“Fuck The ARIAs”: Sampa The Great’s ‘Time’s Up’ Video Is A Message To Australia’s Music Industry

Sampa The Great has once again teamed up with director Sanjay De Silva to deliver a scorching visual for her track ‘Time’s Up’, taken from her award-winning 2019 album The Return.

It’s a stunning accompaniment to the track, which takes aim at the embedded racism in the Australian music industry. “Blackface industry/Lying don’t invest in me/Only want the money off our backs/Like history,” Sampa raps, joined on the track by the South Sudanese-born, Melbourne-based artist Krown.

“Fuck the dance/Fuck the list/Fuck the ARIA’s,” she drops later in the song, while blankly posing with her ARIA award which she won for Best Hip Hop Release for ‘Final Form’.

“‘Time’s up’ is a track that was made to reflect a conversation between two young black artists about the Australian music industry,” Sampa wrote in a press release about the new video. “With the current atmosphere it’s an important time to address systemic racism within the music industry, especially as it slowly rebuilds. Allyship should never be performative and as we continue past blackout day, all music orgs/labels should be put to task in bringing forward their initiatives for real change within their industry.”

“We’re playing with the tongue-in-cheek aspect to the song and dialling it way up by incorporating metaphors like the padded room to represent the way the industry sees black artists,” De Silva adds. “We referenced some very specific ’90s music videos throughout, from Tupac’s ‘Hit Em Up’, to videos from Busta, Da Bush Babees, Jamiroquai, and De La Soul — each one is utilised to convey a powerful message about how the music industry has treated and continues to treat and exploit black artists.”

Watch the full video for ‘Time’s Up’ below.