Rapper, writer and musician Ziggy Ramo is only 29 years old, but the Bellingen-born artist has achieved so much in his life and career so far. He’s performed both in and on the Sydney Opera House – climbing to the very top of the iconic sails to film a rework of Paul Kelly and Kev Carmody’s 1993 song From Little Things Big Things Grow. Last year he starred in the Stan series Black Snow, which he wrote the score for. He’s a new father, and he’s about to release his third album, Human, which also coincides with his debut book of the same name.

Ramo joined us on the podcast to talk about Australia’s reception of his “political” music, separating his onstage persona from his private life, and his craft as a storyteller across both books and music.

On separating his onstage persona from his offstage identity

I’m pretty protective over [who I am as a person]. I want my life and space to be protected. Not to say that artists have a facade, but [my] art is a very specific part of who I am.

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The way that I’ve spoken about it with my dad [is] finding the songlines of displacement and dispossession. We don’t have access to our ancestral song lines – and dad always talks about dispossession and displacement as being a state, rather than an identity. So, you know, we were dispossessed but that is now identity.

Our identity is a lineage of 50,000-plus years of knowledge, history, culture. And so even though there’s a gap in that, it doesn’t mean that inherently we don’t have those practices embedded in the fabric of who we are. And so, within my art, it’s so much about trying to reclaim and rediscover those long lines of dispossession and displacement and exploring that identity.

On turning his lyrics into literature

What I've really started to understand is that I understand story. That’s kind of my thing. And [with] this new album, I’m playing guitar and singing. And, you know, I’m not the best singer, I’m not the best guitar player … But that was the best thing to fit the story. And similarly, the message, I think, really needed the nuance and space of a book. My debut album, Black Thoughts, is almost 7000 words, which is dense for an album.

But a manuscript is like 70 to 80,000 words. So when you then take that space, and give each song a chapter, you can dedicate anywhere between six to 10,000 words to it.

On discovering his talent for freestyling

I had always been transfixed on music and it held such a special place. But it didn't come to me, I wasn’t really good at piano or guitar from a young age. But I understood the story. And then when I was 15, with my elder brother Jesse, we kind of stumbled onto the fact that I could freestyle. I had this little switch that flicked in my brain, and all of a sudden, everything could just rhyme and make sense.

On being perceived as a “political” artist

I think my work gets put into a category of politics or activism… Not to say that I’m shying away from it, from trying to make change for my community, but as an artist I don’t really view myself differently than any other artists. In the sense that I think we all just make art about our life. I just make music, or write books or act, about my lived experience.

Ziggy Ramo is appearing at two events for Melbourne Writers Festival, on May 10 & 11. Find more details here.