We didn't think you could cover the asylum seeker debate, Sydney's lockout laws, Islamophobia, child sex abuse in the Catholic church and the nation's racism problem in one song, but Triple J breakfast host Matt Okine just did it. And he covered Kanye too.
To the soundtrack of Heard 'Em Say, Okine says “see I can go to war and fire shots in the big fights, but they won’t let me buy shots after midnight.”
“The government’s just trying to make us safer, but wait, ain’t the church full of systematic rapists?
“So who is supposed to be dangerous? The ones covering up crimes or covering their faces? I guess it’s not black and white."
Okine posted the video of his performance to Facebook on Tuesday night. The Triple J host was on stage at 'Undercover' at Sydney's Giant Dwarf Theatre, where Australian comedians and musicians present "the songs that soundtracked the most important moments of their lives".
Before we go on, do yourself a favour and take a listen:
The presenter, who wrote the song over two afternoons, hoped to reflect the shared frustration among Australians of wanting to contribute to change without knowing how to do so.
"I didn’t write it because I have any answers. I think it’s just that common frustration and that feeling of helplessness that you have when you want to do so much but there’s nothing you can do at the same time," Okine told The Huffington Post Australia.
“The thing about Kanye West is he never doubts himself and he does so many stupid things but because he has so little doubt in himself he at least gets stuff done.
“What I wanted to do was just capture all the things that I felt were wrong at the time and the contradiction about what I was actually doing. And like I say, I wrote a song about it. What the f*** does that do?
“Change doesn’t happen because I put a song on Facebook. If anything, it’s just contributing to this culture of everyone whinging about stuff and not doing anything.”
But will there be any more Kanye covers popping up on Okine's Facebook page in the near future?
“I’ll let Kanye be Kanye for now.. I don’t think I’ll be rapping about bleached buttholes any time soon.”