‘White devil’: The Indigenous protest song that has parents up in arms

NSW Education Minister Prue Car has intervened after a parent complained about a song calling Captain James Cook a “white devil” being played at a public primary school in Sydney’s south.

Bagi-la-m Bargan, a song by Indigenous rapper and activist Birdz, has been played to students as they arrive at Ramsgate Public School for at least a week, an anonymous father told 2GB’s Ben Fordham on Tuesday morning.

The song, told from the perspective of an Indigenous warrior, describes Cook as “a murderer without licence” and mentions a “desire to kill any white devil [that] wanna test my will”.

The father said he had to explain to his son that “complex things” had happened in Australia’s past after he had asked whether there was “something wrong with being white”.

The complaint prompted Car to phone in to the radio station and tell listeners the lyrics were “pretty concerning” and the education department was investigating.

“Anything that creates any sort of division we can’t have in our schools,” she said. “Reading the lyrics, and listening to it, I can understand why parents are concerned.”

Birdz (real name Nathan Bird) told Apple Music in 2021 the song was told from the perspective of a Butchulla warrior “standing on Indian Head on K’gari (Fraser Island) witnessing Captain Cook sail past”.

Cook’s diary entry from May 20, 1770, makes note of the moment the Endeavour sailed past the bluff “on which a number of the natives were assembled, which occasioned my nameing [sic] it Indian Head”.