This is a story about how stories themselves heal us, exploring the joys and tragedies that stitch the world together. Underscored by myth, euphemism, hyperbole, sentiment, anecdote and wild ramblings applied to family history, cultural identity and major health scares. This is the tale told when a rapper hits middle age, questions the sanity of the world we live in and decides that we all need a hug.

Dream sequence of someone you have never met: Graham is 45 and balding, he is a father, a husband, owns the latest smart phone, has a mortgage and is starting to come to terms with the unavoidable fact, the world is more fragile than he had previously accounted for. This morning he woke up to discover the veil between the shadow world and the real world, dream and reality, silence and noise, chaos and disorder has started to dissolve and the great nothing has informed him, it is his job to fix it. He decides to go to Bunnings to get materials.

Presented by: South Side Festival & Frankston Arts Centre

Producer, rapper, songwriter, composer and multi-instrumentalist, Joel Ma is recognised as a unique voice in the Australian music scene with a reputation for innovation and sonic experimentation. In 2002 he founded seminal alt-rap group TZU, who were at the vanguard of an emerging Australian hiphop and electronica sound. Under the moniker Joelistics, his anticipated debut album Voyager and follow up album Blue Volume opened up a new lane in Australian hip-hop, winning plaudits for both production and lyricism.

Blue Volume was one of the Sydney Morning Herald’s Top 20 albums of 2014. Rolling Stone described it as “a celebration and mourning of the current state of the world, voiced by a smart, incisive writer and producer.”

In 2017, Joelistics turned his focus to production and co-writing for other artists including co-producing the debut album for Haiku Hands, producing the acclaimed ARIA award winning track ‘Native Tongue’ for Mo’Ju (AKA Mojo Juju), as well as writing and producing for artists such as Birdz, Hermitude, Emma Donovan, Ecca Vandal, Wil Wagner (The Smith Street Band), Tim Rogers, Parvyn Singh and Mindy Meng Wang.

From 2019 – 2022, Joel was a senior lecturer in composition at Boxhill Music Institute. In 2020 he was awarded Music Victoria’s Producer of the Year Award, and in 2021 was named a Sydney Myer Fellow.

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