Noongar hip-hop talents Beni Njah and Flewnt surprise fans with new track

Rhiannon Clarke Published July 7, 2023 at 2.15pm (AWST)

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West coast Noongar hip-hop talent Beni Njah and Flewnt have surprised fans with the drop of their new track.

They have teamed up releasing their hard-hitting song Throw Away the Keys which highlights the injustices Indigenous people face in the justice system and the devastation it causes to the community.

The track strongly references a woman being incarcerated over train fines in Western Australia, the poignant new track speaks to the many failures by the system.

Shame on the system/ Discriminating our yorgas (women)/ Mothers to koolangka (children)/ Over fines they probably forgotten,

Never heard about or even/ Worse couldn't afford it/ And now she doing that bid/ Why her kids stuck with the trauma ha.

The song opens a conversation that has been long overdue and hard truths, with both Noongar artists sharing their life-long frustration of systematic racism and plead for justice and freedom for their people.

The pair highlights the rate of Indigenous deaths in custody and high incarceration rates and over-representation of Indigenous people in the Australian prison system with more than 40 per cent of inmates in WA.

A shot from the music video that was directed by Uncool Sam (Image: supplied)

Beni Bjah:

Check the stats it ain't hard to tell/ Fair to say we livin hell/ Locked away in that prison space/ Incarcerated at half the rate.

That's 50/50 better think about ah/ At 3% of total pop we should talk about it/ But they ain't saying shit/ Nobody gives a f**k,

I just say it how it is, Its discrimination plus.

Flewnt:

I don't wanna see another brother die in prison/ I don't wanna see another mother cry isn't,

This the right time take a stance to the system/ Or we getting more fathers that are gone from their children,

They actually killing us literal death/ Chucked in a cell little respect…

Beni Bjah (L) and Flwent on set of their new track Throw Away the Keys. (Image: supplied)

Written by Beni Bjah and Joshua Eggington (Flewnt), Throw Away the Keys was produced by Scott "Optamus" Griffiths and Rob Shaker – as well as recorded by Shaker at Shake Down Studios, WA.

The film clip was shot by Uncool Sam at the Fremantle Prison, WA – which housed some dark times for Aboriginal people – with Bjah and Flewnt dressed as inmates and rapping throughout the prison corridors and grounds.

Throw Away the Keys from Beni Bjah & Flewnt is available on Spotify and YouTube now.