Yo what’s up?
I’m A.GIRL and I covered Stevie Wonder’s
‘Higher Ground’ for Like A Version.
I love Stevie Wonder.
My mum brought me up on a lot of old school music
and so, Stevie always played in the house
but listening to the original
I could hear how I wanted to take it
and make it for Like A Version.
There’s a consistent groove.
It doesn’t really go anywhere else ‘Higher Ground’.
It kind of stays the way that it is
from the beginning to the end.
Nowadays you gotta have
so many tricks and colours and textures
for people to just even grasp on to a song
but the fact that Stevie made that song
all the way back then
and it still translates and resonates to now.
He’s paved a way for music 100%
and I would be foolish
to be an up and coming artist
and not pay homage to that
but he’s just gangsta, so gangsta.
The music is just so real and raw.
I‘ve kind of been put into the box of
“Oh she’s the female rapper”
“Let’s just get her to do all the rapping”
I was contemplating on whether I would rap or not
but then I was like
nah this is too hard not to.
Kind of have to.
But when writing my own verse
I sat down with my manager
and he printed out this sheet
of things that were going on in the world.
I speak about how there’s
200,000 people on the frontline
and there’s a war happening
and we weren’t ready for that.
He printed out this other thing about
some chick who was standing next to
our Prime Minister or something.
Her name was Grace
and he told her to smile or something.
As a female, I feel like a lot of times we get told
“Aw smile. You’ll look so much better if you smile.”
“Give us a smile love.”
Rah.
And then my own sort of life experiences
and tried to fit it around the theme still
of ‘Higher Ground’.
In the part that I re-wrote
my favourite lyric would probably be towards the end
I say, “My Indigenous brothers and sisters”
“I’m fighting with you”
“So whenever you need it”
“My Māori’s are with it, TRUE GOD”
And I think I like that so much because
one, acknowledging the fact that
the battle that the Indigenous Australians
are going through is still very much alive.
Two, I’m bringing up my culture, my people
and saying that as an Indigenous Māori
we stand with you
and I can speak on behalf of Māori’s
because I know that’s what it is with all of us
and I just love the saying “TRUE GOD”.
Love it.
I love it.
It’s just such an Indigenous saying
and whenever I hear my Indigenous bros or sis say it
I’m just like, “Yeah TRUE GOD, TRUE GOD.”
It just makes me real happy and real greatful.
I didn’t start writing my own music
until I was about seventeen.
I wrote before that but it was never music.
It was more like poetry.
I felt too insecure to sing my poetry
so I would rap it
because rapping is just speaking
so if you just speak it
no one can hate on what you’re saying.
Because you’re saying it.
You can’t tell me I can’t say what I’m saying.
It was really hard to confidently
step out as a rapper.
Especially in a male dominated scene.
So it took me a minute
and I had to grow some big balls
to kind of step into studios and rooms
and be like nah, I’m going to spit a verse
and I’m not going to give you a chorus
I’m not going to sing, I’m going to spit you a verse
and you’re going to fricken love it.
Anybody discovering A.GIRL now
is kind of like
“She’s done it over night” type thing.
Absolutely not.
It’s taken so much blood, sweat and tears.
When I came in to do Like A Version with Taka Perry
it was so cool.
I think at the time I was just
sort of establishing myself as A.GIRL.
So she wasn’t really
I speak about her like she’s not here.
I’m her.
She wasn’t established.
She wasn’t there yet.
She didn’t know who she was
and that’s when the Black Lives Matter movement
was really, really high.
Everybody was speaking about it
and everybody was on it.
I don’t think many people noticed
but at the time I didn’t know
the Kanye song ‘Jesus Walks’.
I never heard that song in my life, ever.
I should apologise to the music gods or whatever
but I did not know that song from a bar of soap
so I guess that’s why it was
really easy for me to write to it
because I wasn’t following the flow
of what Kanye did.
When we came in I was like a kid in a candy store.
I was like, “Wow, this is Like A Version”.
I’ve been watching Like A Version.
You know what I mean?
It’s an Australian icon.
Everybody knows what Like A Version is.
So when I stepped into the building
I was like, “Yo, I can’t wait to do mine.”
Shout-out Matt Corby, right.
Far out.
When he’d done, “I’m in chains”.
Oh my days.
I actually covered that when I was young
for some gig that I did in front of
all these white, prim and proper
suit and tie type corporate things.
And the way that I had the coolest reaction
when I got off stage.
And I was like, “It’s not me, it’s Matt Corby.”
I like knowing that if a fan or a listener
were to hear this and come back to me
and either DM me or message me
or see me out in public.
They would be able to have
a conversation with me
and be like “I sat down and I listened to it.”
If someone comes up to me and is like
“That was sick, rah, rah, rah.”
I’ll be like, “Yeah, what did I say?”
“What did I say?”
“Aw, I dunno, Higher Ground.”
“Nah, okay, never mind.”
Respectfully though, you know what I mean?
I kind of want people to really
peep what I’m saying.
I think performing on Like A Version
to me means that I’m heading
in the right direction.
And that everything that I kind of
put and set my mind to is achievable.
Because this has been a goal of mine for a long time.
For sure.
And so being here and actually doing it
is just a mental check for myself
to be like, yeah, you got this.
Keep manifesting what you’re trying to manifest.
Because next is Tiny Desk.