pRhymetime: Why You Need To Keep An Eye On New Elefant Traks Signing Homeward Bound

There’s a little flutter in my chest when an elefant releases a new single and with the announcement of new outfit Homeward Bound last week, the excitement quickly becomes a stampede. Composed of Jimblah and Georgia B, the track is completely different to the sounds of Jimblah’s last project Phoenix, this week I got him on the phone to talk me through the deets.

“We started writing Island in 2015 and it was one of the first songs we created as Homeward Bound. I wrote it coming off the back of Phoenix when I was in a crazy place," he says.

"I felt a lot of pressure surrounding myself in what people perceived me to be, and what people expected me to be as an Indigenous fella. A big part was dealing with how the Indigenous community was looking at me, being a role model and standing up and using my voice and stuff. I love working with my community and am passionate about it, but before I knew it had overcome me, it overwhelmed me and took me to a really dark place. I felt like I had given all of myself, consistently trying to bring positive change... It was a huge beast to go up against and throughout all of that, G (Georgia) was there, she watched me go through it. So that’s how it came about, when I showed her the song we were both overwhelmed by it all and we wanted to flip our experienced negativity on its head!”

I can’t pretend to know how it feels for an artist; the constant pressure. Constant expectation of do more, write more, gig more. Especially when your creativity has such social and community influence. Once you begin positive change, does that become the one voice you’re expected to create?

“It came to a point where we both went ‘did you want this? Is this what you thought it would be?’ Don’t get me wrong, we were so grateful and humble for what we’d got to experience, but we didn’t want to turn into what people perceived us to be. I wanted to step back from the Jimblah stuff and whilst we weren’t sure what would come about, as soon as we started playing around with new sounds it just became evident... we wanted to do something new.”

“It came to a point where we both went ‘did you want this? Is this what you thought it would be?’"

I’m not going to be the first columnist to label this music. I actually make a conscious effort not to with pRhymetime and how we write about artists. There’s no “it sounds like...” or “they’re a cross between ___ and ___.” Artists should be the ones to label their own ambitions, but I did wonder about why the emcee wanted to shift from such a successful project.

“Honestly, I was a bit jaded with hip hop! What was going down with ‘real’ hip hop... there was a lot more cats coming out doing their own thing then which was dope, I’m originally from Adelaide and I always thought there was a purist mentality there. It didn’t feel like that everyone else. I wanted to go deeper than just rap. I was getting annoyed at things not being brought to the table so I thought, why not bring it yourself!? I didn’t even want to do hip hop, especially not rap! We started playing with beats and melodies and hooks... And there was no pressure. There was no expectation it was just me, G and the music. Cycle forward and that freedom eventually brought me back to rapping again but that’s what reaffirmed it was what I wanted to do. It was full circle, brought me right back, we were just free in the music again.”

I know that in these negative and dark times the last thing the world needs is more negativity. But does that mean we have to silence what we don’t like? I love the fact the rapper can say “I was jaded with hip hop!” Not all music is for everyone and being able to respectfully verbalise you don’t like it (I feel) is important. And not just that, this rapper is actually addressing positive change in his dislike, I have so much respect for that.

“I just started exploring man. What is it about new wave that people love? If it’s new, can’t it be anything!?”

So what brought this evolution in music? The desire for change is obviously evident but I wanted to know about Homeward Bound itself was conceived. I had only just realised at this point of the interview that G and Blah were actually life partners...

“I think before I brought a sort of isolation on myself... I wasn’t taking a hard look at industry stuff and the energy I was putting out. That turned into me shutting myself off which was so unhealthy for me. When I started exploring again, and got back to the craft, I found this new appreciation of music. And that’s something I shared with G, whilst having separate lives we shared everything together you know?

“We spend so much time together in the studio, so we were really conscious of not putting pressure on ourselves. It can be insanely hard, there’s utmost magic and other times one of us isn’t feeling something, but that’s something we enjoy figuring out! It was tricky to navigate at first but once we were able to put aside egos n stuff, it was easy because we know so much about each other. There’s so much stigma around working with your partner, but we turned all that on its head to be a strength! We’re still navigating it man, especially now we’re stepping out with the music, but we have each other’s back and time after time it makes us stronger and more equipped to hold things down.”

After listening to the track several times now, I prodded and poked Blah about more details on the project. Where is this new found positivity going to take me in the soundtrack?

“I think before I brought a sort of isolation on myself... I wasn’t taking a hard look at industry stuff and the energy I was putting out.

“There’s a strong foundation of hip hop within the project, it was important to us to hold that essence. But it’s a concept project, we’re experimenting and what’s going to come out will be evident that this is a whole new sound. We’re not boxed in and people won’t know what’s coming next, when that was previously an issue we disliked, it’s now a platform to be ourselves.

“It’s so easy to find ourselves in negativity and bitterness (especially in the world right now). And inadvertently when you’re surrounded by it you start to get pulled into it. I know what it’s like to be angry, and I know what it’s like to get lost in it and let it become you. But that’s how you can become crazy sick, then people tell you ‘it’s all in your head.’ It’s not! I’m passionate about the Indigenous plight, so what’s going to be the profound and positive thing that’s going to happen here? It ain’t succumbing to the hate, there’s no healing in hate and even though it’s so painful... every time I come back to that place I find clarity, love, unity, support from my peers and family and that’s how we rise up!”

“For me, people like Elefant Traks and people like Georgi... they’re people that are solid and could see the dream, see the vision and say ‘we have the utmost faith in you!’ There’s little support when people assume they know what it’s like for you individually, people like Urthy put so much fire in my belly. When you have incredible people that do support you, you start to see the greatness in yourself. I’m so grateful for it man, those people mean the world to me.” Jimblah’s positive outlook is infectious. As is the creative freedom he’s found in Homeward Bound’s new sound. We just can’t wait to hear more from him and G and perhaps we will at the coming ET20 events! Don’t wait to find out. Scroll down for all of the gig details.