The newly formed Blak collective 3% will embark on their first tour by performing in undisclosed prisons around Victoria. The tour is called Treaty Day In and hosted by the First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria.
The tour will be hosted by the First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria as a way to say thank you to all Aboriginal prisoners who voted in the 2023 Treaty elections, through which First Nations people could elect who they want to negotiate Treaty in Victoria.
Being a proud First Nations group, 3%’s involvement in Treaty Day In makes sense. The outfit recruits the talents of Noongar rapper and veteran performer Dallas Woods, Yuin man and host of triple j’s Blak Out show Nooky, as well as Gumbaynggir singer-songwriter Angus Field. The tour comes ahead of their first album due for release sometime next year.
“For us, it’s such a meaningful thing that we did the prison tours first,” Field tells NME, “because we’re really passionate about how our young people are getting treated in prisons.”
“[The day before yesterday] there was another death in custody. And I think it was only a week ago that there was another one in WA. It’s just ridiculous how many times it’s happening, and there’s nothing getting done about it.”
3% have also announced a single launch for their debut track ‘Our People’, which was released mid-October. Presented by Great Southern Nights and ARIA, the free event takes place November 25 at Crown Hotel in Parramatta with special guest Jada Weazel.
Produced by Sydney-based producer Tasker, the track itself recounts First Nations peoples’ struggle in Australia over a sample of The Presets’ ‘My People’: “Manipulate the masses and never tell them the half of it/ And that’s only the half of it /I’m here with all of my people/ Locked up with all of my people,” its lyrics go.
According to Field, the song was originally about government treatment of asylum seekers, but the trio retooled its message to tell the story of indigenous youth in incarceration. Tasker would later throw in a sample of The Presets’ hit song, which they later got approval for. After the recording session at The Lord Gladstone in Sydney, 3% decided it would be their first release, which Field says was a purposeful choice – one that will be bolstered by their upcoming tour.
“For us, this is a way that we can make a stand and really push home the message in the track and say, ‘listen, we’re touring prisons first to make a stand for what we believe in’,” says Field.
“Even though it’s our album tour we’re gonna push the single as much as we can. Because that’s why we wrote it, it has such a meaning behind it.”
3% formed, fittingly, on Invasion Day in 2022. Field welcomed the opportunity to join forces with Nooky (who had been his mentor in the Mushroom First Nations pathway programme) and Woods, who were already cemented in the Australian music scene as successful and outspoken Indigenous artists.
“It happened so organically and so easily,” says Field of their formation. “We were complete strangers on that first day… and now we have the most amazing and beautiful bond in the group.”
Having just made their debut live performance at Sydney’s inaugural SXSW (where Chance the Rapper joined them onstage), the group are readying their first album for release early next year.
“This is where I think 3% is going to blow people away,” says Field. “We have pop songs, we have really heavy rap, we have more really driven songs that will touch First Nations people. And it really brings out the best of each of us as artists and how we write and how we portray our music.”