We are proud to announce the winners in the 2023 FBi Sydney Music, Arts & Culture (SMAC) Awards. Thousands had their say in the publicly voted awards recognising the musicians, artists, performers, eateries and events that left their mark on Sydney this year.

The winners (below) were announced during a ceremony at Powerhouse Ultimo last night, broadcast live on air. Hosted by Friday Up for It! presenter Maleeka Gazula, the awards featured live performances from Carnations, Vv Pete, and Ziggy Ramo.

A year after winning the 2022 FBi SMAC Award for Next Big Thing, Mount Druitt based Sudanese rapper/singer Vv Pete was announced as the 2023 FBi SMAC Award winner of both Best Live Act and Song of the Year for her brooding, jersey-infused song with Trackwork head and producer Utility ‘Jordan 1s.’ The much coveted award of Record of the Year was won by Wik and Solomon Islander rapper, musician, and producer Ziggy Ramo for his confident, introspective and textured album Sugar Coated Lies. We were also thrilled to announce that the winner of the 2023 SMAC of the Year is The Red Rattler Theatre.

The FBi SMAC Awards have championed Sydney’s most exciting new talent every year since 2008. This year’s winners will join past recipients including Sampa The Great, ONEFOUR, Cloud Control, Kwame, Sarah Blasko, Flume, Julia Jacklin, NGAIIRE and Barkaa among many more.

Artist of the Year

Billy Bain

Billy Bain is a Darug artist whose work spans both two and three-dimensional mediums to present cultural critiques of quintessentially “Australian” contexts of the beach, pub and sports. His work is informed by personal experiences of conflicted cultural duality, presenting us an opportunity to decolonise spaces and question representations of so-called Australianness. Most recognisably, his clay figure sculptures present cartoonish and humourous subversions of Australia’s colonial iconographies and Eurocentric culture. Billy has exhibited all over the state including Granville Centre Art Gallery and The Lock-up, is an artist in residence at Parramatta Artist Studios and was a finalist in both the Wynne and Sulman Prizes at the AGNSW in 2023.

Best Music Video

BVT – Lalaki

For years, Club Chrome, LGBTQIA+ pole dance collective, have actively platformed queer Black, Indigenous and PoC artists and queer sex workers. Fxckery saw the collective explore honest depictions of sexuality and sex work, interrogating the relationships of gender, sexuality, art and community. Staged at PACT Centre for Emerging Artists in March as part of Mardi Gras, Fxckery is a piece of serious contemporary dance that doesn’t gloss over the lived realities and skills involved in pole dancing.

Best Eats

Midden

This is not the first time Sydney has been graced by a Mark Olive restaurant named Midden. In the mid-1990s Mark helmed a groundbreaking restaurant of the same name, which showcased Indigenous produce to a wider Australian audience for the first time. While the first iteration has long closed, when presented with the opportunity to partner with the Sydney Opera House and open a new restaurant located right beneath the world-famous sails, Olive again opted for Midden, a word which reflects the history of the land on which the Opera House stands today – a gathering place for storytelling, ceremony, and culture for thousands of years before the building was conceived. Midden’s menu draws on Mark’s heritage and highlights native Australian ingredients such as wattle seed, bush honey, saltbush and succulents. Start your meal with damper served with eucalyptus whipped butter, snack on a smoked kangaroo salad, be treated to a braised wallaby shank and end on delicate strawberry gum panna cotta. You can also indulge in a native high tea on select days of the week or explore an extensive cocktail menu that uses a wide variety of native ingredients like native sage, quandong and cinnamon myrtle.

Best Arts Program

Club Chrome: fxckery

For years, Club Chrome, LGBTQIA+ pole dance collective, have actively platformed queer Black, Indigenous and PoC artists and queer sex workers. Fxckery saw the collective explore honest depictions of sexuality and sex work, interrogating the relationships of gender, sexuality, art and community. Staged at PACT Centre for Emerging Artists in March as part of Mardi Gras, Fxckery is a piece of serious contemporary dance that doesn’t gloss over the lived realities and skills involved in pole dancing.

Best Music Event, presented by Heaps Normal

Hotter Out West

Hotter Out West is a party for the area, by the area and most importantly – in the heart of the area. Borne by a collective of Western Sydney’s brightest young creatives who were tired of the over-an-hour party commute into the city every weekend, often just to see DJs that were commuting from the same place, they joined forces to make their own party and the rest has already cemented itself into Sydney nightlife history. Hotter Out West parties feature eclectic line-ups of DJs spanning genres from UK grime to southern trap to 2000s Australiana and everything in between. And suddenly, the kids from all over the city are partying out west.

Best Live Act, presented by Young Henrys

Vv Pete

Everyone who’s experienced a live set from Vv Pete would have to agree: Vv Pete has mastered the art of the crowd hype. Her genre-bending spin on rap permeates through sharp, tail-spinning bars – riling up her audience is no difficult task. It’s an impressive move with only a handful of releases, but true to her unstoppable nature, this year’s seen Vv Pete support Denzel Curry around the country, and represent Western Sydney in Acclaim Magazine’s All-Stars Cypher.

Song of the Year, presented by Shure

Vv Pete, Utility – ‘Jordan 1s’

On ‘Jordan 1s’, Vv Pete thrives. Teaming up again with Trackwork head and producer Utility, ‘Jordan 1s’ is a brooding, jersey-influenced track that’s as ready for the club as it is a car subwoofer. With an untouchable flow, biting lyricism you’ll be quoting for days, and one of the most memorable hooks of the year it’s clear why Vv Pete has grown far beyond her loyal Sydney fanbase.

Record of the Year

Ziggy Ramo – Sugar Coated Lies

Sugar Coated Lies is the soul-baring record of rapper, musician and producer Ziggy Ramo, and an introspective look into the way intergenerational trauma manifests. Considered, commanding and confident, the Wik and Solomon Islander artist’s effortless lyrical flow simmers above production that calls back to the golden era of hip-hop, while adorned with fresh sonic flourishes. Textural soundscapes unfurl throughout the record, with elements ranging from restrained guitar to eruptions of maximalist production, further proving Ziggy Ramo’s talents not only as a powerful songwriter, but a formidable producer.

Next Big Thing, presented by Fellr

Zion Garcia

Zion Garcia’s catalogue encompasses every permutation of hip hop. The Western-Sydney rapper, writer and film-maker’s artistic ambition is on full display in his production, each track seeming coming from a totally musical lineage. Be it 60’s vibraphone warbling or hard-charging UK grime sounds, this scope is hardly surprising considering Garcia’s expansive influences. Making music from a young age, Garcia pairs his creative depth with a well-honed craft. Combine all that with his striking live presence to complete his litany of strengths and it is easy to see why Zion Garcia is on our list for next big thing.

SMAC of the Year

The Red Rattler Theatre

Introducing the Red Rattler team at the ceremony, FBi Radio’s Managing Director Tanya Ali said:

“The Red Rattler Theatre has shown such incredibly quick and responsive programming this year, especially in times when coming together as community is so necessary but can feel so out of reach. They embody being truly grassroots. Put simply – FBi Radio in the way that it is today wouldn’t be possible without a venue like this. This city is far better for it.”

In their acceptance speech, the Rattler team responded:

“The Red Rattler is a 100% community-owned venue, an ecosystem that is a queer-run playground and a leader of queer culture. It’s a place of resistance. A place of grassroots activism and organisation. A place that responds to the now. A place that it is anti-capitalism. A place where we strive to prioritise lived experience as the highest form of knowledge and expression. In a time where silencing is reaching frightening new heights, it is really important that we are a place of resistance. That is the key of our existence.”