Hip hop music and dance mentoring project Red Sand Culture has released a new music track and accompanying video, ‘Bikey Boys, Nyirripi Community’.

Produced and filmed in Nyirripi, Northern Territory, the track and music video came from a collaboration between children in the community and Australian hip hop producers, Monkey Marc and Elf Tranzporter.

Red Sand Culture is a “hip hop and dance mentoring project delivered in partnership with the NT’s InCite Youth Arts Inc. and the Warlpiri Youth Development Aboriginal Corporation (Mt. Theo Program)” youth development and leadership program, Yuendemu and Warlpiri region.

Running since 2007, “guest artists and music mentors” travel to “the remote communities of Yuendumu, Lajamanu, Nyirrpi and Willowra, “to conduct workshops.. aimed at developing the performing arts capacity in those communities”.

The latest music production is ‘Bikey Boys, Nyirripi community’, a collaboration between children from the community, Monkey Marc and Elf Tranzporter. See the music video below.

On his website, Monkey Mark has a page dedicated to his ‘Transfer of Knowledge’ desert workshops’, which he says he has been running in “remote.. Aboriginal communities” for “over ten years”.

Darwin band Sietta have also worked in communities as part of the Red Sand Culture project.

Red Sand Culture is “also proud to announce the upcoming release of RED SAND CULTURE VOLUME 1, a compilation CD showcasing voices of the next generation of Yapa Youth from the desert of Central Australia”.

Red Sand Culture have also just launched a brand new website. Find out more about this NT youth music project by visiting the project online.

Words: Megan Spencer. Sources: Red Sand Culture media release & Monkey Mark website.