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Explore powerful stories at the intersection of history, culture, and music—from Aboriginal cricket pioneers and war heroes to legendary albums by Hendrix, Miles Davis, and Gurrumul. This blog dives deep into First Nations resilience, iconic protest music, and untold truths that shaped Australia and the world. Engaging, thoughtful, and unapologetically real—where powerful voices from the past meet today's social conversation.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people should be aware that this page contains images and names of deceased persons.
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Ruby Hunter - Thoughts Within (1994)
Ruby Hunter’s Thoughts Within (1994) is one of the quiet masterpieces of Australian music — an album that speaks softly but carries enormous weight. Long overshadowed by the towering presence of her partner Archie Roach, this debut record stands today as a work of profound emotional honesty and cultural importance, a collection of songs that gave voice to stories Australian music had rarely been willing to hear, let alone centre. From the opening moments, Thoughts Within esta
Groote Broadcasting
Dec 20, 20252 min read
International Migrants Day: The People Who Build Nations.
Every year on 18 December, International Migrants Day invites the world to pause and recognise a simple truth often lost in political noise: migrants don’t just arrive in nations — they help build them. Across history, human movement has shaped every society on Earth. People migrate for safety, opportunity, love, survival, and hope. They carry skills, languages, cultures and ideas that quietly — and sometimes loudly — reshape the places they settle. From medicine and science
Groote Broadcasting
Dec 18, 20252 min read
![Mitch Tambo - Guurrama-Li [2018]](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/4c5356_21e15455f8364fdf9aefc27509c800b3~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_1333,h_1000,fp_0.50_0.50,q_35,blur_30,enc_avif,quality_auto/4c5356_21e15455f8364fdf9aefc27509c800b3~mv2.png)
![Mitch Tambo - Guurrama-Li [2018]](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/4c5356_21e15455f8364fdf9aefc27509c800b3~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_1168,h_876,fp_0.50_0.50,q_95,enc_avif,quality_auto/4c5356_21e15455f8364fdf9aefc27509c800b3~mv2.png)
Mitch Tambo - Guurrama-Li [2018]
Mitch Tambo’s debut album Guurrama-Li [2018] arrived with the confidence and clarity of an artist who knows exactly who he is and exactly what he wants to say. A proud Gamilaraay man with a voice built for both ceremony and stadiums, Tambo has created a project that is as much a cultural declaration as it is a musical statement — a fusion of pop ambition, traditional language, and deep-rooted storytelling that feels both celebratory and necessary. From the outset, Guurrama-Li
Groote Broadcasting
Dec 13, 20252 min read
Human Rights Day: A Reminder the World Can’t Afford to Ignore.
Human Rights Day: A Reminder the World Can’t Afford to Ignore. Human Rights Day, marked every year on 10 December, isn’t just a date on the calendar. It is an indictment—and a promise. It commemorates the moment in 1948 when the world, scarred by the horrors of war and genocide, adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. A document that boldly declared every human being—regardless of race, religion, gender, wealth or borders—deserves dignity, freedom and safety. In re
Groote Broadcasting
Dec 10, 20252 min read
Barkaa - The New Matriarch of Australian Rap.
Barkaa — the stage name of Chloe Quayle, a Malyangapa, Barkindji woman from western New South Wales — has become one of the most commanding and necessary voices in Australian music. In just a few short years, she’s transformed from an emerging rapper with raw, uncompromising bars to a national force: a storyteller, a truth-teller, and a cultural firebrand whose voice carries the weight of generations. Her rise has been nothing short of remarkable. Barkaa’s music arrived not a
Groote Broadcasting
Dec 8, 20252 min read
![Georgia Lee Sings the Blues Down Under [1962]](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/4c5356_cd1791d8301e4a9cbd39bfdeef272ad1~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_1333,h_1000,fp_0.50_0.50,q_35,blur_30,enc_avif,quality_auto/4c5356_cd1791d8301e4a9cbd39bfdeef272ad1~mv2.png)
![Georgia Lee Sings the Blues Down Under [1962]](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/4c5356_cd1791d8301e4a9cbd39bfdeef272ad1~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_1168,h_876,fp_0.50_0.50,q_95,enc_avif,quality_auto/4c5356_cd1791d8301e4a9cbd39bfdeef272ad1~mv2.png)
Georgia Lee Sings the Blues Down Under [1962]
Georgia Lee — born Ramer Lyra “Dulcie” Pitt in Cairns in 1921 — occupies a singular place in Australian music history: a trailblazer whose artistry broke barriers long before the industry was ready to acknowledge them. A proud woman of Torres Strait Islander, Jamaican and Scottish heritage, Lee grew up in a musical family and began her career in the dance halls, clubs, and hotel circuits of North Queensland, singing jazz and blues with a voice that could shift from velvety wa
Groote Broadcasting
Dec 6, 20252 min read
Plastic began as a “miracle.” Now, it’s one of our greatest environmental challenges.
Plastic’s story began with good intentions. In 1907, Belgian-American chemist Leo Baekeland created Bakelite, the world’s first fully synthetic plastic—hailed as a miracle material that could replace scarce natural resources like ivory and tortoiseshell. By the mid-20th century, plastics were mass-produced worldwide, woven into everything from packaging to medicine, transport, and electronics. Cheap, durable and versatile, plastic spread faster than any other material in huma
Groote Broadcasting
Dec 3, 20252 min read
Julius “Dr. J” Erving: The Original Superstar of the Sky.
Long before the NBA became a global spectacle filled with high-flying superstars, there was Julius Winfield Erving II—better known to the world as Dr. J. With his soaring grace, his explosive creativity above the rim, and a charisma that transcended the court, Erving didn’t just play basketball; he reimagined it. As the saying goes, “Before MJ, there was Dr. J, there was Dr. J.” Born in 1950 in Roosevelt, New York, Erving grew up weaving between playground hoops and school gy
Groote Broadcasting
Dec 1, 20252 min read
Eric B. & Rakim: Paid in Full (1987)
When Eric B. & Rakim dropped Paid in Full in 1987, hip-hop wasn’t ready — but it evolved quickly to catch up. This wasn’t just another rap record; it was a seismic shift in rhythm, rhyme, and attitude. If early hip-hop was the spark, Paid in Full was the moment the flame turned into a laser beam: precise, controlled, and pointed straight into the future. Rakim arrived like he’d been beamed in from another timeline. Up to that point, MCs largely operated within a high-energy,
Groote Broadcasting
Nov 29, 20252 min read
Oral tradition sits at the heart of First Nations cultures in Australia.
Oral tradition sits at the heart of First Nations cultures in Australia—an intellectual, spiritual, and cultural archive maintained not on paper, but in memory, voice, and lived practice. For tens of thousands of years, long before written language was introduced to the continent, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples preserved vast bodies of knowledge through spoken word, song, dance, story, ceremony, art, and Country itself. These traditions are not simply stories;
Groote Broadcasting
Nov 26, 20252 min read
Mystery Road (2013): A Slow-Burning Outback Noir With a Pulse as Steady as the Land It Stands On.
Ivan Sen’s Mystery Road is one of those rare Australian films that feels both timeless and urgent—an outback noir that draws from westerns, crime thrillers, and Indigenous storytelling, yet stands firmly in a league of its own. With Sen writing, directing, shooting, and editing the film, this is auteur cinema at its most confident: precise, meditative, and brimming with quiet power. At the film’s centre is Aaron Pedersen, delivering a career-defining performance as Detective
Groote Broadcasting
Nov 24, 20252 min read
Prince: Sign O’ the Times (1987)
Prince’s Sign o’ the Times (1987) is a sprawling, fearless, genre-melting double LP from a man at the height of his creative power, it remains one of the most electrifying documents of musical imagination ever pressed to vinyl. If Purple Rain made Prince a superstar, Sign o’ the Times is the proof that he never needed the spotlight to shine — he generated his own light. The album bursts open with the title track, a stark, drum-machine-driven bulletin from a world teetering on
Groote Broadcasting
Nov 22, 20252 min read
World Toilet Day: Not a joke, a lifeline.
Every year on 19 November, the world pauses for World Toilet Day—a date that might invite easy jokes, but in reality demands sober attention. There is nothing humorous about the global sanitation crisis. It is one of the most persistent, deadly, and underreported humanitarian emergencies on the planet. Today, over 3.5 billion people live without safe sanitation. Nearly 500 million still defecate in the open—behind bushes, in rivers, on roadsides. In crowded slums, families sh
Groote Broadcasting
Nov 19, 20251 min read
Ten Canoes (2006)
Ten Canoes (2006) is a landmark, a cinematic circle back to the origins of storytelling on this continent. Directed by Rolf de Heer in close collaboration with the Yolŋu community of Ramingining, and guided by senior custodian Peter Djigirr, it stands as one of the most culturally significant works in Australian film history. But beyond its importance, Ten Canoes is also wildly engaging, surprisingly funny, visually gorgeous, and told with a confidence that only comes from st
Groote Broadcasting
Nov 17, 20252 min read
![Bob Marley and the Wailers: Exodus [1977].](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/4c5356_dde93db938a44371847aea7a44bc65ce~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_1333,h_1000,fp_0.50_0.50,q_35,blur_30,enc_avif,quality_auto/4c5356_dde93db938a44371847aea7a44bc65ce~mv2.png)
![Bob Marley and the Wailers: Exodus [1977].](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/4c5356_dde93db938a44371847aea7a44bc65ce~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_1168,h_876,fp_0.50_0.50,q_95,enc_avif,quality_auto/4c5356_dde93db938a44371847aea7a44bc65ce~mv2.png)
Bob Marley and the Wailers: Exodus [1977].
When Bob Marley and the Wailers released Exodus in 1977, it wasn’t just another reggae record — it was a statement of survival, faith, and spiritual fire from a man who had stared down death and come out singing. Written and recorded in exile after Marley was shot during political turmoil in Jamaica, Exodus stands as both a personal rebirth and a cultural beacon — an album that turned pain into prophecy, and reggae into a global force. From the first pulse of the title track,
Groote Broadcasting
Nov 15, 20252 min read
On This Day: Courage Walked Through the Schoolhouse Door. Ruby Bridges, November 14, 1960.
On the morning of November 14, 1960, a six-year-old girl in a white dress, clutching her lunchbox, made history simply by walking into school. Her name was Ruby Bridges, and that day she became the first Black child to attend an all-white elementary school in the American South — a quiet act of courage that would echo through generations. Ruby was born in 1954, the same year the U.S. Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision declared segregation in public schools u
Groote Broadcasting
Nov 14, 20252 min read
Remembrance Day: Honouring All Who Served — Including Those Who Fought for a Country That Denied Them.
Each year, on the 11th of November, Australians pause for one minute’s silence at 11 a.m. to remember those who have died in war and conflict. Remembrance Day marks the end of the First World War in 1918 — the moment the guns fell silent on the Western Front. It is a day to honour courage, sacrifice, and the price of peace. Yet woven into this solemn reflection is a story that has too often gone untold — the story of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men and women who
Groote Broadcasting
Nov 11, 20252 min read
![Electric Fields: Inma [2023]](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/4c5356_73b7ddda6b5d468a99b4a261ab8dfa78~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_1080,h_810,fp_0.50_0.50,q_35,blur_30,enc_avif,quality_auto/4c5356_73b7ddda6b5d468a99b4a261ab8dfa78~mv2.png)
![Electric Fields: Inma [2023]](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/4c5356_73b7ddda6b5d468a99b4a261ab8dfa78~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_1080,h_810,fp_0.50_0.50,q_95,enc_avif,quality_auto/4c5356_73b7ddda6b5d468a99b4a261ab8dfa78~mv2.png)
Electric Fields: Inma [2023]
When Electric Fields released Inma in 2023, it felt like a cultural and sonic lightning strike — a record that shimmered with futurism while remaining grounded in the oldest living cultures on Earth. The duo — Zaachariaha Fielding, a proud Anangu man from Mimili in the APY Lands, and producer Michael Ross, a classically trained electronic alchemist — have long defied easy categorisation. But with Inma, they distilled their vision perfectly: a radiant fusion of traditional son
Groote Broadcasting
Nov 8, 20252 min read
Ivan Sen: The Visionary Storyteller of Two Worlds.
Ivan Sen is one of Australia’s most distinctive cinematic voices — a filmmaker whose lens captures both the vastness of the Australian landscape and the quiet, often painful introspection of those who inhabit it. A proud Indigenous storyteller of Gamilaroi descent, Sen’s work stands at the intersection of identity, belonging, and the struggle for self-definition in modern Australia. Over more than two decades, he has reshaped how Indigenous stories are told — rejecting stereo
Groote Broadcasting
Nov 5, 20252 min read
Harold Blair (1924–1976)
Harold Blair (1924–1976) was a trailblazer — a gifted tenor whose voice transcended the concert hall to become a beacon of pride and possibility for Indigenous Australians. Born on the Cherbourg Aboriginal Reserve in Queensland, Blair’s journey from a childhood marked by poverty and segregation to the world’s grand stages stands as one of the great Australian stories of resilience, talent, and activism. Blair’s remarkable voice was first noticed while he worked as a stockman
Groote Broadcasting
Nov 3, 20252 min read
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