Omar Musa: Here Come the Dogs

COLE BENNETTS

Omar Musais a Malaysian-Australian rapper and poet from Queanbeyan, Australia. He has opened for Gil Scott Heron, Dead Prez, and Pharoahe Monch and performed at the Nuyorican Poets Café in New York City. He attended University of California, Santa Cruz. He has released three hip-hop albums, two poetry books, and received a standing ovation at TEDx Sydney at the Sydney Opera House. He lives in Australia.

This has always been a land of fire.

Once a year, the Ancients would go into the mountains in search of bogong moths. They carried burning branches and thrust them into rents in the rock, stunning the congregated moths, then catching them in fibrous nets or kangaroo skin. The moths were roasted on fine embers and the Ancients feasted, vomiting for the first few days but then growing accustomed to the rich, fatty food. The Ancients would return from the mountains with glossy skin, glistening like shadow.

Afterwards, fires would burn on the mountains for days.

Where are these cunts?

Too hot, bro,

too fucken long without rain.

Two by two they troop in,

the madness of summer in the brain.

In the dying light,

the crowd looks like hundreds of bobbling balloons,

waiting to be unfastened.

Sweating tinnies and foreheads –

sadcunts and sorrowdrowners the lot of them.

I stand up,

six-foot-two and shining,

yawn,

twist side to side on my hinges

and survey the crowd.

It’s not like the boys to be late,

especially on a day like today.

Summer,

the deepest season,

throbbing with danger and promise,

every scallywag, seedthief and skatepark

wrapped up in a white hot skin.

And here come the dogs.

Strange, smiling creatures,

lean-flanked and

ready to race.

An old bloke turns around and grins

with opalised eyes.

‘Nothing like the ole dishlickers, eh?’

I smile and flick a fly from my knuckle.

‘Fuck noath.’

The dogs’ barks detonate across the track.

The trainers are gruff people,

but now they coo to the hounds,

straightening their racing silks,

crouching to check and bend their ankles.

(one says a prayer and kisses

his dog on its narrow head)

A dry wind scythes across

the stands and I reach up

to keep my hat on.

‘Bushfire weather, ay?’

The old timer is right.

The Town is a powderkeg,

a perfect altar for a bushfire –

the sole god of a combustible summer.

B-Boy Fresh

But I’m crisp tee fresh –

black on black, snapback,

toothbrush on sneaker,

throwback fresh.

But fark me dead,

the joints and muscles ache nowadays.

Sign of the times, ay?

I look at the old timer

and immediately touch the

muscles under my shirt

just to make sure.

I grin –

Solomon Amosa, you vain, vain bastard.

The big news

Jimmy ain’t hard to spot in a crowd.

With all the grace of jangling keys,

my half-brother lurches

through the mass of drinkers and gamblers,

sharp Adam’s apple visible even from here.

His eyes cut left to right,

paranoid and grim.

Walking behind him is Aleks,

smiling and nodding at people that he passes.

What a crew –

a Samoan, a Maco and my half-brother, a something.

The only ethnics at the dog races.

When Jimmy sits down I smack him

across the back of the head,

harder than I mean to.

‘Oi, what took you so fucken long?’ I say, taking my cap off and pass-

ing my hand over my dreds.

‘I had shit to do, bra.’

Aleks looks away and checks his bet,

already bored of the bickering.

‘Like what?’

‘I don’t fucken have to tell you everything, do I? Jesus.’

Jimmy looks like he’s gonna say something else

but instead he conjures two ciggies from behind his ear,

lights one and passes the other to me.

We smoke for a minute

and listen to the announcements.

‘Conditions are ideal tonight, ladies and gentlemen.

We have a perfect track for racing.

Good luck and good punting –

may the racing gods be in your favour.’

Jimmy ashes his durry

and then looks sidelong at me,

lips expanding into a frog-like grin.

‘Oi, guess what?’

I’m watching some lads on a stag’s night stumble along.

They’re dressed in a bright-yellow uniform, wearing wigs.

Jimmy and Aleks look at each other and grin.

They’re already wasted,

sour bourbon vapours practically hissing off them.

‘What?’

Jimmy clears his throat, then announces, ‘Sin One’s gonna do a come-

back show. With the DJ Exit on the decks.’

My eyes cut back. ‘Sin One? You serious?’

‘He’s moved back, brother,’ nods Aleks.

I blow out smoke. ‘Ohh, man. When?’

‘After Chrissie.’

Sin One is almost universally recognised

in the underground

as the greatest rapper Australia has produced –

a prophet, nah, a god.

And he comes from our Town.

Can you imagine how fucken proud we are?

Drinks

When I bring back the tinnies,

Aleks and Jimmy are embroiled in an age-old argument –

who the best Australian MC is.

I take a black marker from my pocket

and begin to draw on a five-dollar note as I listen.

Jimmy, who loves lists,

reminds us yet again of the five main criteria

you judge an MC by.

1) Flow: how do they ride, bounce off, play with, sound on a beat?

2) Lyrics: how do they play with words, use metaphors, create memorable images, tell stories?

3) Voice: were they naturally gifted with a voice that just cuts through and gives you shivers, that booms or rasps or honeys?

4) Consistency: have they produced quality work over an extended period of time?

5) Live show: can they rock the fuck out of a crowd of people, big or small?

Added to this are more nebulous criteria based on online rumours,

freestyle abilities, face-to-face encounters and gut feelings.

Jimmy and Aleks prefer grimier, old school Melbourne stuff,

samples and dusty loops.

I’m more into synths and instruments,

newer, smoother Sydney shit.

‘All right, then. Top five best MCs,’ says Jimmy, who reels off his list immediately. ‘Brad Strut, Trem, Geko, Lazy Grey, Bias B.’

Aleks, too, is ready. ‘Trem, Strut, Pegz, Delta, Vents.’

‘Hm. Fucken hard one.’ I think for a second. ‘All right, um. Solo, Mantra, Suffa, Tuka, Hau, Joelistics. That new Briggs shit is heavy, too. And that dude One Sixth from Melbourne.’

‘I said top five, bro,’ snaps Jimmy.

‘Oi, relax.’

‘Storytelling, mate, lyrics, that’s what it’s about,’ announces Jimmy.

‘Yeah, yeah, you always say that. Then Solo from Horrorshow or Mantra’s number one,’ I say. ‘Deep shit. Mad flows, too.’