Too Strong

The Briggasaurus, as some dare call him, hails from Victoria’s Shepparton area representing a strong rural Aboriginal community. Discovered by Reason for Obese, Hilltops took the MC in at Golden Era Records in 2009. “When you’re in a community like (Shepparton) and part of a movement and a part of something bigger than yourself, you don’t get to waive the weight of responsibility, you know?” The brutality of Sheplife’s punch is felt hard on his very real, very wounding track, Late Night Calls, in which Briggs illustrates just how real it is where he’s from. “Being from the kind of community that I grew up in, you get a few of these calls. You know that when that phone rings at one or two in the morning, it’s from your Mum...” He pauses. “You know exactly what the fuck these calls are about.

“My cousin got stabbed, murdered. I knew I was gonna write about it, I didn’t know when and I didn’t know how. It wasn’t until I went to the shops one morning to get my breakfast and his face was on the front of the newspapers. That’s when I knew how I was going to write about it. I’m looking at my cousin looking back at me from an article. Over nothing. That’s the worst part. The other side of that is the family of the dude who did it. They have to live with this as well. It’s not a great situation for anyone to be in.”

Briggs supports community-led workshops and believes in first instilling a sense of self-esteem in children. “I had two good parents who told me I could. Some of these kids don’t have that.” This spirit carries into his music, also. Through every neck-snapping banger, Briggs aspires to the influences of Public Enemy’s Too Black, Too Strong presence in pop culture. “Tupac had that on every record – a very strong, black influence. Public Enemy had it on every record, Ice Cube, every record. And that’s what I intend to deliver, also. Not every track, but in everything that I do and everything that I am, that is my identity,” Briggs affirms. “I’m bringing it to the table the way I grew up among the politics. My father sat down in meetings with (Professor) Pat Dodson while I was drawing on paper next to him. I’m not new to this.”

What defines the album’s purpose and sense of identity, Briggs details, is evidenced by the track Bad Apples. 

“That is the core of everything. It’s the spirit, the heart of the whole album. If you wanted honesty, if you wanted truth, here it is on a fucking platter. People talk about what they want in music. If you wanna hear the real side to an artist, then there you go, you know? Welcome to Sheplife.”