The Sonic Activist

welcome

to the mind of a young black

african king diceboro man from original

skin

born to a lost world but he’s destined

to win let it begin

dawn full of thoughts and the knowledge

they bring acknowledging things that

make us unique

if you get knocked down bounce back to

your feet

and if you ever get lost just follow the

beat

let’s talk let the poetry speak and when

you’re looking at the stars

i hope you’re noticing me my story is

deep i’m hoping you’re digging

the glory that i seek is barely just a

figment of my

imagination i’m trying to make it happen

i’m trying to change the nation

really hold it down like isaac newton’s

equation they don’t understand the

gravity of my situation

i had a dream when i was eight years old

i was climbing up an endless ladder in

the middle of the darkest nights

i don’t know what i was doing that i

just found myself climbing this ladder

so i kept going and going and going

over time my fragile body began

demanding some rest but i tried to push

through

unfortunately my body gave way and i

decided to catch my breath

it was at that moment that i realized

the whole time i was going towards my

heavenly destination but not once did i

look down to see

my origins of where i came from it was

at that moment when i decided to take a

look down

the ladder the most scary and inspiring

thing

happened to me i saw a sea

of people climbing up with me

now a million questions began running

through my mind

and the first one and most important

question was where the hell are we going

actually even more important than that

was why was an eight-year-old boy

the one that’s up here

before i could collect my thoughts and

really make sense of it

i figured i must be up here for a reason

and we must be going somewhere so i

can’t stop

and with that decision that mental shift

i got myself back together put my little

body

back on the ladder and started climbing

and climbing and climbing

and sure enough everybody began climbing

again

and then i woke up so i actually never

got to find out where we were going

see that was just a normal dream for an

eight-year-old but 17 years later

reflecting upon it and analyzing it

i realized was actually a vision and a

premonition of the direction my life

would eventually take

and that moment actually plan to the

seeds of the idea that i’m standing up

here to share with you today

but before i get to that idea i have a

refugee story for you

see i was born in the middle of a war

in the middle of a jungle in the middle

of a famine

and on top of that my family had just

been walking for two months straight

trying to get from ethiopia to the next

refugee camp

i was not supposed to live but somehow i

did

and even more lucky

my family made it to kakuma refugee camp

you see kakuma refugee camp

was a unhcr camp that was

initially built for 90 000 people by the

time we got there

in the mid 90s the numbers have

fluctuated up to 200 000 refugees from

more than 10 different countries

in that refugee camp i ended up spending

the next seven years of my life

so i went there when i was two months

old i left when i was seven years old

i saw the most bizarre inspiring

scariest things in that place i saw

humanity at his highest and its lowest

now one thing i remember vividly was

seeing so many people

suffer from preventable diseases

and due to lack of access to medical

resources

and doctors and that initially fueled my

first dream of wanting to be a doctor a

neurosurgeon

see i had an uncle before the war who

studied in khartoum

and relocated to norway to become

one of the biggest orthopedic surgeons

in norway so

i always had a role model someone to

look up to

and um i’m going to channel my inner

nelson mandela right now to remind every

single one of you guys here

who are mostly students and everybody

gets message visas

education is still the fastest way out

of poverty

when you’re a eight-year-old boy in the

biggest refugee camp in the world

and you have the biggest dreams

education was the only

way up so i used to take my academic

studies that my life depended on it

because it really did fast forward

seven years later we got smuggled out of

the refugee camp

smuggled by my incredible mother

who to this point i i’m trying to figure

out if she really is

wonder woman or not

you see i almost died on that journey it

was a 24

24-hour journey outside the refugee camp

but that’s a story for another time

the next three years we went and lived

in a small

village in kenya for three years and

that was the most normal

phase of my life to that point when i

was aged 10 years old we got accepted to

come to australia

under the humanitarian visa program

you see we’d applied to go to america

to go to canada to go to norway so when

you’re a refugee you just want to get

out of where you’re at

people don’t realize that it’s not

nothing special about yo i want to go to

australia

you just go to where you think you can

find life and opportunities for your

family

fortunately australia accepted me to

come here under the humanitarian visa

program

so real quick shout out to australia for

that man otherwise i won’t be here right

now

[Applause]

after after i got here i quickly

realized two things

this land provided me endless

opportunities

safety shelter

but one thing was now in my mind

[Music]

i realized i entered the second phase of

my lifetime

survival part two

except this time i didn’t have the

support network

of a strong community like i did back in

the camp

as a matter of fact the predominantly

white society i’d find myself in were

the ones placing the barriers

in front of me that i had to overcome

but it’s all good survival was all ever

known

and i could figure it out

i had to learn really quickly what

racism was i didn’t know what racism is

i had to learn really quickly that

having this smooth

dark chocolate beautiful skin

was a problem in this country

i had to then learn that this country

didn’t have a good track record

against the idea of blackness i studied

the indigenous experience

i studied laws like terenulus policies

like the white australian policy

which was so effective that inspired

apartheid in south africa we were so

good at racism in australia other copies

started copying us

other countries started copying us

because we’re that good at it let that

sink in

first survival to our learn music

second one sports sports was always

special to us

because even one of those camps

we call it a cheap vacation any of us

can make a soccer ball

and for that two hours one hour you’re

running around

you forgot that you’re hungry you forget

that you’re in pain you even forget that

was an escape for us but i found out

here in australia if i play sports i can

make friends and connect and bond with

people

human connection is the most precious

thing we can use in this world

so that covered that

and it also made me realize why some of

the

young guys i grew up with some of my

relatives people like aware mobile

thomas deng ended up choosing sports

specifically soccer

and actually went on to become

professional footballers and they

actually represent

soccer rouge right now the second tool

that i picked up

and the most important one was music

see i got introduced to music through

rhythm and poetry

i realized when i came to this country

the second thing i needed to do was

learn how to express myself i hate being

misunderstood

so i had to learn the language i forget

how to hack

if i can use poetry learning one word

will inspire me to go then

feel the need to learn three more so i

can find things to rhyme with

and surely enough within six months to a

year i figured out

english and then through that

i got introduced to hip-hop culture

now that was a critical part because

i’m in australia now but i don’t have a

cultural reference to be able to relate

my experience to

so hip-hop gave me a global platform

which transcended

race religion or even political beliefs

see hip-hop was founded in 1970s by dj

kuhr

afrika bambaataa and pioneers like

grandmaster flash

rhythm and poetry has been around for

tens of thousands of years

hundreds see in our culture i come from

the monjung people from the south of

sudan

on the river now from the cradle of

human civilization and we call it why

see our people been doing this for so

long that it’s entrenched as a part of

us

and there’s no one that’s not limited to

it anyone can make music

i realized that that global culture was

so close to my own identity and i

gravitated to hippo

i also found out the power of the beat

the drum beat see studies have shown

that a drum b pattern can influence the

olympic system the medulla

oblongata and actually if you get a

group of people in one location and play

the same beat for them long enough

their hearts will actually begin to be

in rhythm

and then the power of poetry added to

that

music becomes an unstoppable force and

then now i had a global culture to

attach it to

so my mind began wondering how i can

piece them all together

i think i figured it out i call it sonic

activism

and as a sonic activist it’s my job to

introduce what sonic activism is

to you guys and the rest of the world

you see sonic activism

is the use of sound that force that i

was telling you about before that’s so

powerful

to explore interact with and reconstruct

the world around us to become a better

version of itself

the sonic is the vessel which we use

to carry the inspiration and the message

the activist

activism is the manifestation

of that message into progressive action

tupac

sonic activist malcolm x sonic activist

john lennon sonic activist

maya angelou sonic activist muhammad ali

sonic activist

you you you can be a sonic activist you

don’t have to make music

sound travels even when i’m talking

introducing a friend to a new idea they

didn’t know before that’s sonic activism

standing up for someone who doesn’t have

a voice

that’s sonic activism so now that you

know what it is

i’m challenging to see how many sonic

activists by the time this talk is over

i can produce

now i found a culture i could belong in

i found a concept i can attach myself to

what was next i learned how to survive

in this country

now it’s my turn to thrive i created a

superhero

and gave an alter ego and called him

diceboro

that’s my stage name when i make music

and i present up here

if she dies poorer does not care what

you think about it

that’s boris on a certain mission matter

of fact the word

daespuro comes from the english word

diaspora which comes from the greek word

test

which means people disperse from their

homeland people forced to live outside

their homelands

literally personifying my life journey

so far

and as a sonic as a sonic activist and

now using the dice for

superpowers i realized that i came to

this country when i was 10 years old

and 13 years later without a single word

of english 13 years later became

the best artist in south australia using

those superpowers

i managed to partner up with my brother

with my bill and his foundation

barefooted boots

to be able to build a recording studio

on the same refugee camp that we grew up

in

giving opportunities to these kids who

might not have had it

with these superpowers i managed to link

up

with the tmp foundation and become an

ambassador for them

and right now we’re helping put more

than 1400 kids through school back in

south sudan

with an aim to try and get that number

to 5000 in the next couple years

with those superpowers i created a label

called playback gateway to give a voice

to those that we silence with those

superpowers

i managed to create a voice for myself

to be able to stand up

against the media when they decide to

bully my community

and with those superpowers you have no

idea what i’m about to do next

my scope right now is on racism

that’s my next target you see racism is

a cancer of humanity

it is literally the biggest distraction

for no damn reason that keeps us apart

from actually unifying and doing the

things we can actually achieve as a

human race

we need to take this as serious as we

take poverty or climate change

racism is the cancer for humanity

remember that

einstein said it seems to be a good uh

brain when einstein says things so

remember he actually did say that

there’s a generation that i’m here to

represent

of new australians as you call them

who’ve been

living on the fringes of your society

for so long

and all they’ve ever wanted to do was

contribute to the society

a generation that we can tap into the

potential with minimal investment

and maximum outcome because all they

want to do

is belong and add to the narrative

i’m here to represent a generation of

new australians and i call them the

austro-aliens

they want to be australian but they get

treated like aliens so they stuck

somewhere in between

i’m talking about the kids i just want a

fair go when they rock up to school and

get bullied because of the color of

their skin

or the religion they worship or their

political ideas

the kids don’t want a fair go when they

show up to a job interview

but they don’t even stand a chance

because their names are not aussie

enough

the kids who want a fair go when they

get over police

and then end up in the justice system

and end up getting longer terms than any

average is trading

yet when they succeed in cold

australians

see i represent these kids or this

group of austral aliens because i am one

of them

when i succeed i am australian but when

i fail i’m african

what does that leave me with when it

comes to choosing my identity

when i succeed i’m australian when i

fail i’m african

i want you guys to remember those words

very closely because

they’re the summarization of my

experience for the last few years

but it’s all right i’m here now i’ve

lived here for the last 15 years

i’m as australian as i can get even

though i come from south sudan

i’ll be able to call out the problems we

have and said you know what we need to

fix this

so one thing i want to remind you is an

african proverb that i grew up on

a child who was not embraced by the

village will burn it down to feel its

warmth

so let’s embrace these children and

anybody that wants to be part of this

beautiful nation

and no more leading people on the

outskirts and i’m going to use my story

as an example

all my life all i’ve known is trials and

tribulations

i’ve managed to get those trials and

tribulations to help build up my

character that character

has helped me build unlimited hope

but i did not stop there i’ve been

cursed

enough to see what it’s like to be in a

refugee camp see kids suffer

for more than five years so

i’m hoping to turn that hope into

progressive action

and i’m hoping to inspire every single

one of you guys today

to start your journey on becoming a

sonic activist thank you