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At first glance, 16-year-old Ethan Jorrock seems like any other teen: he loves hip hop music, hanging out with his friends, and doing backflips on the beach.
But he lives in the remote Northern Territory community of Belyuen, and in a hip hop video he created with other local young people he is larger than life and charismatic like musicians Drake or Kendrick Lamar.
Music is a way for young people to connect with one another, and this latest video aims to get young people talking about mental health, their emotions, and coping mechanisms.
"Tell me how you're feeling, what's on your mind? 'Cause I know in a place like this one, it's hard sometimes," Ethan sings.
It is a simple sentiment in the chorus of the song 'Talk It Out' written by the group of teenagers from Belyuen, 137km south-west of Darwin.
"It's about talking to one another, getting to know other people, and it's about all the other communities," Ethan said.
"The drugs and alcohol is going into their community, as well as violence."
The video was made with the help of the Indigenous Hip Hop Projects (IHHP), which works on the principle of using the arts for change, focusing on young Indigenous people's strengths, developing their skills, and supporting community development.
"We go camping at the beach, fishing, sometimes go to the mangroves, get some mussels, and hunting," said Belyuen teen Claudette Gordon.
"But sometimes we get bored because not much happens in this community, because they don't have much sports and rec people here.
"It's kind of boring here sometimes … we'd like basketball, sports, or something to do to make us happy."
It is the issues of boredom, isolation, drug and alcohol abuse, and poor health often found in remote communities that have led to young Indigenous people having the highest rates of mental illness in the country, said Professor Gary Robinson from the Menzies School of Health Research.
"General problems of poor wellbeing and sadness, withdrawnness, isolation, and also a range of what you call conduct problems — kids who are acting out that lead to various forms of difficulties," he said.
"It's very important to promote the ability to seek help, but also more importantly to reflect on and express your feelings to other people, to be willing to listen to friends who are in trouble who are having difficulty expressing their emotions, letting people know they're going through a tough time."
Ethan said he wanted the video to let young people know they could talk about their problems.
"We made the song because we don't want that to happen to other communities," he said.
IHHP travels to remote communities around the country, and this time it chose Belyuen because of the number of disengaged teenagers not going to school.
The group made the video with the help of TeamHealth and the Belyuen Community School.
"We started talking about what we were going to do first, we were writing down all the lyrics first sitting in a classroom," Ethan said.
"Then we went for a walk to fill in all of the bits of the video clip that we made, and we went down to the dam."
He hoped the message of the video would help propel change in his community.
"Because you don't know if someone could be feeling down or sad, you could probably ask them and make them feel happy," he said.
"You don't know if that someone's angry or something, you can go up to them and talk to them and make them feel better."
Topics: music, arts-and-entertainment, youth, community-and-society, indigenous-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander, belyuen-0822, nt
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