From Bathurst to the Bronx: Mawunyo's determination to dream big

As a child, the journalism bug buried itself deep under Ghanaian-born journalist and broadcaster Mawunyo Gbogbo’s skin. But, growing up African Australian in the small NSW coal mining town of Muswellbrook, the path to where she is now was far from easy – an experience she relates through gripping narrative in her memoir Hip Hop and Hymns (Penguin, 2022).

“I feel like growing up in Muswellbrook really shaped me as a person. I was different from pretty much everyone else around me and so I experienced some bullying and racism,” Mawunyo recalls.

“At the same time, I was seeing examples of Black excellence everywhere. Carl Lewis and FloJo were doing amazing things at the Olympics, and I’d open an encyclopaedia to see Whitney Houston pictured as a definition of beauty. I was also engaging with a lot of African American music and pop culture. Even when I was being bullied, there was never a time I wasn’t proud of being Black.”

It was the 1980s and 90s, and few African Australian faces graced our television screens except for ABC’s The 7.30 Report anchor Trisha

Goddard, whom Mawunyo – already deeply in love with writing and with a reputation for constantly asking questions – looked up to. She set her sights on studying journalism at Charles Sturt at Bathurst. Failing to earn the necessary entry marks, she initially enrolled in a different course but was knocked back for the Bachelor of Journalism program when she applied to transfer a year later. Undeterred and with characteristic tenacity, the next time she had all her ducks in a row.

“I had built up so much work experience in radio, television, and newspapers. I also had a credit average, references from my lecturers, and lots of campus community involvement to my name. So I was finally able to realise my dream of becoming a journalism student at Charles Sturt.”

Mawunyo’s years at Bathurst were transformative. In contrast to her somewhat alienating school days, she found a diverse community on campus – many also from the African diaspora – and threw herself into her studies and campus life, including running now-legendary hip hop nights. She spent a semester studying abroad in New York and interned over summer with seminal American hip hop magazine The Source, where her love of hip hop and writing collided.

“I used to read The Source in my bedroom in Muswellbrook, and suddenly here I was living in the Bronx, the birthplace of rap, interning at the Bible of hip hop in a workplace where the majority of people were Black or Latino. Every day was a pinch-yourself moment.”

Since then, Mawunyo has crafted a varied career in journalism spanning television, radio, digital, and print, her talent recognised with a United Nations Association of Australia Media Peace Award and a Walkley Foundation Mentorship. She is currently a digital journalist specialising in popular culture for ABC News, where she balances her passion for social justice, health, and entertainment with her role as an author providing a courageous new voice on race and identity.

“I’m just so passionate about sharing my story and encouraging other people who look like me to share their stories, because there aren’t enough of them out there,” she says. “So many voices within my community alone go unheard, which is why I’ve been leading workshops for African Australian writers over the past year in Western Sydney and online, empowering participants to tell their unique stories.”

Her own memoir is a compelling, powerful, often brutally candid account of her journey. Woven throughout is an homage to two of her life’s most defining influences: hip hop (the book is also accompanied by a killer playlist) and Christianity (she grew up with a devout Christian mother and spent her rebellious teenage years running from religion before circling back to her faith). It’s a labour of love in which everything is laid bare.

“I’m so passionate about this story and hope it will inspire others who look like me to tell their own stories and break down the stereotypes people so often jump to,” Mawunyo says.

“There are themes in the book that could spark discussion around racism, Indigenous incarceration, mental health, and so much more.

I want Hip Hop and Hymns to add to what I hope will become a rich tapestry of storytelling from my community and make a real difference.”

Hip Hop and Hymns by

Mawunyo Gbogbo

A memoir of loving hard, falling apart and fighting back, set to an unrivalled playlist.

‘Hip hop and hymns: the two would always go hand in hand for me. My life would always straddle both. The sacred and the profane, all living on the same block, all divine in the end.’

Mawunyo Gbogbo is a churchgoing African Australian girl growing up in the sleepy mining town of Muswellbrook, NSW. At home, her parents argue all the time, and sibling rivalry runs deep. At primary school, Black Is Beautiful until a racist bully dares to tell her otherwise. But at high school, she falls in love with two things that will alter the course of her adult life: the seductive thrill of hip hop music and charismatic bad boy Tyce Carrington. Tyce also feels like an alien in Australia, despite his Aboriginality – or because of it.

When Mawunyo is offered a chance to further her budding media career in New York City at the Bible of hip hop, The Source magazine, she throws herself headlong into the city’s heady buzz and hustle – but even as it lures her in, it threatens to derail her dreams.

Hip Hop & Hymns is a tussle between the search for belonging and ultimately accepting who you are, and a clear-eyed, heartfelt story about daring greatly and what it can mean to be Black in Australia.