Video Transcription
Young rapper Sonboy on his music and self-confidence
My name is Samba and I’m a rapper. My tribe is Redfern and Young D.
I first got into music when I was a little kid. I loved music, you know? I’ve always loved music. I grew up in Redfern, which we called the block. My dad, my uncles, Manny’s—you know, they lived on every corner. There was just a lot of violence and crime. Everybody thought it was a bad place, you know? But to me, it was just home.
I drifted away from music at the age of 14. I stopped performing and went down the wrong path. My dad and my brothers were locked up, been on the block. I felt lonely, so angry that they left me. I thought I was abandoned, you know? At the time, I just didn’t care about anybody. I was drinking, and when you drink, you get emotional and depressed. It made me want to be there with them.
Since I got locked up, I was in and out until I was 17. Since I turned 17, I promised myself I wasn’t going to go back to that place. I wanted to do better for myself because my family, my brothers, my dad—they’ve all been through that system, and it’s time for me to break it.
I was 17, sitting up at my mum’s house, with my girlfriend, and I said, “I promise I won’t get locked up. I’ll stop doing what I’m doing and I’ll get back into music.” You grow up with nothing. The black man—that’s the good thing too. Once each baby, now that’s the real thing.
I’ve been walking the street since I was 16, getting up to trouble. Yeah, I feel happy, you know? I feel good because people are listening. They understand what I’m talking about, and that gives me more energy to write more about my family and about what I go through. They told me all the time, “What you’re doing is good and like you’re speaking the truth because I could be locked up right now, you know? I could be in jail.”
I give my fans and my family 100% because they believe in me. If you don’t have confidence in yourself, nobody’s gonna have confidence in you. You know me, nobody’s gonna believe what you’re saying or come to any of your events. You have to chase your dream. There’s no point in being halfway. If you’re only gonna go halfway, other people are gonna go halfway with you. You’re gonna get hundreds, and they’ll be beside you.
For the young kids, they’ve all gone through the same situation I grew up in, you know, Redfern. I want to be that role model to show the young kids that drugs and alcohol aren’t the way, you know? Crime isn’t the way. You can always break it. I’ve broken it, so why can’t you?
Video by Reach Out
