Horrorshow Are Asking Their Fans To Stand Up For Refugees And Help Change The Political Debate

Not only do Sydney hip-hop duo Horrorshow make great music, they also have the proven ability to impact national politics using just their lyrics.

In a cover of A Tribe Called Quest’s ‘Can I Kick It?’ for Triple J’s Like A Version back in 2013, they dropped the line: “Mr Abbott would you please turn to vapor, you’d be doing us a really big favour.” Sure, it took two years but eventually Abbott was booted out of the Prime Minister-ship, no doubt in part due to this sick burn.

Now Horrorshow, and their mates in the One Day crew, are turning their attention to the issue of asylum seekers. They’ve organised a public screening of Eva Orner’s powerful documentary on Australia’s refugee policies, Chasing Asylum.

The screening doubles as a fundraiser for the Refugee Advice and Casework Service (RACS), an organisation that provides free legal advice to asylum seekers. RACS had 85 percent of its funding cut by the federal government in 2015.

Horrorshow’s Nick Bryant-Smith spoke to Junkee about why they decided to organise the event and use their profile to highlight the treatment of asylum seekers by the Australian government.

“Adit [the other half of Horrorshow] and I first had the idea to put on the event after seeing the film at a screening which we attended a couple of months ago,” Nick told Junkee. “I had read some things about Chasing Asylum while it was being made, but actually seeing it was a whole different thing. It’s incredibly confronting because its depiction of the experiences of people seeking asylum is so candid. It features a lot of footage of Nauru and Manus which has been smuggled out by people working there so you really get to see up close and personal what life is like for the people living in the camps – and it’s really appalling.

“To see this stuff and know that this is our government and our taxpayer money being used to treat these vulnerable people in this way  – it makes you very upset and angry. After we saw it we were talking about how we we could take more of an active role in changing this horrible situation and it seemed that putting on this screening was a great place to start.”

The One Day crew have been running monthly gigs called “One Day Sundays” for the past three years now, and they’ve become an institution in Sydney’s inner-west. According to Nick, they wanted to tap into their dedicated support base and help them do something tangible for asylum seekers.

“We recognise that it’s a obviously a real privilege for us to be able to get together with like minded people, party with one another and have fun in a safe and inclusive environment. We also know that the people who attend the event care about others and the community just like we do, and so we want to try and play our part in harnessing that energy and using it for positive change,” Nick says.

“I feel like everyone – but especially anyone who lives comfortably, has a roof over their head and food to eat and some disposable income, has a responsibility to try and help those who are in need or who are less fortunate than them.

“As an artist with a support base, you have access to a whole audience of people that the average person doesn’t and so you have a platform to communicate with them and ultimately to try and steer us all towards positive action. ”

So how have the fans responded? “Tonight’s event is sold out and all the proceeds will be going to RACS,” Nick told Junkee. “So it’s great to know that we can simultaneously raise awareness and also make a real contribution towards the fight for the legal and human rights of people who are seeking asylum.”