Ziggy Ramo has called out ABC during his appearance as both a panellist and a performer on Q&A last night, saying he was prevented from performing his song of choice on the program.
Ramo said he initially wanted to perform ‘April 25th’ – which Music Feeds called one of the best Australian songs of the year thus far – but ABC prevented him from doing so due to its “controversial” lyrics.
“On this show today, the song that I’m gonna perform is called ‘Stand For Something’,” Ramo said on the show.
“The song that I initially was gonna perform was called ‘April 25th’. This is a song that I was not allowed to perform. I was basically censored in the fact that the ABC said that it was not appropriate.”
“So, is it performative?” he continued.
“Because me sitting on this panel ticks off a box for the ABC that is cultural diversity but if I’m not able to express my perspective, is it performative or is it actual cultural diversity?”
Q&A host Hamish MacDonald promptly responded, citing the song’s lyrics as the point of contention.
“There’s a lot of context which we did want to talk to you about tonight to understand where that comes from,” Macdonald said.
“Without context, there may be issues.”
In case you haven’t heard ‘April 25th’ yet, the song essentially weighs up the country’s treatment of ANZACs against the treatment of Indigenous Australians, and calls out the double standard that exists there.
“We can’t just pick parts of our history that we want to recognise and bury the others,” he said.
“If in World War II we fought against genocide, yet we don’t recognise the genocide in our own country, that’s a double standard.”
Watch the full episode below.
