Rapper Briggs on AB Original's no-holds-barred approach to Indigenous rights: "We're angry but there's also a dark humour to the whole thing." Credit:Daniel Pockett Briggs has a speciality order of smashed avocado with salmon and bacon and I get the crispy chicken tacos. It's just before Christmas and the end of a huge year for Briggs – AB Original won ARIAs for Best Urban and Best Independent Release for their hard-hitting album Reclaim Australia, took out six awards at the South Australian Music Awards, Triple J named Reclaim Australia its album of the year, and they became the first Indigenous act to win the $30,000 Australian Music Prize. "I'm appreciative of the recognition, but I don't really think about awards," he says. They mean more to his friends and family: "They get to say, 'we bet on him and he won'." Attending the ARIAs was "all right; bunch of nice people, good performances", but Briggs hates getting dressed up. Despite his GQ Magazine award for Agenda Setter of the Year. Wait – GQ Magazine?

The writer's lunch of Louisiana fried chicken tacos at The Re-Up in Moonee Ponds. Credit:Daniel Pockett "I know, right? I'm a real trakky pants guy! But they bought me the suit," he says. And he got to keep it. Smashed avo with eggs and bacon at Briggs' favourite haunt, The Re-Up in Moonee Ponds. Credit:Daniel Pockett "They had one picked out and I was like, 'yeah, that's all right, but I'd like a Hugo Boss one'."

Briggs – real name Adam Briggs – likes to take the piss, but the GQ award might just be the perfect summation of what the Yorta Yorta rapper, writer, sometime-actor and record label boss (he founded Bad Apples, an all-Indigenous label, in 2015), has achieved in recent years. Rapper and comedy writer Briggs is a driving force in the debate about systemic racism and is unafraid of pissing people off. Credit:Daniel Pockett He's been a driving force in the national conversation about systemic racism and a champion of Indigenous music, at once winning plaudits and pissing people off. He's used to that part though; he still regularly encounters "white-splaining". "People tell me if I didn't swear so much, maybe I'd reach more people," he says. "Would you tell Kanye West or Eminem he can't swear?" Receipt for lunch with Briggs at The Re-Up.

Even on Instagram he's been told "not to play the race card", most recently – hilariously – over a photo of a burger he designed for NAIDOC week. He shows me the message comparing veganism with the Indigenous struggle. "How can you equate the two things? You're a vegan, not a f---ing saviour. That's a culinary f---ing decision!" Oppression, he reckons is "the final frontier" for some white people. "They've got everything and now they need that? I'd rather deal with blatant right-wing rednecks than f---ing bleeding heart left-wing f---ers who can be just as bad!" When AB Original released the single January 26 in mid-2016, the politically charged call to arms ultimately contributed to youth network Triple J's decision to shift its Hottest 100 music poll, which, since 1993, had broadcast on Australia Day (there's also a certain irony that the song reached number 16 in the poll last year). But the song also received instant backlash.

"It was a real thorn for a lot of people – they felt it was an attack on them," he says. AB Original's style feels fresh in the Australian musical landscape; we've never had an Australian equivalent of Public Enemy or NWA. Our protest music has historically been much more polite. "None of this is new, but the way we've tackled it is: it's a new conversation," says Briggs. "All the conversations before us, as awesome as they are, were always an almost … mournful tone, rather than an aggressive f--- you. But we're like, 'we will overcome, we will survive the struggle'."

Briggs and Trials (Daniel Rankine, the other half of AB Original) stand on the foundation of those stories, he says, "to say whatever we want. Because f--- it, if we can't say whatever we want, what's the point? We might as well go home." Indigenous people, he says, particularly in the public realm, "once they're finally allowed in are expected to be polite and thankful". "You're expected to be thankful for the pittance you're given rather than aspiring to more and wanting equality," he says. "Nowhere is perfect, but here is like a special f---ing problem….there's no true acknowledgement." And acknowledgements at the start of public speeches don't cut it: "That should be a given; it shouldn't have to be a chore." While he reckons "eventually" the date will change – it will be driven by councils first.

"It's gotta start small, as it has done, and then it will grow." What is it that stops us all from celebrating Indigenous culture? Surely the oldest living culture in the world is something we could all celebrate together? "That would mean an acknowledgment of whose land it is, and they can't do that," he says. "You'd think that that'd be something to celebrate, right? But no – f---ing beers and barbecues, mate. Like they never have that anywhere else." Celebrating Australia Day on January 26 is always, he says, going to be associated with dispossession of Indigenous people. "That's what this whole thing is built on," he says. "People talk about keeping it on that day as a lesson, a 'learning tool' – that's all well and good but you're not updating the text, you're not implementing the teachings. People saying 'oh, there are bigger issues to deal with' – if you can't address and change a simple thing like that, how can you possibly move to change anything else?"

If you've seen some of his videos or follow him on social media, you'll know Briggs is as funny as he is impassioned, especially on Twitter, from where much of his non-musical career took flight: the comedy writing (he's a regular writer for ABC's groundbreaking Black Comedy and appears on The Weekly), the acting ("I actually hate acting – I'm no Daniel Day Lewis," he says, adding that he's sent scripts "all the time"), the gig writing for no less than Simpsons creator Matt Groening's new Netflix series, Disenchantment. Despite the awards and the tours with childhood idols such as Ice Cube, it's this that has been Briggs' biggest thrill. He grew up watching The Simpsons and is a hardcore fan of the watching-all-the-DVDs-with-the-commentary-on nature. He started following Simpsons writer Josh Weinstein on Twitter years ago, and when Weinstein followed him back they began interacting. "I showed him some of the comedy stuff I'd written for Black Comedy and then when I was in LA I met him – it went from there."

All he's allowed to say about the adult animated series is that it's "like a Lord of the Rings-style fantasy". But he can share his excitement: "It was crazy, I'm sitting around this table with Josh and Matt Groening and David X Cohen who created Futurama – it's like the NBA of comedy." Humour permeates much of his work, despite the often serious nature of his message. "Humour allows you to access different narratives, different concepts and points of view – it's the great … equaliser," he says. "We're angry but there's also a dark humour to the whole thing."

When he toured his second album, Sheplife, in 2014 in his hometown, he mocked the trend for stadium acts offering "VIP" packages – he organised his own VIP tour of Shepparton and other prizes. "I'd seen people doing things for, like, $1500 'for the real fans'. You're never going to meet your real fans doing that – you're just going to meet the fans who have the most access to f---ing money," he says. "What about the kid who's bought all your shit and that's all they buy? When I was a kid, there was no way I could afford $1500; I would've been lucky just to go to the show! So I was like, f--- that." On the Sheplife tour (for which tickets were about $20), every presold ticket was a "meet and greet" at his sound-check. "Then for $1 extra, I'd give you a call before the show, and for $5 you could meet me at my hotel and get a lift to the show. Just fun stuff, you know?" And 30 lucky fans for a tour of Briggs' childhood home.

"My parents weren't home so I broke in – and sent Mum pictures of me and all these fans in her house." Briggs occupies a unique space where he's at once a long way from his old life of trying to make music while holding down shitty jobs – washing the machines at SPC, unpacking shipping containers, working as a security guard – yet he's not disconnected. He also had a job for a time in youth work, which he loved. "That's what I'd be doing if I wasn't doing this," he says. These days he's too busy – there's a new album coming this year, more touring, and running his label, to which he's planning to sign more women this year – but he still tries to "dip in and out". "Statistically, I'm not meant to get to do the things I do, but … here I am. I'm just trying to make the most of it."

THE BILL PLEASE THE RE-UP, 521 MT ALEXANDER RD, MOONEE PONDS, 9370 1107. MON-FRI 7AM-4PM; WEEKENDS 8AM-4PM.