“If I put this candle in an all-white gallery space it looks like a piece of art. If I put this candle in a garage it looks like a piece of trash. I can either spend my time designing the candle or I can spend my time designing the room that it sits in.” – Virgil Abloh
I quit. I made up my mind. I was done. I had no more fight left in me. I was ready to lay there, on the canvas, content to let the bell ring. Years of battling in the music industry ring, round after round, left me exhausted. Burnt out. Defeated.
Splendour In The Grass was, for a long time, considered one of the biggest music festivals in Australia. To be booked to perform there meant that you were doing something right, and that you were building momentum in such a way that the festival noticed you. The festival wanted you. Their stage called for you.
I remember when the lineup was announced in 2016. Headlined by The Strokes, The Avalanches, Flume and James Blake, the lineup also featured my record label peers Hermitude and Urthboy, as well as Ngaiire, Sampa the Great, Just A Gent and Illy. I’d missed out again and I didn’t think twice about not getting the offer to perform. But I knew I was trending upwards.
I’d been consistently touring nationally for the few years leading up to 2016 after releasing two full-length albums and signing a record deal with Elefant Traks. Later that year, I’d go on to be nominated for an ARIA Award for Best Urban Album alongside Urthboy, Drapht, Citizen Kay, and Koi Child. I’d also go on to feature as a performer during Just A Gent’s viral triple j Like A Version performance of Kid Cudi’s hit-song ‘Day N Nite’. Momentum was building.
As the festival day approached, I received a message on Facebook from a booker at Splendour In The Grass, inviting me to participate as a performer for a new initiative they were launching at the event. They wanted to showcase and celebrate Indian culture at the festival, and were hoping to have performances scattered throughout the festival that did just that. The message got my attention and I sent it to my booking agent to follow through and confirm my attendance.
In all honesty, it did sound like a bit of a red flag. Indian culture isn’t just one thing, because India is a very diverse and multicultural country. I couldn’t fully grasp the motive behind the idea, but I did see this as an opportunity to perform. My mindset was (and always is) to perform in such an energetic and captivating way to let everybody know – from the audience, to the bookers, to the performers coming after me – that that stage was mine. I wanted to take this opportunity to prove to the bookers that I rock a show better than anybody else, and I deserved to be there on merit as part of the main lineup.
I arrived at the festival site in Byron Bay, straight from the airport, luggage in hand, with my crew (shoutout to Mirrah, my hype MC and MK-1, my DJ), ready to get backstage ahead of the first of our two booked performances. There was a buzz in the air as there usually is at festivals of this magnitude. Crowds dressed in vibrant colours, face paint glistening in the sun, sub-bass reverberating through the earth and into your chest, distant roars of crowds singing along to their favourite songs. The excitement was infectious.
But as we pulled up to our destination, the excitement inside me became engulfed in a disturbed rage, as where I was scheduled to perform was called the ‘Majestic Marigold’ stage – a mediocre white alchemist’s concoction of the most basic of Indian and Bollywood stereotypes. We were first greeted by an octagonal barrier of tall, white walls with mock Bollywood movie poster stencils sprayed on the outside. As I walked past those walls to the designated outdoor stage area, my jaw dropped. Thread or rope from each corner of the walls led up high and connected to the centre, decorated with small umbrellas with henna patterns printed on them. The stage itself was dressed with a design build that looked like it was literally taken out of an Aladdin picture book.
So, this was the Splendour stage that called for me… in a poorly executed imitation Indian accent.
There was not another Indian person in sight, except for security staff I had seen scattered throughout the entire festival venue, or later on in the day as staff in the clean-up crew. I was pissed off. Fuming.
Splendour In The Grass 2016 was the first time I ever performed angry. Every song carried a different meaning on those two days. My song ‘Get Mine’, written about my experiences of dealing with systemic racism, hit particularly hard. From the stage, I spoke about how messed up it was to be performing in this tokenistic arena as a person of Indian descent, reduced to a stereotype, and asked to perform in such a reductive way.
This was further reinforced when I would try to manoeuvre between publicly accessible spaces and the backstage areas, which required a AAA pass. Despite having one clearly displayed via a lanyard hanging from my neck, I was repeatedly stopped by security and asked to show my credentials to prove my level of access. My white managers, one of whom didn’t even wear his lanyard, freely walked in and out without question, seconds before me. You couldn’t have scripted the irony.
Backstage between my performances, normal conversations catching up with fellow artists I hadn’t seen for a while would turn into venting sessions where I’d express this ongoing frustration of having to deal with an industry that never sees you for who you are. It doesn’t value you as an equal human being, let alone as an artist. The conversations were reminders that I can’t just be an artist. I’m also having to break down barriers, dismantle racist structures and educate people every step of the way. I can’t just release songs. I have to release accompanying instruction manuals with them. It’s exhausting. And even then, my work is misunderstood, mischaracterised and often framed like reductive narratives.
Word got out about how messed up this experience was for me. Some Splendour staff expressed empathy for what I was experiencing. Post-festival, I was invited back to Byron Bay for a meeting with key festival staff and the sponsor of the ‘Majestic Marigold’ stage, Contiki, to discuss what had transpired. Turns out the idea to promote Indian culture was an attempt to market Contiki’s new India tour package. They had the intention to run the same initiative at the festival the following year, and they wanted to hear my feedback on how to ensure it’s done properly.
I spoke of common-sense practice. Invite Indian diaspora creatives to lead the way. Invite them to take charge of the space from top-to-bottom, and pay them appropriately to do it. I left that meeting having received an apology and an assurance that things would change. I never heard from them again.
Next year, post-ARIA nomination, my booking agent received an offer for me to perform at Splendour In The Grass. This time, as part of the line-up. However, not on the main stage, like my fellow Hip Hop/Rap peers. But on the World music stage.
I directed my booking agent to decline. I don’t make World music. Either book me on the merits of what I do, or don’t book me at all.
This experience is but one in my 13+ year music career. I have never lost my love for making music, for the art of sculpting and creating sounds, for exploring the relationship between myself and a song. But my existence in the music and entertainment industry in Australia has, inevitably, made me a fighter, a battler, a bruiser, who has to continually work 10 times harder than the next artist in order to be seen as an equal.
I’d like to leave you with these lyrics from my unreleased song, ‘Keep Going’. I may have ‘quit’ by not returning to the Splendour stage, but I’ve never stopped showing up for myself and for my community through my art.
“Yeah I’m trying to be something
I came from nothing, I’ma keep coming
They want to know what’s my motivation
Banda Singh Bahadur is in the inspiration
If there’s no room, I’ma make room
I had to battle the odds and even break rules
Just to be standing inside the same ring
You say work hard but we ain’t talking about the same thing
They call it sport but this is no game
I had to leap over mountains just for small change
This ain’t been done, I built my own lane
This is Hip Hop, they want to put me on the World stage?
Fuck Splendour, this a new day
2021 this a new wave
They don’t see the sweat, they don’t see us bleed
Too uncomfortable seeing us when we succeed
And we Sikhs too, we’re a different breed
We know the struggle well like we know how to breathe
Our day gon’ come, trust me I believe
They don’t know it now but soon enough they will see”
See new painting, sound and installation works by Sitara Tanglaw (L-FRESH The LION and Marikit Santiago) in their debut exhibition ‘The light of the stars’ until 12 November at the Margaret Whitlam Galleries, Western Sydney University Parramatta Campus. Entry is free, see the website here for opening hours.
Editor’s Note: Draw Your Box has contacted Contiki and Splenour In The Grass for comment.
In 2016, then-MD of Contiki, Katrina Barry, said in a statement published on Karryon: “This was our fifth year at Splendour in the Grass and the biggest activation so far. We wanted to showcase an exciting part of what young travellers can experience on the new Eternal India itinerary. Our Marigold Majestic area was inspired by a colourful Bollywood film set and many festival goers reinvigorated with yoga and henna, practiced their finest Bollywood dance moves, and enjoyed the cream of Australia’s electronic music scene after sunset”.
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