Straight: Indigenous Songmen Demand Verzuz-Style Battle to Settle Decades-Long Land Council Beef

After watching footage of the Rick Ross and French Montana Verzuz battle bounce around their feeds two old songmen from neighbouring outstations have proposed a similar format to settle a 30-year disagreement over which clan holds rights to a particular stretch of saltwater country.

The proposal lodged with the local land council suggests a public side-by-side performance of competing songlines streamed on Facebook Live with a community vote at the end determining which version the council should formally recognise.

A senior cultural advisor said the format would be “more efficient than the current process which has been running since 1994.”

“Anthropologists keep flying up here writing reports nobody reads” the advisor said. “We could finalise this in two hours with a decent sound system.”

Critics have raised concerns about reducing complex customary law to a streaming entertainment format. Supporters note the current process has produced four anthropological monographs, two PhDs and zero outcomes.

A spokesperson for the National Indigenous Australians Agency said it was reviewing whether Verzuz-format dispute resolution could be funded under existing cultural maintenance programs but expected the assessment to take “approximately six to nine years.”

The two songmen have already started warming up.