Baker Boy has unveiled his spectacular, unified debut album Gela.
It’s been four years since Baker Boy, real name Danzal Baker, hurtled into our consciousness with his disruptive debut singles ‘Cloud 9’ and ‘Marryuna’. It’s been a fever pitch wait for his first full body of work since.
This is an album well worth waiting for. Gela, an eponymous statement to Baker’s skin name, is a deeply personal, singular, and joyous listen from front to back.
“I want people to see what my life is like, and where I come from,” Baker Boy says of the record. “The journey from a remote community to living in the city and trying to adapt, and have that balance, is a lot of hard work, it’s an amazing journey.”
Over fourteen diverse tracks, rapping in English and Yolngu Matha, Baker Boy delivers a compendium of his influences: from his connection to his Galpu clan (in traditional album opener ‘Announcing the Journey’) to his connection with dance (‘Cool As Hell’). He ruminates on themes of climate change and the death of native lands (‘Somewhere Deep’), and the resilience of First Nations people (‘Survive’).
“Gela is who I am. It is my story,” he says.
The record features collaborations with the likes of Lara Andallo, G-Flip, Thando, actor Uncle Jack Charles, with contributions from Dallas Woods and Rob Amoruso.
To celebrate the release of Gela, Baker Boy has unveiled a stark, intimate video for ‘Survive’, a one-shot performance. Co-directed by Danzal and his Creative Director and Stylist, Aurie Indianna, the video was born after Aurie introduced Danzal to Sinead O’Connor’s timeless video for ‘Nothing Compares 2 U.
“When Aurie showed me the Sinead O’Connor video I was like damn, you can just feel the emotion and with a song like Survive, I just want it to hit… We wanted to create a visual that made people stop and listen,” says Baker Boy of the video.
Listen to Gela by Baker Boy
