Downloaded from YTS.MX
[tense music playing]
Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX
[woman 1 on radio] Onefour are Australia's first drill rappers.
The genre is defined in part by lyrics laden with graphic descriptions
of violence, including gang warfare.
[woman 2] They say that, uh, children as young as 13
are joining these so-called gangs
that are modeling themselves on violent US rap culture.
[man 1] We're saying that the music that they're promoting
is inciting violence.
The public would expect us to shut that down.
Stay out of sight, out of mind,
while we get the cops on that side of the building, just so…
We've gotta stay here, stay out of sight, just in case they jeopardize the show.
[man 2] I don't know how comfortable I'd feel having a child of mine
going to one of these concerts 'cause I'm scared there'll be conflict.
[man 3] Yeah, there'll be conflict.
[man 4] The Onefour boys, they are amazing songwriters.
You hear it, and, um, and you believe it, you know.
They've made the biggest cultural impact on the scene in Australia
and haven't been able to perform here.
[man 5] Onefour have become the biggest hip-hop group in this country,
but the police won't let them perform to their fans.
Every single gig they do just gets shut down.
This story is crazy. They're like the N.W.A. from this country.
[man 6] Pretty much, yeah.
[Laroi] The way police handled that situation was fucking ridiculous.
We pray, Father, this time that the show will not be disrupted
by any means whatsoever.
[man 7] I feel like we've come so far, but if we can't do the show, it's over.
[tense, suspenseful music playing]
[man 2] We have intelligence that there is a likelihood of conflict.
There's no way there'll be a performance here in New South Wales,
and I'll do everything I can to stop it.
["In the Beginning" by Onefour playing]
♪ Uh-huh ♪
-♪ Hey ♪ -♪ Hey ♪
♪ In the beginning ♪
-♪ There was only me and the gang -♪ True ♪
♪ Introduced this country to drillin' All of a sudden, they wanna bang ♪
♪ All of a sudden they all wanna rap Deal, sing, and loot ♪
♪ All of a sudden they all wanna trap Drill, ching, and shoot ♪
♪ Trap, drill, ching, and shoot In the beginning ♪
-♪ It was only me and the gang ♪ -♪ Gang ♪
♪ Introduced this country to drillin' All of a sudden, they all wanna… ♪
-[gunshot] -♪ All of a sudden they all wanna trap ♪
♪ Drill, ching, and shoot ♪
♪ All of a sudden, they all wanna trap Drill ching, and shoot ♪
♪ Trap, drill, ching, and shoot ♪
♪ In the beginning ♪
-♪ It was only me and the gang ♪ -♪ Gang ♪
♪ Introduced this country to drillin' All of a sudden, they all wanna… ♪
-[gunshots] -♪ They wanna trap, drill, ching, shoot ♪
♪ All of a sudden, they all wanna trap Drill, ching, and shoot ♪
-♪ Trap, drill, ching, and shoot ♪ -[gun cocks]
[gunshot echoing]
[suspenseful music playing]
I never thought of music as something that, you know,
I would end up taking as a career.
We didn't see it as people like us can do music.
It wasn't an option.
[Spenny] We grew up in Mount Druitt.
It's a suburb on the outskirts of Western Sydney.
There's a really big Islander community out there.
And we're Samoan. [chuckles]
I've known most of the boys all my life. I grew up with them.
We were just normal kids, always playing with other the kids in the street.
[girl] Just leave it there.
We come from the church. Don't know how the fuck we ended up like this.
[YP] We didn't really know it at the time, but Mount Druitt back then was, like…
[engine revving]
…it was hectic.
[Spenny] It has that stigma around it, a place that no one really cares about.
Growing up in Mount Druitt,
there was only, like, three options for Islanders.
Either footie, the factory, or a life of crime.
[YP] In high school,
they had this Islander class where they'd try to give advice.
He was telling us, "Youse are all going to jail."
"Like, every single one of youse."
I remember, like, the first time I ever watched the news,
it was one of the lads from church just got his head caved in
from another group of boys, yeah.
[whooping on video]
After that, any time I watched the news, it was always about Mount Druitt,
and if they ever spoke about Mount Druitt, it was just negative.
[man 1] Mount Druitt. It's also Sydney, just not the one in the tourist brochures.
[man 2] You don't wanna go to Mount Druitt after dark.
[chuckling] No, you… you really don't.
Community groups are pleading for help, with young people scared to go outside.
For us to feel safe, it was just to build this bond
where we can, like, go around the streets and that,
and it was like, "You got my back, I got your back."
The whole reason the boys started chilling together was…
was one of our mates ended up getting jumped, like, real bad.
[yelling, jeering]
[YP] And then the boys come back,
and they were just like, "What are we gonna do?" You know?
Like, "We can't just sit here."
And so after that, we started walking around deep.
If someone was to cross us, boom, jump straight into it.
[J Emz] Everyone had their Rambos ready and their blades and shit.
But we've always seen it as a family from the jump,
so when they labeled us a gang, we…
we already knew how they were trying to portray us.
We've always had run-ins with police. They just look at us as, like, criminals.
They used to bash us. That's what they used to do.
[officer] I got a gun, mate.
Stay back.
I got a gun.
[J Emz] This was a time in our lives where we were always getting into trouble,
going off the rails a bit.
[indistinct background chatter]
[J Emz] But then we, um… discovered Street Uni.
We didn't realize at that time how important it would be.
Esky was the youth leader just taking care of us headaches.
[man] Street University is a youth center.
It's the place where they can belong and feel safe
outside of the streets that surround us in Mount Druitt.
We provide resources and programs
that young people wouldn't usually get involved with,
and one of the ways that we engaged them
was through the recording studio.
[J Emz] When they introduced us to the little studio they had,
we were stuck on it.
It was, like, a free recording studio, so it was perfect for us,
'cause at the time, we didn't have any money.
[J Emz] We got into it straightaway. We loved it.
Like, "Shit, we could do something like that."
I really felt grateful that they had something to channel their energy into
other than the mischief they were getting up to.
So I was like, "Man, if you guys are…
if that's your thing, it's gonna keep you out of trouble,
keep you busy so you're not on the streets,
I'm good with that."
[chuckling]
-Mwah! -[chuckles]
[Esky] J Emz was definitely the leader.
He would turn to his group and be like, "All right, you guys sit there."
"You sit behind the desk."
"I'm just gonna jump on the mic, and we're gonna start."
Spenny…
I heard of Spenny before I met him.
He was known as the guy that was in front
when it came to, like, the brawls.
[J Emz] I think Spenny, he was just always that hard case.
The only way he knew how to solve something was fight.
[chuckles]
[J Emz] YP, that's my younger brother, my blood brother.
He was always the youngest in the crew.
They were like, "Yo, yo, Esky, listen to this,"
and they would show me one of the songs,
so I'm listening to it, and I'm like, "Whose voice is that?"
J Emz is like, "That's my brother, YP."
And I was like, "Wow, bro, a family of musicians."
If I was to describe Cell, yeah, it'll be…
He's a loose cannon, yeah. He's just… You know, he had it rough growing up.
[J Emz] See, Celly, he always had talent in rap. He loved rapping.
He wanted to use his rap skills
to paint a picture of what it's like to grow up in Housing Commission.
[J Emz] So Lekks, he used to work at Street Uni.
Yeah, he was just like that older bro
that helped us out in the studio when we started locking in.
[YP] Lekks was always a rap-head. He… He… He loved his music, you know?
I remember the first time he showed me Harlem Spartans,
which was the drill group that he was being influenced by.
Lekks goes, "This is the future of Australian hip-hop right here."
[rapping]
[slurping]
Ah, drill music. Yeah. Fun for the whole family.
I guess it's a style of rap music. Emerged out of Chicago
in the early part of the last decade, throughout the 2010s.
It was kind of like a shock to the hip-hop scene.
It was just very abrasive and very raw.
A more violent, gritty kind of hip-hop
with pretty explicit lyrics referring to what life on the streets was like.
A lot of references to stabbings, to shootings.
It became part of the international hip-hop mainstream
when it crossed over into the UK, particularly into London and South London.
[man] What Onefour gravitated towards was, like, the UK version of drill.
Drill is dark, and it's scary. It's like a horror movie almost.
And I think drill really did speak to them when they heard it,
'cause that's exactly what they were going through.
We loved it. Like, "Shit, we could do something like that."
So when we started experimenting, we started making drill.
♪ Ready to do suttin' ♪
♪ Every single one say F-T-P Fuck you pigs, release my Gs ♪
♪ We're Mount Druitt's real recipe ♪
[rapping indistinctly]
[Esky] Before Onefour was even a group,
they were known in the area as a…
I hate using the word "gang,"
but that's… that's what they were known for.
♪ Gotta say something… ♪
[Esky] In the early Onefour tracks,
that they were really talking about the violence in the streets.
[rapping]
[Esky] Spenny, one day, he attended my music workshops.
We were gonna go around in a circle and just share what we wrote.
And as he was sharing,
some of the boys from Onefour walked past the door and was like,
"Spenny, we gotta go. There's something going down."
And Spenny looks at me, and he's like, "Oh, sorry, man."
I'm like, "Nah, it's all good."
And Spenny, like, you know, dropped the notepad,
and then he left out the door.
It's like this yin and yang.
You have the street,
and then you have the music.
[indistinct jeering]
[whooping]
[man] A version of postcode wars happens all over the world,
from South Central LA to, you know, Brixton.
It's young people who find small communities,
and they'll defend that at any cost,
even when it gets tested by an opposing neighborhood.
There's always been drama with, you know, certain areas.
I don't know how it started and all the history behind it.
I just guess growing up around it, we got sucked into it.
Got to a point where you couldn't escape it at all.
[Mahmood] When I was involved, uh, in that world,
I experienced multiple deaths.
[voice cracking] Um… gang murders, essentially.
All young people in their twenties.
It turned my life around, and, uh, now I work as a journalist.
Violence becomes the means for you to achieve a status in these areas.
Like, the only way you can create an identity for yourself
is through violence.
Well, police have just completed a citywide crackdown
on violent crime and weapons possession.
[man] There has been ongoing conflict between two rival gangs,
primarily involving Pacific Islanders.
Rest assured that every single day,
there are men and women in this organization
who are doing their best to fight those involved in conflict
for the purpose of making our streets and communities safe.
[Osman] In this case, Onefour falls under the banner of "Mounty County,"
which is the 2770 postcode in Greater Western Sydney,
and they were at war with the Inner West Brotherhood
or the 21 District.
♪ Tryna come around, shoulda told 'em ♪
[rapping]
♪ Seventy, sixty… ♪
[Spenny] In drill tracks, a big part of the music is you also diss as well.
♪ Check yourself, how you act… ♪
[YP] I never wanted to rap until I seen it as a way
where I can diss people I didn't like.
When I went in the studio, it was just literally just me,
like, passionate and knowing, yeah, I'm gonna offend these guys with this shit
because, like, you know, they got one of our friends.
After that, it was like they crossed a line.
And it sounds crazy, but that's literally why I loved making my music.
I loved hurting, like, their feelings.
[man] With drill music, that's all you made, was diss tracks.
With that kind of platform of making music
and being able to tell your story coupled with social media,
you know, it's like, that's a shitstorm.
[Esky] I was worried that some of the songs
were obviously gonna exacerbate the violence in the area.
One time, there was this incident at the train station.
Word got around that people from another postcode were coming down,
so there was gonna be a massive brawl.
At that brawl, a Molotov was thrown in that tunnel.
[panicked screaming]
[terrified screaming]
[Esky] We… said this needs to stop.
Big high hopes, right,
um, to try and stop something that's been happening for decades.
There's always gonna be conflict. There's always gonna be drama.
We were just doing whatever we wanted, and trouble was like a normal thing.
After that, something ended up happening, and I ended up going to jail.
We ended up just getting into an altercation with another group of boys,
and it just escalated.
[indistinct yelling]
It was pretty bad.
-[camera shutter clicks] -[Spenny] J Emz went to jail.
Without him there, maybe four or five months later,
YP started to fall into trouble as well.
[Misa] That night at the pub…
Um…
That… that night was a killer night for us.
I don't blame any of the other boys. I don't put it on them. He…
He did the… His actions are his actions, but…
Ah.
[ominous music playing]
[YP] We just went to one of the boys' birthdays.
These Aussie lads were just, like, talking out of school.
They were being very rude and racist.
Lekks is helpless. You know, he can't do nothing.
So we just… we just jumped.
Wasn't a question, you know?
I practically did what I felt was right at the time and just…
Yeah.
Could've been a lot different. We could've went and spoke to 'em,
but that was just the way we… we handled it.
We didn't know how to talk back then.
[sirens approaching]
[sirens wailing]
I just remember feeling, like, my heart sink.
[chuckles sadly]
[Esky] It was really disappointing
because they were just starting to turn their lives around,
and then this happens.
They're back in trouble with the police again.
Me, Cell, and my other coeys, yeah, we all made bail that night,
and I was like, "We're gonna beat this. Don't worry, Mum. We're straight."
[Spenny] YP, Celly, and Lekks were waiting for sentencing.
While they were waiting, the music started to pick up.
["What You Know" by Onefour playing]
♪ What you know about hopping the fences? What you know about dodging the fences? ♪
♪ What you know about being a soldier And holding your own… ♪
[Spenny] We were in the studio, like, every day.
We ended up making "What You Know."
♪ About being a soldier And holding your own… ♪
Oh yeah, we got a bit of radio play on that song.
On Triple J. There's the Hip-Hop Show, Hauie's show.
[rapping]
I was following the progression of the group,
and they started promoting their new single.
♪ Streets, feds come question me about… ♪
[Hau] The musicianship of Onefour really sets them apart.
Not only their abilities and their… their mind for music
but also them being the first of their sound in Australia.
I was like, "Okay, these guys have got it."
I reached out and said,
"Look, I understand the history that you guys have with law,
but if you really want music to be your way of getting out of that,
then let's connect."
[Lekks] Hau's the man.
Without him, to be honest, like, there would be no Onefour, you know?
He started waking us up,
and that's when we started telling ourselves,
"Shit, we could actually make something out of this."
I direct, uh, a label which is a joint venture with Sony.
Um… I'm someone that pushes and empowers people of my community,
whether that community is Pacific Islander,
whether that community is hip-hop.
And one of the main things I asked them was,
"Outside of the legal troubles,
what is holding you back from success?"
J Emz, he said, "Oh, we don't have a professional place to record."
"Okay, so if I can get you a studio, would you come?"
And J Emz said, "Name the place, time, day, we'll be there."
We thought, "Shit, we're about to be stars." [laughs]
[suspenseful music playing]
[J Emz] This is the first time going into a proper studio.
Going into that studio and being part of Sony
was, like probably the best time ever, like, doing music
because it was, like, the first time I was introduced to the music industry.
Seeing all those, you know, big names and those big faces on… on… on the wall
made me feel like this is where I wanna be for the rest of my life
and what I wanna do.
[Hau] I said, "You come here, we're working."
"What you do outside the studio, is up to you. I can't control that."
"No drinking, no drugs, no drama."
"You come in here, record music, write, and that's it."
That whole thing was hard, bro. Hard.
[Spenny] So every Saturday, we're in there.
Just get work done and get out.
And Hau was always on our back, telling us, "Make sure you're writing,"
and that's when we started making our best music.
One of the first sessions, I was like,
"All right, boys, what's the first song we're gonna do?"
I'm sure it was YP who said, "Oh yeah, got a song called 'Shanks and Shivs.'"
"Oh shit! What's this song about?" "Well, it's about a couple of knives."
[rapping]
Nah, yeah, I remember our first studio session with Hauie.
I wasn't, like, trying to put on a facade or nothin'.
I just wanted to go in there and rap my shit.
[Kev] Hip-hop has always been a vehicle for minorities and the oppressed.
Drill music in particular, it's not so much about being technical.
It's just about telling the story as authentically and as raw as you can,
and I think that's why drill's so effective.
You know, what you see is what you get, and there's no bullshit around it.
It's nuts, but that's just part of the music, you know?
That's part of why it's so dangerous because it's real.
[rapping]
[J Emz] When everything started to grow,
the music started to grow, we started to realize, "Shit, like,
we need someone that knows this business side of things."
And I knew that Ricky was the man to… to continue on.
I knew it would be difficult. I never knew how difficult.
[laughing]
[J Emz] Rick used to come sit in sessions with us all the time.
He used to just do his own thing and mind his own business in the corner,
but he always had advice.
I really admired the loyalty that they had to each other,
the way that they took care of each other,
and I was like, "I wanna be a part of that."
I remember speaking to the guys, saying,
"This could actually be a thing for you, like."
"You're doing something that hasn't been done before."
And they were kinda oblivious to it. They were like, "No, like,
this is different. This is a different kinda situation."
At the time, I was, yeah, working with Laroi.
I thought that he would be the type of kid who'd wanna show them things,
just be curious to connect with them.
[J Emz] Laroi wasn't as big as he is now.
He was, um, just another normal kid from Redfern.
I had seen, like, a video of them rapping on… on Facebook or something like that.
Right away, instantly knew they have something special about them.
[J Emz] We learned a lot from sitting in studio sessions with him.
He'd get in there, do his thing, and we used to be shocked.
Like, "Holy shit! This kid's a genius."
[Laroi] It was all kinda new to them, I think,
and the coolest part was seeing the growth
and the constant growth of their process.
And then, by the end of, like, spending a couple months with them,
I'm like, "Oh, these cunts are next level."
If you weren't convinced by "Shanks and Shivs,"
you were convinced with "The Message."
So we knew, like, to be able to impact the music scene,
we'd have to do something no one's done before.
That was the first track that we just closed all filters,
and we just went ahead, you know?
We thought, "This is gonna get attention from police, public eye."
Well, I just said, "Yeah, let's get that out right now."
And we just said, "Fuck it. Just drop it." You know?
"The Message" came out, and that's the one that really blew up.
[Misa] "Oh, Mum, guess what? It's up to 500!"
"Yay. 500 people listened to your song."
"Hey, Mum! 500,000!"
"Oh my God! Who in the world's listening to your rubbish?" Like…
[inspirational music playing]
That was our first song to hit a million views.
It was fucking game over.
Like, doin' millions of views in three days,
that was largely unheard of.
It was so organic, so grassroots, so independent.
A word-of-mouth and social-media, just, explosion.
[Laroi] They were just like, "Oh my God."
"People really like what we're doing. A million views is bananas."
I'd never seen this happen before in Australia.
I think what… what surprised me the most was the international reaction.
The reactors are the ones that really blew it up for Onefour.
[J Emz] First time we found out what reactions were.
We didn't know people were doing that to music videos.
[reading out disclaimer]
They must be doing some bad things with that disclaimer.
First off, there's been a lot of buzz around this song,
so I wanna see what it's about. Let's go.
[Celly rapping]
Bro, he just named, like, 50,000 people that need to be free.
The song opened with a fuckin' call from jail.
[laughing] Like, what the fuck?
[J Emz rapping]
-Are you seeing where they outside? -Bro!
They outside the courthouse, like.
-Say what? -Look.
Mount Druitt Courthouse, and they're doing this outside the courthouse.
Proper, fam.
[Mahmood] I think it's the most provocative thing
in recent contemporary Australian art.
Such a "fuck you" to everything that had shaped these guys.
[J Emz rapping]
He said, "Hey, I'mma pull mine. I'mma let you pull yours."
"We gon' show who gon' die first."
Keep me away from these niggas, bro.
This is so funny.
♪ You boys just bitch and hide Come out and ride… ♪
Like, accent-wise, the accent's actually good.
It started as a novelty, but then when I realized,
"Oh wow, these guys actually can rap."
[J Emz rapping]
[Mahmood] The world hadn't yet seen people of color
rapping in an Australian accent.
They didn't even know a lot of us existed.
They both got one ponytail.
Bro, I think that's a… um, from the Rocksides, fam.
Oh, them man there.
You know what I'm talkin' about? What's it called? Samoan.
The perceptions of what they thought Australians were
were Neighbours, Home and Away.
[Kev] Lara Bingle. Steve Irwin.
Tall, blond surfer guys.
And Onefour don't look like any of those cunts.
They definitely changed the perception of what Australia looks like,
sounds like, and what happens here.
[rapping]
♪ Ooh, now that I'm down for the kill… ♪
-Yo, brother. -Nah, go on, like…
Need to take it easy otherwise I'm gonna lose it.
Bro, this video is lit as fuck. These man turn up for the video.
The top artists in the UK started, like, giving us our props.
Probably the first was Skepta.
Shout out Onefour. All the Gs.
[Spenny] Dave, he posted us on his story.
These were artists at the top of their game,
and they're posting about Onefour.
Getting all that love from overseas was crazy.
[rapping]
♪ We took numerous trips round there But, lad, that's suttin' I can't discuss ♪
♪ No way… ♪
[Kev] I think YP's line was so iconic
because it was just a succinct summation of what the group was about.
"Onefour. We're from here. You're from there. We don't like you."
♪ Them big lads, they're made for this ♪
[rapping]
Ohhh!
♪ Trust me, mothers Dem boys ain't ready ♪
[rapping]
Oh my days.
That is actually… No. No. No.
[clicks tongue] Fuck off, man.
Fuck off, man.
Oh yeah, that's fucking cold.
There's certain lines in that world that they were part of
that you really don't cross.
Especially when someone's died, you know, you don't really
provoke them in that way.
It's pretty, some would say, disrespectful,
but they said it, recorded it, and spit it on a verse.
So that line refers to the stabbing death
of a member of an opposing gang called 21 District.
One of the members gets stabbed, is killed,
and that leaves them with 20 members.
With that line,
everything was about to change for Onefour.
I'm both disgusted by it…
But if art is meant to make you feel something,
you succeeded in the point of art right there.
But I also thought, like, people are gonna hate this line.
It's gonna be so controversial.
It was shocking, it was confronting, but it was exciting, man.
Fifty guys in balaclavas talking about sharp objects.
You know, they had a buzz about 'em.
[Hau] They followed "The Message" with "Spot the Difference"
and just leveled up some more.
When you saw that,
you knew it was a new dawn of hip-hop in Australia.
[yelling]
I was like, "This is a fucking fly story. We should cover these guys."
[indistinct chatter, laughter]
[Mahmood] And it was a wild shoot.
They were on the phone, calling people, calling people.
They're, like, these guys come. These guys come.
Oh, that was the best day. One of the best days of my life, bro.
It was goin' off its head, you know? Had the whole area out, man.
[Mahmood] We were in this car park, and more flares keep getting popped,
and cars are doing burnouts,
and suddenly, they're like, "Let's lock the fucking road down!"
The cops couldn't do nothing because you had, like, three, four hundred kids
storming the streets of Mount Druitt, literally reclaiming the streets,
taking over.
-[car horns honking] -[indistinct yelling]
[Mahmood] It was unlike any shoot I've been on
because there were people that felt like they were being heard and seen
for the first time.
We're seeing the bright lights, and we're seeing kids,
and they're, like, following us around at the shops,
trying to take photos and that.
[indistinct singing, laughter]
It just felt like genuine hometown love.
[Mahmood] Can't imagine what it would feel like to be a kid in Mount Druitt,
to see your area splashed on the screen like that
and the whole world suddenly pay attention.
That gives me goosebumps, thinking about that.
Suddenly, you know, be like, "I've got these dreams,
and now I can realize them because the guys across the road did."
♪ Like spot the difference ♪
[rapping]
♪ My crew's still… ♪
[host 1] 2019 was and still is undoubtedly ruled by my next guests in the studio.
[host 2] Onefour, the fucking hottest shit on the scene right now.
[host 3] A YouTube phenomenon.
[host 4] They've forged their way into Australian music history
with their unapologetic writing, their raw energy,
and the pride they have in their area.
[J Emz] We started meeting with a lot of magazines.
Rolling Stones and all that, GQ.
[man] How would you describe yourself now? What is your, like, identity?
Are you rappers? Are you musicians?
[J Emz] We're fuckin' musicians.
Shut the fuck up. We're good at what we do too, you know?
♪ Force a shiv on these opps… ♪
Every cunt in Australia wanted to make drill music after that.
[rapping]
Like, everybody.
♪ And on that night… ♪
He's got a little Australian fucking dance going there.
[Kev] The Mounty Bop, you guys have helped popularize.
-It's going big on TikTok and all that. -[snickering]
♪ Like, who's that opp on the block? ♪
[Osman] It's unprecedented in the history of Australian music
to have that kind of impact.
Oh, I felt like a superstar.
Yeah, it felt good because it just changed our mindset
and the way we looked at life.
[Ricky] And then after that, Dave toured Australia.
He asked for Onefour to support him on the Sydney and Melbourne legs.
It was about to come together for them.
[Morri] I'm not brave enough to be a cop, tough enough to be a gangster,
or smart enough to be a lawyer, so I became a crime reporter.
It's one thing to have an anthem,
but it depends what that anthem's saying or how it's being interpreted.
You know, a bunch of young guys
who are talking about how tough they are,
about carrying knives, about hating another crew.
You know, anthems can be positive and… and negative.
Obviously, Onefour get a bit of notoriety. They're getting popular.
The real controversy around Onefour started when a couple of other drill acts
started popping up in West Sydney as well.
The media latched onto feuds between these rappers.
We have a media in Australia particularly on the conservative side.
Tabloids like the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph
have whipped up a fervor of gang crime in Western Sydney.
These newspapers sell when they talk about gang crime.
They love to splash this stuff on the front page.
They love to create a sense of panic and hysteria.
If you believe these papers,
you'd think that Sydney was like Gotham City.
Right? You'd think there was a violent crime epidemic
and Western Sydney crime is out of control,
and it's all being perpetuated by young Islander men.
When you actually look at the numbers, it's not the case.
It's the safest Sydney's been in so long.
[man] My first recollection of coming across Onefour was,
um, a newspaper article,
and I thought, "This is kind of really interesting."
"What the hell have these guys done to… to get this kind of media attention?"
On an international scale,
you wouldn't say that Australia has a… a serious crime problem.
In Australia, the crime problems are around domestic and family violence
and sexual assault.
And yet often, the media attention are on these different forms of crime,
whether it be organized crime or gang crime, if you wanna call it that,
that seem, on the face of it, more exciting and much more newsworthy.
Do I think Sydney's getting more violent? I think there are aspects.
Young Sydney's getting more violent.
That's coming not from Bureau of Stats or Census.
That's coming from 40 years of reporting crime in Sydney.
All these tabloid newspapers, they were suggesting that,
if these music groups come to more popularity and prominence,
there's gonna be more violence on the streets.
Something is sick in New South Wales, particularly Sydney.
This is very, very scary.
The worst urban conflict in a generation is being fueled by drill rap.
[man 1] Yeah, it incites. There's no doubt about it.
[Morri] I don't know how comfortable I'd feel
about having a 14- or 15-year-old of mine going to one of these concerts
'cause I'm scared there'll be conflict.
[Spenny] We make music. You know? We don't incite violence.
We don't make people go out there and do things that we're saying.
The media was never on our side.
Yeah, they hated, like, what we were representing,
and anytime, like, something happens on the street, they would just blame us.
There's nothing unique about art that talks about violence,
but for some reason, when it comes to hip-hop from Western Sydney,
we're having that debate all over again,
and I think it's because of who's telling that story.
[rapping]
I think that the controversial aspect of Onefour
definitely became a double-edged sword with them.
What attracted people to the group initially
was then turned against them by the larger media corporations
and, of course, the police.
[Weinstein] I grew up in Southwest Sydney as a young person,
and in my time growing up, you know, I saw the impact of crime.
You know, I had family who were victims of crime,
so I have a real drive to make the place a safer place for everyone.
[unsettling music playing]
My name is Deb Wallace.
My first station, 40 years ago, was a place called Blacktown,
and the substation was Mount Druitt.
I think I saw the harm
that drug and gang crime does to a community,
and it was an area that particularly interested me.
It was probably the middle of July 2019
when we started to see the violence escalate with these street gangs.
We saw them take on banners, and they changed them regularly,
which shows me they weren't real structured or very sophisticated.
They probably had more banners than I've had baked dinners.
I think when we first started to see them emerge,
uh, their names were Greater West and District 21,
and then we started to see Onefour.
And, um, we started to hear about some lyrics
that Onefour were using.
Where we're trying to combat and divert kids from violence,
this group was using lyrics that, to us,
had the possibility of inciting the acts of violence
that the street gangs were committing.
[Weinstein] It's pretty entrenched in drill rapping
that unless you have actually done that crime
or you are in that gang,
um, you cannot sing about that actual activity.
And we know that some of them were involved
in serious, serious assaults.
And if you read the lyrics of "The Message,"
they are really essentially two groups,
you know, open platform
to talk about what will happen if those two groups come to each other.
So the idea was to get onto it quickly before it escalated.
The New South Wales police force has a long history of different units
aimed at targeting gang crime.
Basically, those groups have been merged into a force called Strike Force Raptor.
That's a intense tactical elite unit of New South Wales police,
whose job it is to disrupt organized gang activity
across New South Wales
that focuses particularly on terrorism suspects
or organized motorcycle gangs.
It was around this time that Strike Force Raptor
began their crusade against Onefour.
A special strike force has been set up by New South Wales police
to address the youth crime epidemic in Sydney's West.
They say that children as young as 13 are joining these so-called gangs
that are modeling themselves on violent US rap culture.
The fact that these powers started being used
against rappers and people in the hip-hop community,
it's unprecedented in Australian history.
When they got fixed on us, we didn't know what was happening.
We didn't know why they were doing that.
We were just getting raided and rushed by the police everywhere we were going.
[Osman] So they employ high-impact policing.
A lot of raids. You get pulled over a lot.
There's heavy surveillance, things like that,
to really get in your face.
[yelling]
We have a suite of legislation in New South Wales
that, particularly for overseas countries,
would really not probably allow
or understand their police forces having such powers.
My parents were getting searched everywhere they go.
Like, they'll drive down the road, and they'll get stopped.
[J Emz] When you go through shit, it's not just you that goes through it.
You go through it with family.
When my house gets raided, who's in the house? My family.
Everything's turned upside down.
Even the rubbish bins, pot plants, everything.
My daughter was 14.
She was walking towards the front of the house when they came in,
and they had rifles at her, and she was crying.
And all she's saying is like, "Don't shoot my dog! Don't shoot my dog!"
Yeah.
We have to experience that. We have to live with that.
I don't expect them to understand something they didn't grow up in.
They're the ones kicking the doors down. They're not the ones living in the house
that the doors are getting kicked down in.
[Mahmood] Of course it's not a fair fight.
You've got one side who has 15 million dollars in funding
and a staff of over 100 police officers
against a few rappers who are trying to make artwork.
Yeah, so I had been a fan of Onefour's music for a while.
I thought what they were doing was incredible
and it reminded me of what we saw in the United States
in the early '90s and late '80s with N.W.A.
I did an audio documentary for the ABC, Australia's national public broadcaster,
called License to Drill.
I sat down with Sergeant Trueman, the head of the team targeting Onefour,
and what he told me was pretty shocking.
I'm gonna use everything in my power to make your life miserable
until you stop doing what you're doing.
Every aspect of your life, I'm gonna make it uncomfortable for you.
[Weinstein] The ability of Raptor,
which local police don't have,
is that we have the time, the resources,
and the tenacity that where we have a problem,
we will make sure that we are lawfully harassing that group
and enforcing all measures that we can
until that group either dissolves
or they desist from their criminal behavior.
And we don't apologize for that.
The way that the police are being used to target Onefour
is something that has never been seen in Australia,
and the police know what they're doing is going to break them.
[Esky] So I got this text from another colleague of mine.
They said, "Oh, Raptor Squad, the police, is running a presentation on Onefour
and its effects on young people."
I went, "Okay, I definitely need to check this one out."
[Weinstein] From a Raptor perspective,
community engagement always sits at the heart of what policing is, right?
Because the reality for policing is we can't police
without the community, you know, wanting us to police.
The really fundamental principles of policing.
[Esky] So you walk in, and then they would pull up the presentation slide,
and they say, "Okay, everyone, this is Onefour."
So there was elders, you know, church ministers, youth leaders,
community leaders, young people.
We were all sitting there,
and they were lined up in the back of the wall.
Yeah, they were in their… their Raptor suits,
their, you know, thick vests.
Yeah, showing us images of young people
and saying that, you know, these people are potentially responsible for violence
and putting up lyrics.
[Misa] I guess they were trying to educate parents
about signs of youth being involved with gangs and stuff.
I felt like they were blaming a lot of things on my children,
and they were saying it was because of the music.
It was just getting us in a room, as Pacific people, together
to tell us to stop being bad.
If you're constantly being profiled by police
and you feel insecure and unsafe in your own community,
you're gonna get angry.
It was like the camp of the group was split in two.
There was a group of them saying,
"Yes, Onefour are promoting gang violence,"
and then there was the other half going,
"They are, but that is not the full picture."
There was a lot of shock. There were tears.
I recall some people, halfway through the presentation,
just getting up and leaving,
and saying, "These are our family members."
It was oriented to be intimidating,
to scrutinize our communities
who feel already out of place.
It's so stupid,
in my opinion, spending money on stupid shit like that
when they could be, like, helping the kids and shit on the streets.
[Misa] It's a shame 'cause there's so much resources behind you.
You can do so much to be able to touch people
and… and build that bridge between youth and police.
Then one of my officers came to me said, "Boss, they're starting to do concerts."
"In fact, they've got one," and I think it was a theater in Sydney.
And they said, "We're concerned that if this concert goes ahead,
it's really gonna be a clash of, you know, the Onefours will turn up,
but also 21 District,
and if they do, they're not gonna sit there and share Jaffas together."
Well, we knew that the police
were gonna try to do whatever they could to disrupt.
But we… we had no idea, like, to what lengths they would go to.
'Cause they were so full of great ideas, these… these police.
And they said, "We're gonna go and talk to the promoters
and just tell them about the concerns we have."
I provide all the information to the venues, and I say to 'em,
"You can't provide the safety that needs to be provided
for this event to go ahead, and the cost of the tickets
are never gonna cover the amount of police they need
to try and safely run an event like this."
I will do that for every event in New South Wales
until the violence stops.
[J Emz] It's ridiculous.
Yeah, it just got to the point where the promoters just had enough.
[Spenny] This is the first time ever that one of our shows got shut down.
If you find an opportunity to break out of these hoods
and make something of yourself,
and then the police tell you you're never gonna perform live
in the city that raised you to your biggest fans,
it's really demoralizing.
We got banned from playing in Sydney,
but it didn't mean we couldn't play in another state.
We booked a show in Brisbane. 2,000 people.
[Spenny] We announced the show,
and within probably ten minutes to 15 minutes, it was sold out.
[hip-hop music playing]
[Spenny] This was big for us 'cause it was our first headline show.
I feel like it's a bit of a spotlight, you know? I'm proud.
[Spenny] Nah, yeah.
[Ricky] We worked really tightly with the event promoters,
who are also Pacific Islander.
We made sure that there were community elders the kids would recognize
in the room before they entered,
and we worked very closely with the local community
to make sure that there was no trouble.
Everyone in Australia in the music industry
is watching this show.
Number one thing basically is no sign of any violence.
[Spenny] The adrenaline's hitting now, and we're keen, you know?
We're ready to get on stage.
[indistinct chattering]
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Please.
[man] Dear heavenly father, thank you for bringing us all together.
-[all] Amen. -Let's go, boys.
[Hau] Brisbane show was their moment
to shine.
-[crowd cheering] -["Ben 10" by Onefour playing]
♪ But I can't stop this war So therefore this clip must be empty ♪
♪ I grip it like it's friendly Tell them Grim Reaper sent me ♪
♪ One, two, one, two Then back in the whip ♪
♪ Watch 'em freeze like Demzy… ♪
[YP] That's when I realized the amount of fans we had.
It was crazy to see. Just like, fuck yeah!
We're actually gonna be able to leave this life behind.
[fans screaming]
[indistinct talking to crowd]
[J Emz] Made me realize being on that stage is what I wanna do.
Having shown that we could hold, uh, an event safely,
we thought, like, "There should be no problems now."
[ethereal music playing]
♪ Uh-uh ♪
We drop "In the Beginning," and everyone goes crazy.
-♪ Right, ready? ♪ -♪ They, they, they ♪
[rapping]
Everyone's really positive, like super, super excited,
and we decide that, you know,
now's the perfect time to do a national tour.
[J Emz] Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth, over to NZ, back to Sydney.
Couple of hours after announcing, we're already on the verge of selling out.
[Ricky] We're doing the rehearsals and preparing for this national tour.
-♪ It was only me and the gang ♪ -♪ Gang ♪
♪ Introduced this country to drillin' All of a sudden… ♪
[Ricky] And the guys are going through their set, super excited.
Everyone's, like, nailing their verses, and the set's coming together.
♪ Trap, drill, ching, and shoot… ♪
[Celly] Fucking love now, baby! Fucking sick!
-We love you! Oh! -[laughter]
Thanks for real, buddy, yeah? Thank you! This is the best day ever!
[Ricky] And I get a message from our booking agent
saying that Raptor have approached venues
in Melbourne and Adelaide,
and it looks like one of the venues is about to pull out
because of pressure from the police.
[Lee] The police are sending intimidating letters to the venues to say,
"If you have this group play, we're gonna have a little closer look
at some of those breaches of your liquor-licensing laws
that might've occurred over the last couple of years,
and perhaps you won't have that license into the future."
Anyone looking at the letter
would probably interpret it as something being very close to blackmail.
We didn't say they couldn't perform.
We just had an obligation
to tell the venues of the potential risk.
[Weinstein] I wanna really set the record straight,
that it wasn't the police that stopped it.
The venue itself determined that they weren't prepared
to allow that, um, concert to go ahead.
When I read that email, I was like, "Oh man, how do I tell these boys this?"
"It's just gonna destroy their morale."
And I'm sitting them down after rehearsals and saying,
"Look, I've got a bit of news."
"The police are pressuring Melbourne, and we're gonna lose Melbourne."
And they said, "As long as we don't lose Sydney,
as long as we get to do home, like, it's okay."
And the next day, we rehearsed again,
and I got the second piece of news that we were gonna lose Adelaide and Sydney.
Yeah, it happened day by day. Like, we lost each venue a day at a time.
Oh, no venue wanted to do anything with us because of the police pressure.
Yeah, it was heartbreaking for us.
[Ricky] They wanted to fight back, but how do you fight?
How do you fight back against something that big?
Touring for an artist is… is a big deal.
It's… it's… it's their opportunity to not only connect with their fans
but it's an opportunity to make some really good money.
It's interesting because, um, I think we should give these guys a go.
They've got a chance to go, um, international here,
and it's a known fact that you make your money from concerts.
Just stifling like that, you're commercially cutting them dry,
like, they'll… they'll have nothing, which I think's massively disappointing
for a group of guys from Mount Druitt who've done so well to come this far.
The only one that we felt like we're definitely gonna be able to do,
and the police can't really do much to interfere, was New Zealand.
I was like, "At least we get to do New Zealand."
But unfortunately, YP, Lekks, and Celly are due to be sentenced
for that incident at the pub a few years earlier.
So the only two members who could travel to New Zealand was J Emz and Spenny.
We were excited to get out of the country
because of all the dramas that was going on back home.
[tense, suspenseful music playing]
[Ricky] We disembarked, and we went through customs,
and I knew something was wrong
because I saw quite a number of police.
We got to immigration,
and as we went through to clear passports,
Spenny tried to go through first,
and the gate wouldn't open.
Just a big red X.
Who had their passports taken? Can youse three come with me?
The rest of you guys, if you want, you can wait…
They said that Raptor from Australia has contacted them,
saying that we're coming into the country.
As the commander of Strike Force Raptor and the Gang Squad,
it's quite normal that any information about potential risks
to another community or another area is passed on.
It's the only way we can combat organized crime.
We don't tell anyone else how to do their job or what to do.
We just simply pass on the information about what we found and what we did.
[tense, suspenseful music playing]
[Ricky] They tell us that J Emz won't be let into the country
because of his prior criminal record.
I explained to them. I said, "This is what we're here for."
"J Emz doesn't pose any particular risk to the country."
"He's not gonna offend while he's here. He's here to work."
But they said, "We're not letting him into the country,
and that was pretty much it.
Yeah, I was gutted.
You know, traveling that whole way and not being able to do it,
but, yeah, I guess I shoulda seen it coming,
you know what I mean?
While I was in that holding cell, that's when I got the news
that, um, Lekks, my little brother, and Celly got locked up.
P got four years.
Lekks got four years,
and Celly got… I think he got ten.
It gets to a certain stage where you just become numb to emotion.
In the moment, like when, um… when she was calling out the verdict,
I knew my family, and that was hard.
But I still had that mind frame, like, "Yeah, fuck it. This is the life."
[Misa] I told my husband,
"No matter what happens today, I'm not crying."
"I'm not gonna put that on him."
But I remember just coming home and just going over the Harbour Bridge
and just wiping my tears.
When I got the news, yeah, I was pretty broken.
I thought, like, "How are we gonna be able to hold up the crew while they're gone?"
We didn't think they were gonna get that long.
[YP] Everything was going so well,
and then, like, for it to just be, like, put on pause,
yeah, it was the worst timing.
…statement.
The show's getting canned, eh?
Do you reckon I'd be able to do it by myself?
[Ricky] No way.
You'd suck.
That's not happening.
-[Ricky] You have to do it by yourself. -Huh?
[J Emz] Oh, I felt for Spenny at the time
because there's a lot of weight on your shoulders now.
We didn't know whether we were gonna go through with the show or not.
Fuck it. I'm doing the show still.
Just to let our people know.
Run the ball up 'cause we're insane.
[laughter]
-The show must fucking go on. -[laughter]
[Ricky] They can't stop… They can't stop us!
The show must fucking go on!
I wasn't nervous. I was more angry. I wanted to prove a point.
I was over all the bullshit from them, like, just them trying to stop us.
I wanted to look back at it and be like,
"They didn't end up breaking us that night."
[man 1 on radio] Hope you're ready for tonight.
-[man 2] Ah, tonight! -Whoo!
There is a massive show going down
from a global group who just took the world by storm.
[Ricky] And I could see Spenny just thinking.
Like, he was committed to the idea,
but he just didn't know how it was gonna work.
[Spenny] Unless you go through the shit that we've gone through,
then come talk to me, bro, you know what I mean?
We don't just make fucking music like this because we want to.
It's because that's what we've been through.
And that's why people love it,
because a lot of people have been through the same thing, the same situation.
That's why people are actually gonna show up.
They know it's real, know what I mean? The government doesn't want us to perform.
They don't want us to be better, but
it's not up to them, you know?
'Cause the people speak for themselves.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Spenny] I was more nervous five minutes before the show.
My legs weren't working,
but I just ran with it.
[Ricky] It's a lot of weight to carry on your shoulders, you know?
But he knew that he had Onefour's reputation to uphold.
He knew that the fans were waiting, like, had been waiting for a long time.
[crowd chanting] Free YP! Free YP!
[Spenny] All right. [speaks indistinctly]
They gave Celly ten years and YP four.
[crowd booing]
But, listen, YP wrote this shit just before he got locked up.
Listen to the fucking lyrics. This shit's a struggle for us.
♪ They call us ball runners With the utmost respect ♪
♪ Well known in the system There's not much of us left ♪
One of my proudest moments.
That show tells you a lot about the character of the group,
what they're willing to do for each other,
and how committed they are to what they're doing.
["Welcome to Prison" by Onefour playing]
[Spenny] Came home to the same shit.
Raptor was there, waiting for us at the airport.
[Ricky] They separated us and started to ask us a bunch of questions
about what we did,
whether we knew that what we were doing was illegal or wrong.
So they asked us to sign non-association papers
to say that we wouldn't affiliate with the members of the group, the rappers.
One of the strongest, uh, tools we had in our toolbox
was the legislation of consorting.
And it's about telling people that if you associate with that person
who has been convicted of a serious offense,
then you may be committing a crime yourself.
And you warn them.
We just feel that was just intimidation.
It was meant to just make us fearful about working with the group.
[Spenny] They were saying to me I can't affiliate with J Emz.
I was getting nervous 'cause I was, like, "Is this true or not?"
If we can't affiliate with each other, how are we meant to do music?
[Hau] Could this be the end of Onefour?
You know, Lekks was already in. Celly was in. YP's about to go in.
Could Spenny and J Emz carry that torch?
[J Emz] It's just me, Spenny left, and there's a lot that we have to uphold
now that they're gone.
[Spenny] I think this was, like, the lowest time for us.
I wanted to give up, and I just didn't wanna do it anymore.
Like, I felt like the stress was just too much.
Yeah, there were moments when I definitely felt like
all of us had the idea that, like, this is getting too hard.
How much more of this can we take before we have to say, like,
"Oh man, it's just not working"?
[Spenny] Um… Yeah, we were just thinking,
like, "How the fuck we gonna get out of this one?" You know?
Thing is, these boys have changed their lives
and for the better,
and I've seen it personally.
It really does feel like they don't wanna see 'em win.
I think you've gotta give people a chance. You've gotta give people room to grow.
You can't shut them down.
Yeah, I had thoughts of, you know, just going back and doing what we knew,
doing the same old shit or running around the streets.
[laughter, indistinct chattering]
Where's Spenny? Call Spenny and…
I'm always trying to be there for the team.
I'm always trying to be there, but at the end of the day, I'm a criminal.
-You know me. -[Spenny] I know… It's done.
-You wanted this bad. -[J Emz] End of the day, I'm a crim.
[Spenny] That's not the point.
[Ricky] I knew that the guys just needed to get away from things for a while.
There was sadness for losing Lekks, Celly, and YP,
and I just figured it could be a good time to capture that feeling,
and that feeling would be the backbone or inspiration behind some new music.
[J Emz] So we went somewhere in the country,
and we just started making music,
and the sole purpose to go out there was to make music with B Wise.
[Ricky] We were thinking at that time, like,
"How do we show people that there's more to the group
than what they might see?"
You… You have to find that balance, you get what I'm saying?
Don't completely abandon something that's clearly working.
Just what you're doing is you're just… you're showing progression.
We're just able to think out there, be able to work differently.
We just knew we had to base it around what was going on at the time.
Then we ended up coming up with a song called "Home and Away."
♪ At war with the cops like Brax But this ain't home and away ♪
♪ Didn't grow up Round all those beaches… ♪
[J Emz] We dedicated that song to the boys in jail and the area where we came from.
[rapping]
♪ Pull up, bang, spray Do dat, do dat, gang, gang ♪
♪ Gang, gang ♪
[Hau] "Home and Away" was
those boys trying to find something to fulfill that void.
[Osman] Onefour grew up watching Home and Away
and not seeing themselves represented.
They want the next generation of kids coming up
not to be focused on what's happening at the bay
but to realize the lives they live are as valid of being represented
and of telling stories about.
[J Emz] When you see Home and Away, you just see palm trees, beaches, sand.
We feel that's the perspective people have on Australia,
so we just thought we'd show 'em a different side of Australia
and the life that we're living and what it's like
on our side of Australia.
♪ Yeah, I grew up in Mounty That's home of the brave ♪
♪ Out here We at war with the cops like Brax ♪
♪ But this ain't home and away I didn't grow up round… ♪
So, for the next year, we got into a rhythm of working, and yeah.
[Ricky] The EP Against All Odds,
they purely recorded what they were feeling at the time.
[Kev] I imagine that would've been a difficult time for J Emz and Spenny,
just the two of 'em,
especially going through so many obstacles and so many hurdles.
We've got a lot on the line right now.
It's… It's different.
Like, I got people that rely on me.
[operator] This call is originating from the correctional center.
You boys are on the radio now, and I know that the boys are massive.
You can do this for us as well.
[man] What do you think?
[playing tentatively]
[Spenny] I'm learning how to play the song 'cause I'm gonna prove everyone wrong.
[giggles]
That's what I'm good at doing, proving people wrong.
[man on radio] It's all about Onefour and their new EP.
From Mount Druitt to the globe.
What do you want everyone to take away from this project?
Just read the title Against All Odds.
You can have your back against the wall all you want,
but it's how many times you get back up and keep fighting.
True.
We found out that some big international artists
started reaching out to us,
and we realized, bro, it's time to work, you know?
No one's gonna do this for us, so we've gotta do it for ourselves.
We had Ferg hit us up.
AJ,
Headie.
♪ Hey, hey, hey ♪
♪ Hey, hey… ♪
[J Emz] We also did a song called "My City,"
uh, which featured The Kid Laroi.
♪ I'm like the Jay Or the Drake of my city ♪
♪ Fuck what they say They won't say that shit to me ♪
♪ I'm in downtown All my brothers is with me ♪
♪ Shout out my boys from the 70 Shout out my boys from the 60 ♪
♪ They know what's in me Shout out my boys from the 17 ♪
♪ They really know how I was livin' ♪
-♪ Oh, what a feeling ♪ -[rapping]
♪ Get the fuck out my face ♪
[Mahmood] I couldn't believe it.
Like, I've just never seen anyone from Australian hip-hop
even get recognized by an overseas act that I admired.
These are guys that are at the top of what's happening in culture
at the moment
because hip-hop is, you know, the biggest genre in the world.
And yet, in Australia, we wanna deplatform it and censor it.
[Osman] If they're not allowed to perform, if they can't make a living by making art,
Onefour, I think, will be a pretty bleak cautionary tale
for what happens if you choose to tangle with the Australian police.
If the police are successful in destroying a group,
it's a dark day for Australia and freedom of expression.
Very disheartening. You know, you would question yourself.
Like, what's… what's the use of… of making music
if I can't even perform, you know, for the people?
♪ In fact, that's the old me ♪
♪ Now you got me wishing That I could go back in time… ♪
I heard on the grapevine that YP is getting out very soon,
and I think that's the injection of energy that Onefour really needs right now.
I can't wait for him to get out. It's…
We've been doing it without, you know, him and Lekks and Cell as well,
and, you know, finally, it's time for us to come back together and go forward.
The one with Illy on it?
We're on video call every weekend. It's always me and him.
Everyone will say hello, and then they'll go, "Here's Mum,"
and then I'm the phone call for the rest of the time.
I've realized what I wanna do. I wanna do music, like, all the way.
I don't really wanna do anything else when I get out. Just music.
I can't wait. You know, that's my… that's my brother.
I've been waiting for this day ever since he went in.
Shit, I already got his bed ready for him and that. [chuckling]
He's been inside for two years,
and, like, I feel like he might be a bit lost.
[J Emz] When you're inside those walls, you can become trapped, and you feel shit,
like, "This is gonna be me now for the rest of your life."
He's a bit institutionalized from, you know, going in at a young age.
He went in at 18.
But better things will come when he leaves those gates.
[YP] I guess you can kinda see, like, where my head was at
before I even walked out of them gates.
Still trapped. Still looking at everyone like I wanted to turn on everyone.
And when I walked out, and I seen my little sisters and my mum,
it was a bit unreal in a sense.
[Misa] Give me another cuddle.
I felt, like, some type of, um, anxiety and shit,
and I never knew what that was, but soon as I walked out, I noticed.
Bro, like, this is just weird, you know?
Also coming out and, like, not knowing what to do,
was… it was the big thing.
Like, all right, I'm gonna… I'm gonna fall back into my old habits,
and I'm gonna end up back in jail.
You all right?
And then, like, when I was outside, I realized
fucking opportunities are in my hands now, like.
You know, if I don't get there to the…
to my end goals, this and that, it's on me, so that's when I stepped up,
and I was, like, "Fuck this, let's go." You know, "Let's take it all away."
[rapping]
[YP] Studio sessions are coming up. Monday to Friday, weekend off.
My routine started kicking in again, and it was just like,
"You know what? You gotta do this now. This is your job. This is your work."
"If you really wanna keep on the straight and narrow,
this is what you gotta do."
[Spenny] This is the make it or break it. Yeah, I'm excited for it.
I feel like with all the things that's happened around us and
all the setbacks that we've had to go through, like,
it's finally our turn to see our full potential
and get to where we're meant to be.
[tense, suspenseful music playing]
But lo and behold, Raptor stepped back in.
[news theme playing]
[anchor 1] This week, New South Wales police upped the ante
with a warning to sites like YouTube, Instagram, and Spotify
that they would take action over material inciting violence or criminal activity.
From what I can gather, police are looking now,
and it's not just songs.
It's also posts, video content,
that they believe could create a threat to any part of the community.
They're gonna approach the platforms and say, "We'd like you to look at that."
"We're thinking that it's dangerous."
[Weinstein] It wasn't so much about us going to a YouTube
or a social media platform and saying, "Take this down."
Where we thought the messaging was, you know, inciting violence,
then we would say to the platforms,
"We're bringing this to your attention. You decide."
"Is that fit for purpose for your framework as a company?"
The police are trying to stop this music
from being heard, from being performed, from being streamed,
and they're trying to send a message to Onefour and anyone else like them.
"Don't bother. We'll ruin your lives if you do this."
But is the New South Wales police
really an adequate judge of what is acceptable and what's not?
I can't think of any other moment in Australian hip-hop
where musicians were censored,
and I've heard some of the most violent Australian hip-hop
that you can possibly imagine.
These guys could take to any stage in Melbourne or Sydney whenever they want.
I think as long as the New South Wales police
censor and deplatform artists of color,
um,
we've got a long way to go
in terms of the type of culture we're willing to accept and represent.
They're not bashing us like they were before,
but in my opinion, it's even worse, bro.
We've literally tried to go straight and narrow,
and… and they're taking our ability to work and fend for ourselves,
so they might think, you know, they can shut down one or two shows.
The way I see it is, all they're doing is building that fire bigger in me.
I'm never gonna stop now just 'cause of what they keep doing.
[rapping]
[Ricky] But clearly, Raptor aren't gonna let it go.
Lucky for us, an old friend has reached out.
He messaged me,
and he was telling me that it wouldn't be right
for anyone else to open up for him,
so he hit me up, and he asked me how it was looking.
In the two years that I've worked with Onefour,
Laroi has gone on to become Australia's biggest musical export.
♪ I do the same thing I told you that I never would ♪
♪ I told you I changed Even when I knew I never could… ♪
A global superstar.
♪ Find nobody else as good as you I need you to stay… ♪
[Ricky] Laroi had requested
that Onefour support him on his national tour.
Well, The Kid Laroi is one of the biggest pop stars on the planet
after absolutely exploding onto the scene only a couple of years ago.
Laroi is finally back in Australia for a huge arena tour of the country.
I was trying to have them open for the, uh, for the tour,
and, uh, they… they told me,
um, "There's no way in hell that that's happening."
We're going back and forth, and he was saying
they won't be able to do the tour if they announce us.
I said, "Oh. Okay, you know what? It's all good. Don't worry about it,"
and, um, yeah,
so I'm just pretty much gonna just bring them in
and just not tell anyone, so…
That's why I'm sneaking 'em into the show on Thursday.
[Ricky] It's gonna be bonkers.
They've, you know… They've barely performed two live shows,
you know, so to go out on stage and get their roses
in front of 20,000 Sydneysiders, like, it's not a small thing.
♪ Tell me Where did they all get their confidence? ♪
♪ I ain't gotta take this shit no more ♪ First class and I'm on that plane ♪
♪ Put Aus on the map And they all complain ♪
♪ Tellin' the truth And they still complain ♪
[backing track continues]
[YP] The opportunity to go and perform
actually without fucking getting pressed by any venues,
and big shout out to Kid Laroi
'cause, you know, we never get to do shows anyway,
so fucking love, man, all love.
[J Emz] Word. They probably think your little apology…
One-fucking-four, baby!
[Spenny] See you… See you later. See youse tonight.
It's mad that we get to rehearse, knowing that, on the same night,
we're about to come out in front of 20,000 people.
It's gonna be our first time, like, performing with YP on stage
for, you know, around three years.
[YP] It's crazy, like, doing anything with Kid Laroi at that kinda level,
like, it's gonna be big.
-[forceful knocking on door] -[dog barking]
[officer 1] Police search warrant! Open the door!
-[dog barking] -[indistinct chatter over radio]
[J Emz] Yeah, just the police, they end up kicking our door in
and raid us the night of Laroi's first show.
It's putrid. You know, like, it's your home, you know,
and then you've got a bunch of strangers running in your house, guns out,
this and that, just flippin' it upside down.
You can just imagine what, like, my mum and my sisters would think.
It's just, like,
you know, it's wrong.
[Misa] The house was searched,
and they had two police on us the whole time
to make sure we didn't leave the room.
And from then on, we're, like, "Fuck's sake."
The boys aren't gonna come. We couldn't make Laroi's first show.
It can't be a coincidence.
There's a motive behind this and a message the police are sending
that, um… that we're not in control,
that they are.
Yeah, 100% they knew that we were gonna come out.
We were getting ready to leave at six o'clock,
and their house literally got raided at 5:30.
If the inference is that Raptor went there because they were doing a surprise visit,
I'm not sure how much of a surprise it must've been.
But, no, we would never, ever go and do a raid on someone's house
because they were gonna sing at a concert.
That's just, in my view, um, nonsense.
That's the thing about the cops trying to stop us.
If
they were able to stop us, we'll be worse than what we ever were.
You know, we're trying to make it out, and putting us back in the trenches,
we just create more drama for them.
So no matter what we've been through in the past
and what we've had to go through with Onefour,
I feel like it helps everyone around me, not just myself.
It helps my family. It means everything now.
[Ricky] Success to them now is, first of all,
being able to provide for their friends and family.
But that's their culture and where they come from, is like,
you don't succeed on your own. You gotta bring your village with you.
[Esky] I remember when they first came up,
J Emz would always say,
"When we get big, we're gonna come back and renovate your studio."
Lo and behold, just two years later, they came back and renovated the studio.
[J Emz] There is a lot of young music and young talent coming up.
I love it. I love hearing at all, you know.
[Kev] They opened the floodgates for so many other acts,
especially from Pacific Islander backgrounds,
to get into music and realize that this was a viable career.
Hell yeah. You know, I'm… I'm very proud of what we achieved.
We set out to shift the culture, and we did.
[Mahmood] I think, at the end of the day, it all boils out to,
you know, that young boy at home in Mount Druitt
suddenly sees these rappers who live across the road from him
make it to the world stage.
And suddenly, he gets that spark to dream in the same way.
[uplifting music playing]
One thing I want people to understand is how important it is
to find something you love and then run with it.
Whether it's music or whether it's anything else.
That's the one thing that helped us
get out of a lot of the bullshit we had to go through.
[Kev] Onefour's presence has just had such a massive impact
on the music industry as a whole in Australia,
but ironically, Onefour have been banned from playing shows,
so even though they're the reason why everyone's getting bigger fees,
they're not getting their slice of the pie.
Essentially a pie that they baked.
[Spenny] As much as we did take that big hit
losing tours, losing rappers, we're not gonna go out like that.
No way.
That's one of the main reasons why we all keep pushing together,
'cause we know the circle's bigger, the picture's bigger,
and, you know, there's a lot more to lose if you lose.
So we can't lose.
[Spenny] Luckily for us, Laroi put on another show the next day.
Ha ha. [chuckling]
[tense music playing]
[Ricky] Heading to the show on Friday,
you can feel that there's, like, an anxiety
or, like, a nervousness,
but also, like, a…
a suspense.
We don't know that this is actually gonna happen or not.
We can't risk the police catching wind of any of this.
Stay out of sight, out of mind right now,
while we get the cops on that side of the building.
We just don't want, obviously, them trying to disturb us.
We gotta stay over here, stay out of sight,
in case they jeopardize anything with the show.
-[siren wailing] -[police radio chatter]
Do pray, Father, at this time
that the show will not be disrupted by any means whatsoever.
-Amen. -[all] Amen.
-[J Emz] Hey, Lekks. -Hey, bro.
[J Emz] Hey, bro. We're about to go up. I'll call you later. Love you, Lekks.
We deserve this. We deserve to be up there.
-[crowd cheering in distance] -[indistinct chatter over radio]
[crowd cheering raucously]
[inaudible]
[Laroi] Sydney, usually, usually,
we would roll right into the next song.
But tonight, I told you guys on my Instagram
that I have a very special special guest.
[excited screaming]
Before this very special guest comes out, I wanna say this.
These guys have been banned from performing in Australia.
[crowd cheering raucously]
And guess what?
I don't fuck with that.
[crowd cheering loudly]
So tonight, I'm gonna fucking get them what they deserve,
and they're gonna come out here and do a few songs for us tonight.
Let's fucking go, Sydney! Make some noise for your very own Onefour!
[raucous cheering]
[J Emz] You know what fucking time it is! Let's go, Sydney!
[crowd cheering wildly]
Whoo!
♪ Gang, gang, gang, gang ♪
♪ I'm like the Jay or the Drake of my city Fuck what they say ♪
♪ They won't say that shit to me I'm in downtown ♪
♪ All my brothers is with me Shout out my boys from the 70 ♪
♪ Shout out my boys from the 60 They know what's in me ♪
♪ Shout out my boys from the 17 They really know how I was livin' ♪
♪ Oh, what a feeling I walk through the city ♪
♪ They treat me like God We were six deep in that five-seater car ♪
♪ I heard they got a problem with me Told 'em, "Come to my face" ♪
♪ But they fakin', they fraud Drive in the hood in Lamborghini cars ♪
♪ I might just give a hunnid to my dawgs Thank you for holding it down ♪
♪ And I'm sorry if you ever felt Like there was love lost ♪
♪ Now they blamin' Onefour For all of the drillings ♪
♪ They blamin' us For what happens in Sydney ♪
♪ They blamin' us For what happens in Melbourne ♪
♪ They blamin' us For what happens in Brissy ♪
♪ Tell me who's with me? 'Cause I ain't kidding ♪
♪ This shit's been happenin' Since back in the day ♪
♪ No one said nothing when sh got… ♪
♪ Now everybody's got suttin' to say ♪
♪ Get the fuck out my face ♪
…now between the event coordinators, your manager, and police,
you were meant to perform your song promote it, whatever.
That's not happening now.
So there's no song. There's no singing, dancing.
There's no promotion.
[J Emz] What's the problem with us doing the song?
-That's the whole problem. -[J Emz] What's wrong with the song?
It's nothing to do with the song. It's the fact that you guys are here.
[J Emz] But why are you stopping the song from playing?
-Am I gonna keep going in circles? -[J Emz] Just answer my question.
-I'm trying to explain to you-- -[J Emz] You're not answering straight.
No problems. Everyone, get on that wall. Put your hands against it.
-[J Emz] You're not answering. -[officer] No, you're not listening.
[J Emz] This is censoring.
♪ Yeah, I grew up in Mounty That's home of the brave ♪
♪ Out here we at war with the cops Like Brax, but this ain't home and away ♪
♪ I didn't grow up round all those beaches But I still got bros at the bay ♪
♪ Pull up, bang, spray Do dat, do dat, gang, gang ♪
♪ Came straight out of Bidwill Deccan Way Right there that's home of the gang ♪
♪Took my first L at the back of the block But that's what made me a man ♪
♪ Everything that I do is illegal For my opps my intentions are evil ♪
♪ And I take the throne for my people King of the ring like William Regal ♪
♪ Every day that it's FTS, FTP ♪
♪ Til they Mounty Bopping back on these streets ♪
♪ Free up Lekks, free YP For the gang I stay doin' O.T ♪
♪ Free up Biggs, that's my bro Free up the whole of the GSO ♪
♪ We do not talk, we stick to the code ♪
♪ That's rule number one When we step on the road ♪
♪ Like sh, sh Talk to me, talk to me nice ♪
♪ On God if you fuck with a opp Sh will get got, I put that on my life ♪
♪ All the times that they switched up And how many times did I pay that price? ♪
-♪ This is Mounty ♪ -♪ Home of the brave ♪
♪ I don't wanna have to Say that shit twice ♪
♪ Yeah I grew up in Mounty That's home of the brave ♪
♪ Out here we at war with the cops Like Brax, but this ain't home and away ♪
♪ I didn't grow up Round all those beaches ♪
-♪ But I still got bros at the bay ♪ -♪ Ay, free 'em up ♪
♪ Pull up, bang, spray Do dat, do dat, gang, gang ♪
♪ Yeah, I grew up in Mounty That's home of the brave ♪
♪ Out here we at war with the cops Like Brax, but this ain't home and away ♪
♪ I didn't grow up Round all those beaches ♪
-♪ But I still got bros at the bay ♪ -♪ Ay, free 'em up ♪
♪ Pull up, bang, spray Do dat, do dat, gang, gang ♪
♪ For me, growing up in Mounty That's home, you know? ♪
♪ All the bullshit aside All the violence and that ♪
♪ It's still home I won't let no one talk down on Mounty ♪