“It’s about wanting to belong, but still feeling alienated.” This is the way Adelaide’s self-made sonic activist Gabriel Erjok Majer Akon, a.k.a DyspOra, describes his experience as an Australian on 2020’s long-awaited debut EP, ‘AUSTRALIEN’. 

Born in time of desperation in South Sudan, as his father fought in the civil war and his mother struggled to bring his family to safety,  Akon spent his first years in a refugee camp before finally resettling in Adelaide. “I became a man in a land that isn’t my own – but I’ve learnt to embrace that”.

A self made social entrepreneur, when he isn’t running community workshops for youth in the far reaches of Adelaide’s outer suburbs, or advocating to build recording studios in refugee camps, Akon runs his own Playback 808 label, a home for African youth on the forefront of Adelaide’s music scene.

A new partnership with Melbourne’s Music in Exile label has finally bought us DyspOra’s long awaited debut, recorded throughout 2018 in the suburbs of Adelaide. The sound is decidedly old-school, finding a home somewhere in the soul-jazz sound of Rawkus-era mid-nineties hip hop with a nod to contemporary beatmakers and sample culture. 

An artist with so much to give this country, DyspOra believes in the power of music to spread a positive message. There is a conversation to be had, and this is his way of having it.