APY Lands rappers Dem Mob riff on Black Lives Matter, their dreaming, and life in community

For speakers of Pitjantjatjara, listening to Dem Mob’s music can be a bit of a shock to the system.

“Pitjantjatjara is a language that is completely flat all the time,” said Elisha Umuhuri, one third of the Pukatja-based rap trio.

“The melody never changes that much, so us remaking the language, making it something of our own, is pretty scary.”

Pitjantjatjara is the first language spoken by many in the remote Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands of far north South Australia.

It is the second most widely spoken Indigenous language in Australia, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Dem Mob started as a…