Racial inequality smoulders on “Life is Incredible”, the latest music video released by hip-hop artist Briggs.
“Man [expletive] what they say now, I just paid my way out,” are the first lines in a song that explores the struggle of Australia’s Indigenous people to overcome disadvantages including shorter life expectancy, high suicide rates and overrepresentation in prisons.
In the video, the 32-year-old Yorta Yorta man checks into an upper-class retirement home and witnesses a series of untimely deaths unfold.
He said inspiration came after One Nation leader Pauline Hanson put forward – echoing a notorious alt-right slogan.
“I was dumbfounded,” Briggs told NITV.
“I was like ‘really?’ It’s like this is what you’re wasting time with in the Upper House? It’s like this is what you’re working on? Like it’s okay to be white? Is it okay that we die 10, 15 years before everybody else? Is it okay that the suicide rates are what they are? Is it okay that the incarceration rates are what they are?"
To underline the point, the video features on-screen deaths of a number of high-profile Indigenous personalities including AFL star Adam Goodes, playwright Nakkiah Lui and actor Shari Sebbens.
It also makes fun of a list of “incredible” things including white rappers Post Malone, Eminem, and Macklemore, the American music festival Coachella and craft beer.
“The song itself is talking about what white privilege is and what it looks like, and in the clip I draw the extreme of the ultimate form of white privilege in the fact that blackfellas die 10-15 years on average before the rest of Australia,” Briggs said.
“If we’re going to die 10, 15 years before everyone else, we need to start enjoying the twilight now – the time of our life – when you’re 35.”
