Baker Boy

An energetic fixture on festival stages since debuting in 2017, Indigenous Australian rapper Danzal Baker, a.k.a. Baker Boy, memorably incorporates his extended dance background into his live show. His early single “Marryuna” even translates to “Let’s Dance” in English, while also boasting a distinctive didgeridoo hook and the self-evident proclamation “I’m a proud black Yolngu boy with the killer flow”. Born in Darwin in 1996, Baker has brought that same outpouring of cultural pride and party-starting giddiness to nearly everything he’s done since, including 2019’s electro-funk flex “Cool As Hell”. Yet he’s just as effective in a more reserved mode on “Better Days”, a 2020 collaboration with Dallas Woods and Sampa the Great that reflects on their individual struggles in three different languages. And when Baker guests on a 2018 update of Yothu Yindi’s landmark 1991 protest song “Treaty”, he asserts the voice of a new generation with absolute ease.