providing life, providing freedom

We pull up at the wide, muddy George's River. We're 50 kilometres from the coast, but bright yellow signs warn of sharks. There's a memorial plaque for a girl who had both her hands gnawed off.

"That would have been a bull shark," says Provocalz. "They come right up. They'll play with you, fling you about a bit."

On his Koori Linx track “Raise Ya Fist”, recorded with fellow Gamilaraay rapper Dcuz, he raps:

Provocalz nods towards the river."I've seen sharks in here when I was a kid - just a fin. They stop at Liverpool supposedly, but if there's a flood, they'll go up."

In Australia though, you've got more chance of being killed by police than by a shark, as Provocalz is all too aware. The 1991 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody made 339 recommendations that remain largely unimplemented. Last year marked the 339th Aboriginal death in custody since the recommendations were made. 

If you're not Aboriginal and Provocalz scares you, consider what it's like to be constantly scared because you could be picked up by the police due to your race - and killed.

On the Koori Linx track “Shotgun Music”, recorded with Quandamooka rapper Djarmbi Supreme, Provocalz shoots back:

I'll put a spear through your shoulder, you can call me consequence
Take you deep into the bush and leave you there with no regrets
Never found, never seen, never heard from again
Buried with your gun and badge, right next to an ant's nest

"'Shotgun Music' was pretty much just an anti-police track," he says. “There's been all them killings happening and it's just giving some power to our people. Just a reaction to how they treat us, you know?”

Just metres from where Provocalz and I sit is the “Rage Of Curiosities”, an evil-looking sculpture dedicated to the colonisation of Australia. It looms like a huge, black flywheel with weapons flying off it – clubs, rifles, cat 'o' nine tails. 

The land we are on is named Garrison Point, so called because it was an outpost of the invading British army. This is the place where Provocalz grew up.

"They didn't come here and 'settle'," says the rapper. “They came here and had a war with us, you know? We went to war for our country and our land and our people.”

When Captain James Cook was sent to find Australia, the British did not want other nations to know what they were up to, so his official orders were to view the Transit of Venus in Tahiti. Little did Cook know that the Aboriginal people he was invading were also watching the skies.

“We were the world's first astronomers,” says Provocalz. 

“Gamilaraay, we talk about the stars being part of our lore and our dreaming. We even talk about one of the things like the Big Bang, gamilbidawaay, which is where we come from, before the big light. 

"We knew about eclipses way before Europeans ever found out about how it worked. We knew because of eclipses, that we revolve around the sun, because of that shadow cast when we're on the other side of it. It's just amazing how much knowledge and science is in our old cultures and lots of other indigenous cultures around the world.”

Provocalz's people, the Gamilaraay, read the Milky Way to determine when emus were laying eggs and even used the stars to navigate their way across the land. On the album track “Dreamtime Till Infinity”, he raps:

From the Dreamtime till infinity I'm thinking
With a free mind, put my body in a prison
Watch my spirit escape, not restrained by the system
I travel the Milky Way, there's no range to my vision

"That was just a flip on Souls Of Mischief's classic hip-hop track '93 To Infinity'," he says. “Just taking it all the way back, 'Dreamtime Till Infinity', from the start to the finish. And I just went into, 'You might be able to throw me in a cage, but mentally and spiritually I can go anywhere in the fucking universe I want.' Like you can do anything to us, but we're still free. You've got to have that mindset.”

The positive thinking came partly because Provocalz had an uplifting Murri emcee, GekkZ, guesting on the track.

“GekkZ has got good positive music, he's got good word play. I was trying to be positive with that track, because I'm usually such an angry cunt.”

The angry digs at non-Indigenous rappers come thick and fast on the album. But Provocalz even manages to take off on a celestial plane when dissing one of Australian Hip-Hop's biggest and most controversial stars, 360, on the track “Dominoes”:

When I talk about 360 ain't talking that metro cunt
Brah, I'm talking the degrees my thoughts revolve around the sun

“It's pretty much just talking about Australia and the Oz Hip-Hop crowd, we just line them up like dominoes and watch them fall, you know what I mean? Like they can't fuck with us. That's why I had that 360 line in there, like he's not even worth mentioning. You think I'm making a diss about him? Nah, I just dissed him by saying that, you know what I mean?”

But he also looks skywards on the track “Rize Up”:

Unite, my sisters, brothers, unite, we lift each other
Decolonise your mind, no more will our people suffer
So we build like structure, organise like conductor
Our father's the sun and the earth's our mother

“That's just back to nature,” says Provocalz. “Like have respect for nature. That's where we come from at the end of the day. This universe, we're a part of it, it's a part of us.”

Professor Roslynn Haynes, who wrote the book Explorers of the Southern Sky, says Aboriginal astronomy can help all people think about the intricate connections between living things and the environment.

"Ecology is a very important way of thinking about the world," she says. "In a way, that's what Aboriginal astronomy does, although it draws in the sky as well as the earth, so you have an interconnected universe."

Provocalz's guest on the track, the uniquely-voiced Ancestress, makes such connections, rapping:

Our ability to find is in our bloodline
Running through our veins like the water through the scrub during flood times
Wiping the weak, stripping leaves, leaving mud lines
Like the lessons that we keep, creased in our minds

"Ancestress, she's a fucking mad sister," says Provocalz. “I wanted to include as many sisters on the album as possible. I didn't want to just have it all men, you know? I wanted to have all our voices on there.”

The album is bookended by strong, black women. It opens with a poem by Lorna Munro, the daughter of Elder Jenny Munro, who recently led Redfern's Aboriginal Tent Embassy to victory.

Provocalz says of Lorna: "Her poetry's fucking crazy. I didn't want to touch it. I didn't want to turn it into a song or anything. I just thought, 'That's a mad intro to the album.'"

The album closes with the anguished words of activist Viv Malo at a protest rally, declaring: “You won't have your freedom without ours!”

“I say that a lot as well,” says Provocalz. “I'm pretty sure we all do. Everyone wants to come out and protest about shit, the Basics Card and all that. We copped all that shit first. If you stood with us, you'd get your freedoms out of it as well. But people don't stand up until it affects them directly.”

The Basics Card, which quarantines a portion of people's welfare, was rolled out to Indigenous communities first, then to white Australia.

“White Australia's got to realise that, especially working class and lower class white Australia, we've got a lot of the same struggle. We're both getting fucked over by these police, we're both getting fucked over by these greedy politicians, these corporations trying to pay us less and less for an hour's work, take away fucking holiday pay – all of that. If we all came together, our power is unlimited because we've got the fucking numbers. We've been fooled and turned into sheep so much that we think we're powerless.”

But Viv Malo's speech is empowering.

“Just hearing it from a woman is so fucking powerful,” says Provocalz. “Hearing her pain and the anguish and the anger. It sent chills down my spine when I heard that speech. It just sort of sums up the whole album. You know, 'Stop fucking locking us up! You're killing us!' That's the pain of our people, personified by Aunt Viv.”

Provocalz's people, the Gamilaraay, are matriarchal. But that's not the only reason the rapper – a proud family man - expresses so much respect for women.

“I grew up with a single mother,” he says. “She did the best for us she could and I've got a little sister. It was just how I was raised. I always had a lot of respect for women and I think in today's society that's pretty rare.”

Recently deposed Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who was also Minister for Women, rated female Liberal candidates by their “sex appeal” and lectured about “what the housewives of Australia need to understand as they do the ironing”. In his capacity as the self-declared “Prime Minister for Aboriginal Affairs”, he slashed the Indigenous budget by more than half a billion dollars. Little wonder then that Koori Linx includes a none-too-subtle diss track called “Fuck Tony Abbott”. It was recorded when Abbott was still PM, but has been kept on the album because “he deserves to hear it rest of his life”, as Provocalz puts it. 

But on “Native Born” the emcee takes it a step further, rapping:

"Obviously I'm not going to go on a shooting spree - yet," he smiles. 

“I just find power in just saying that shit for these kids. 'I'm up in parliament with a full clip, I'm going to bury all of these cunts.' Because you see the revolutions around the world and armed revolts against the fucking injustice of our society and that's the only real way that a sudden change can come about. 

"Otherwise it's going to be this fucking prolonged fucking bullshit process that's going to go for years and years...”

As he speaks, a low-flying plane from nearby Bankstown Airport drowns out his words, reminding him of his two-year-old son.

“Whenever he sees a plane, he's like, 'Hang on, I'll just get my gun',” laughs the rapper. “He's ready for revolution when it comes.”

On the Koori Linx track “Warfare”, Provocalz's partner-in-rhyme, Felon, also calls for people to shoot back. The Redfern Aboriginal Tent Embassy activist raps:

"Felon's my brother right there," says Provocalz. “We've been doing shows. He masters all my albums. We probably met only three years ago or something.”

The pair met when Provocalz was filming one of his many music videos, which he fires out at roughly the same rate he shoots guns. Felon turned up with fellow Indigenous emcee Dsypl.

“So I became good friends with Dsypl as well,” says Provocalz, then adds: “Dsypl ended up passing away a bit over a year ago, now. He's actually on Koori Linx as well, just one track, 'Power'.”

He looks down at the time. It is running out - and the prolific Provocalz has yet another video to shoot, this time with his old South-West Royals rap crew mate, Gunsta. 

We press on, shooting through the south-west and into the city, pulling up just short of the Sydney Opera House. There's nowhere to park but a one-hour space, so Provocalz pulls in. A small hatchback is parked in front with an Aboriginal flag sticker on its bumper. Provocalz nods at the driver inside and asks: “You Koori, brah?”

The driver, a cross between a surfer and a hipster with sun-bleached hair and skinny jeans, gets out. “Eh? Ah... nah,” he stutters. “That's just on there to represent for the first peoples of this land... the... true owners of this land.”

Then, seemingly wanting to change the subject, he points at a sticker for US rap group Wu-Tang Clan on Provocalz's car and says: “You a Wu-Tang fan eh? Dope. I love all that. I love all that Aussie Hip-Hop stuff, too."

The name of Provocalz's album, Only Built For Koori Linx, is a reference to 1995 album Only Built For Cuban Linx by Wu-Tang Clan rapper Raekwon. But Provocalz sours at the mention of "Aussie Hip-Hop". He glares at the driver and bellows: “I DON'T FUCK WITH THAT AUSSIE HIP-HOP SHIT. ONLY INDIGENOUS HIP-HOP.”

The driver doesn't know where to look. Provocalz disappears inside his car and fishes out a CD of one of his previous albums, the 27-track epic Verbal Reality Vol 2.

“Here,” he says, handing it to the driver. “I'm a Koori rapper brah, that's one of my albums.”

The driver takes it hesitantly. There is a pause. Then he says, nervously: “Er, can I give you something for it?”

“Nah,” says Provocalz. “It's a present for having the Koori flag on your car.”

The driver looks relieved.

We begin walking towards the Opera House, past huge black ravens that squawk from manicured lawns. Talk turns to Provocalz's track “Native Born”, which features samples of crows cawing as Provocalz spits out the names of Aboriginal warriors who died fighting:

"That's our revolutionaries," says the rapper. “I just wanted to point it out, we can't forget those names. They died for us. You know, 'Pemulwuy, that's a name we're never gonna forget, blood.' Then I use 'blood' at the end of every sentence, because that's what they spilled.”

Provocalz looks at the ravens on the grass.

“Pemulwuy was the crow,” he says. “It was supposedly thought that he could turn into a crow, because the first time they shot him in jail, they said that they wanted to pronounce him dead, but he was still warm, and then they came back in the morning and he was gone. There was like seven bullets in him or something. 

"Pemulwuy was going to war with them lads in New South Wales, you know what I mean? He was burning down police stations at Parramatta. He speared that gamekeeper, McIntyre, on the beach. Pemulwuy was an enemy of Bennelong, who he saw as a traitor.”

Bennelong was one of the first Aboriginal people to befriend the invading whites, just a spear's throw from where we walk, after being kidnapped by Governor Arthur Phillip. He later sailed to England with Phillip.

We arrive at our intended address – a huge, plush apartment block - and stare at a plaque on the door. Glinting in the afternoon sun is the building's name: “Bennelong.”

Black traitor, white hero.

Provocalz presses the buzzer and an urbane doorman escorts us to the lift, swiping us in with his security card. At the top, we knock on an apartment door. It's opened by Gunsta, a Lebanese Australian in his early thirties. He has made his name and money as a hip-hop and commercial video producer, yet has waived his usual fees for Aboriginal artists in the past. He beckons us in warmly, throwing open his balcony doors. 

The sunshine slaps off Sydney Harbour and dazzles the apartment with a blinding light almost as white as the shagpile carpet. A large, long-haired cat purrs in the corner. A pair of freshwater stingrays glide around a large aquarium. It's a long way from Liverpool, which has the highest number of registered guns in the Greater Sydney region. But Gunsta has used film - not bullets – to shoot his way out of the gutter.

“This is what happens when you work for yourself, man!” he laughs, catching my incredulous look. Provocalz goes to the bathroom. When he re-emerges, I also go - and notice the toilet is embossed with the name “Bennelong”.

When I come out, I nod at Provocalz and say: “Did you notice we were pissing on Bennelong?”

“That's the way the rich like it,” he deadpans, then looks at the time. He has far less than an hour to make a music video before his parking space runs out. “Better start shooting,” he says.

Gunsta puts Provocalz's new trap beat track, “Faceless” on the stereo, pumps it up to full blast, and starts filming.

Such is Provocalz's rate of output, he can't even remember the words - so starts scribbling them down furiously to learn them. The song repeats and repeats. They move from the sofa, to the recording booth, then to the balcony, where the sun belts off Sydney's skyscrapers and onto Provocalz's scowl.

Fifty-two minutes later, it's a wrap. Provocalz smiles a crooked smile, shakes hands with Gunsta and says: "Cheers, brah."

Another day's rapid-fire shooting in the bag.

21 KILLER EMCEES ON PROVOCALZ'S NEW ALBUM

Provocalz's epic new 30-track album Only Built For Koori Linx features no fewer than 20 other Indigenous emcees. Here they are, in order of appearance, with lyrics.

1. LORNA MUNRO 

From:
Sydney, New South Wales. 

Provocalz says:
"Lorna is the daughter of Aunty Jenny, who led Redfern Aboriginal Tent Embassy to victory. A very talented sister. Her poetry's fucking crazy. I didn't want to touch it. I didn't want to turn it into a song or anything. I just thought, 'That's a mad intro to the album.'" 

Lorna Munro's killer lines: 
I did not disconnect properly
And so the shadow has cast on sin
My veins pump through blood, rocks and dirt
The same dirt land we are walking in 

Track:
Wanhundurinya Bala Du (Disconnected Be I). 

2. DARAH 

From: 
Shepparton, Victoria. 

Provocalz says:
"Darah's a deadly brother. He had a whole bunch of shit that he was bringing out a while ago. I think I was friends with him for a while on Fedbook [Facebook] and then I just hit him up and asked him to jump up on the track. That one came out mad." 

Darah's killer lines:
Since a young 'un my elders told me
Don't let your history be defined by your enemies
And that's what it is my people, let it be clear
The elevation of the black people is what they fear 

Track:
Stand Strong. 

3. BO SPEARIM 

From:
Brisbane, Queensland. 

Provocalz says:
"I'd been trying to get the brother Bo to jump on the album for a while, so I told him just to write something for it and send it to me and I'll turn it into a track. He recorded that and I just chopped it up a bit and made it fit for the chorus. I think that's a real powerful track." 

Bo Spearim's killer lines:
Why should we support a system that promotes assimilation?
That takes part in the genocide of First Nations?
Our clans, our nations
Have seen and overcome those acts and the legislations 

Track:
Stand Strong. 

4. LADY LASH 

From:
Ceduna, South Australia. 

Provocalz says:
"Lady Lash - she's a deadly sister – mad talented, mad emcee, mad singer. I wanted to include as many sisters as possible on the album. 'Dominoes' is pretty much just talking about the Oz Hip-Hop crowd, we just line them up like dominoes and watch them fall, like they can't fuck with us." 

Lady Lash's killer lines:
Live it up, all we got is one shot
We knock 'em down, down to the ground
Gotta make a move
Then we play them like dominoes, dominoes 

Track:
Dominoes.  

5. TERA 

From:
Perth, Western Australia. 

Provocalz says:
"He's a good bloke, Tera. I just thought his shit was dope. I wanted to involve as many artists from around the country as possible, so I just hit him up, sent him that track and yeah, everything came out dope, I mastered it all and everything. He's got some very dope shit." 

Tera's killer lines:
Check it out, yo, it ain't easy being me
I stay up in the struggle, I fight to be free
'Cause all I fucking see is my enemies and they surround me
Claiming my land, oppressing everything around me 

Track:
Ain't Easy. 

6. NATIVE MC 

From:
Adelaide, South Australia. 

Provocalz says:
"Native MC's just a fucking full hip-hop head, graff writer, mad emcee. He's got that crazy flow, just mad flows, and I just had to hit him up for a track. But that whole song's basically just fuck Aussie hip-hop, fuck all these rappers - and I thought his verses fit perfect with that." 

Native MC's killer lines:
Your style is weak and impotent, chop em up like my scissors
Then smoke 'em up and take 'em where the fucking space ships is
Black, yellow, red fanatical lunatics, reside in the basement kid
Your shit is fake like baking soda trying to be fucking passed as whizz 

Track:
Get Fucked.  

7. TASK 

From:
Alice Springs, Northern Territory. 

Provocalz says:
"Task is pretty much a vet when it comes to Koori hip-hop. He's been doing it for a long time. I remember seeing him doing it before I was really taking it serious. He hits the beat fucking hard, he always punches in with good rhymes, good word play, mad voice. He's just a dope emcee." 

Task's killer lines:
It's like an everyday struggle, fighting with myself
It's like my head is all muddled, time to get some help
Will I stay out of trouble? Only time will tell
The missing piece of the puzzle, locked inside a cell 

Track:
Hidden Chains. 

8. DCUZ 

From: 
Sydney, New South Wales.

Provocalz says: 
"Dcuz is another Gamilaraay brother, a fucking mad emcee. He's been doing it for a long time, he was in Tribal Ashes. I just had to get him on some shit because he doesn't really do too much any more. I just had to gee him up to come back on that." 

Dcuz's killer lines:
My lyrics are sent like a spear to kill - are youse for real?
You don't know how the fuck how we feel
I'm from the south-west, best believe we'll bring the best
Wanna talk shit in our city? We'll put a hole in your chest 

Track:
Raise Ya Fist  

9. JPOINT 

From: 
Innisfail, Queensland.

Provocalz says: 
"I met Jpoint at Yabun Festival on Invasion Day in the the city a few years back. He performed and I just said 'what's up' to him afterwards and we swapped CDs. I reached out to him with that track, sent it to him, he jumped on it and it came out fucking dope. He's got some dope shit." 

Jpoint's killer lines:
In my ventricles, never forget these atrocities
Here on my sacred ground, so come follow me
And I will lead and resist their advances
Life is a gift believe, no second chances 

Track:
Iron Barz.  

10. DJARMBI SUPREME 

From:
Melbourne, Victoria. 

Provocalz says:
"He's fucking mad, brother Djarmbi. Out of all the cunts I've met, Djarmbi's one of those cunts that I consider a proper fucking friend – and I've only met him in person once. He's a sick cunt and we're both fucked up in the head. 'Shotgun Music' was pretty much just an anti-police track. Just a reaction to how they treat us, you know?" 

Djarmbi Supreme's killer lines:
You started this fight, you dog
Now you're chopped up on a tarp, let me find some rocks
Roll it up, tie it in knots, get the boat, find a spot
Yeah, I'll be home by nine o'clock, ma, fry some chops 

Track:
Shotgun Music. 

11. DEEKAY 

From:
Terry Hie Hie, New South Wales.

 Provocalz says: 
"DeeKay's one of my Gamilaraay brothers and he's part of Native Ryme, proper vets in Aboriginal hip-hop. He's a dope rapper, dope beat-maker and just a straight up fucking good brother. I ended up writing that one specifically to get him on. It's my second or third favourite track on the album." 

DeeKay's killer lines:
Get up, stand up, brothers in arms the tightest
With my frontline sisters here, time to rise up
All our mob the people, we're freedom fighters
Provocalz and DeeKay still standing, survivors 

Track:
Fire Lighters.  

12. GEKKZ 

From: 
Cairns, Queensland.

Provocalz says:
"I like GekkZ's stuff, it's a bit more on a positive sort of angle. I was trying to be positive with that track, because I'm usually such an angry cunt - and even my flow on that one's a bit more laid back. GekkZ has got good positive music, he's got good word play. He's a good emcee. I got that beat and just thought, yeah, this would suit his style." 

GekkZ's killer lines:
Meet G.E. the black trump picks the slack up, now back up
Third vision, we see the true Dreamtime, deep inside
I believe in youth But do you believe in you?
Doesn't seem that it's true 

Track:
Dreamtime Till Infinity. 

13. ANCESTRESS 

From:
Melbourne, Victoria. 

Provocalz says:
"I've got a lot of love and respect for Ancestress. Everything she does, very talented, singer, emceeing. I think she's even writing a play at the moment. She does a whole lot of things. I had to get her on the album. We've all got to support each other, it's the only way we're going to come together and rise up out of this, you know?" 

Ancestress's killer lines:
Our ability to find is in our bloodline
Running through our veins like the water through the scrub during flood times
Wiping the weak, stripping leaves, leaving mud lines
Like the lessons that we keep, creased in our minds 

Track:
Rize Up. 

14. BUNZ 

From: 
Sydney, New South Wales.

Provocalz says: 
"MC Bunz is a dope lyricist, dope emcee, dope flows, everything. We fucked with each other on a few tracks before and as soon as I started Koori Linx, I just had to throw him on. I think that was one of the first tracks. Got the old Wu [Wu Tang Clan], got the old Killarmy beat and just fucking let him go sick on it." 

Bunz's killer lines:
When you're lost, then your life stays minimal
'I bet he breaks laws, that guy's an Aboriginal'
It's straight pitiful
When our country's first police force was made up of the best-behaved criminals

Track:
Terror Life.  

15. BRUCE BRAZEN 

From:
Brisbane, Queensland. 

Provocalz says:
"I'd done a couple of collabs before with Bruce Brazen, so I definitely had to throw him on. Just the whole concept of the track, 'Know The Ledge' is fucking dope. It's just 'get your knowledge up', read a book, learn your history, know what's going on. He's a producer as well. He did the beat for the 'Prime Example' song I did." 

Bruce Brazen's killer lines:
They should know better than to put a starving-as lion with sheep
Hungry for knowledge, Bruce Brazen is a lion dying to eat
And both shepherd and sheep
In the eyes of the lion is meat 

Track:
Know The Ledge. 

16. DSYPL 

From:
Sydney, New South Wales. 

Provocalz says:
"Dsypl ended up passing away a bit over a year ago, now. He's on just that one track, 'Power'. He sent it to me a long time ago, before Koori Linx, to do a verse on. But I just wanted to leave it with him to show people how talented he was and how much of a loss it was to the hip-hop scene. Rest in power Dsypl. Much love to his family." 

Dsypl's killer lines:
Ship hit the shore
Then shortly after that they hit the floor
Said they shook their hand, befriended the clan
Gathered information it was all a part of the plan 

Track:
Power. 

17. SCAREKROW 

From:
Darwin, Northern Territory.

Provocalz says:
"Scarekrow does more like sort of horrorcore. I just wanted to get him to come with another angle of it, but I made that track specifically for him. It's got a little bit of a heavy metal sort of vibe to it. I just wanted some fucking hardcore shit – I think that's in the chorus isn't it? 'Hardcore, start a war.' It came out dope."

Scarekrow's killer lines:
I'm hell-born, but Darwin city-sworn
Witness the dawn of the north's first child of the corn
From NT to Sydney, we're deadly, it's simply
The best wanna test Koori Linx? You're fucking kidding me 

Track:
Stand Overs. 

18. TRIKS 

From: 
Logan, Queensland.

Provocalz says: 
"Triks is another brother who I met through Bo [Spearim] and all that mob. He's been beatboxing, breakdancing, graffitiing, emceeing - you don't get more hip-hop than fucking Triks, you know what I mean? He's a good brother, too. I've met him a few times in person." 

Triks's killer lines:
If I threw this at myself I wouldn't know what hit me
It's like the boomerang effect except I be kicking it quickly
Ugarapul ways be keeping it real with culture strictly
Rather go make spear than drink a bottle of whisky 

Track:
Unbreakable. 

19. KNOWLEDGE BONES 

From:
Perth, Western Australia. 

Provocalz says:
"Knowledge Bones has got a pretty big name, a lot of people know him. He did a track with Dead Prez when they were here. He's done a few decent things. I haven't done much stuff with him. I just reached out for him to jump on Koori Linx, sent him that track through and he didn't take long. I just thought it'd be dope to have him on the album." 

Knowledge Bones's killer lines:
They're locking bikies up all because of a patch
And drinking with their mates - how you justifying that?
And blackfellas portrayed in such a negative way
That I need a couple more pages and a couple more days 

Track:
Things Will Get Easier. 

20. FELON 

From:
Sydney, New South Wales. 

Provocalz says:
"Felon's my brother right there. We've been doing shows. He masters all my albums. He's from towards the city there. We met probably only like three years ago or something, so not too long ago. Then we just fucking became friends and fucking started working together a lot and that and just kicked it off, you know?"

Felon's killer lines:
Get those fuckin' animals off those muthafuckin' horses
Coz they protect these racist cunts as it be backing their current discourses
Load 'em up 'n' cock 'em up, we pulling the trigger 'n' fuckin' 'em up
They killin' our people we sick of it, all of us just about had enough 

Track:
Warfare. 

21. PROVOCALZ 

From:
Sydney, New South Wales. 

Provocalz is on nearly all the album tracks, so his killer lines are too numerous to list, but here's a taste:
Let's all have a barbie and celebrate the genocide
Of the First Nations that the crown never recognised
Now they want to recognise us in their constitution
Empty words on paper, helping hands an illusion
While the other hand locks us up in their institutions
Higher rates than apartheid we're getting prosecuted
Excluded from society, question our sobriety
Taking our children for those prisons owned privately
Spitefully treated, no wonder why I've got anxiety
'Cause every new face, I wonder will they liken me
To drunks who don't work and bludge, racism hurts
Couldn't be the furthest from the truth, we're the first
The oldest surviving culture on this earth 

Track:
Invasion Day. 

Go to the album on Bandcamp.