Singer Songwriter

Artists & Performers

Where the Story, and the Storyteller, Begins

Dobby introduces himself as a rapper, drummer and above all a storyteller, tracing his Filipino and Murrawarri heritage and the academic grounding behind his belief that hip-hop is inherently a storytelling tradition. From there he traces where that tradition actually comes from, and helps you find the difference between a topic you noticed and a story that’s genuinely yours to tell.

This part doesn’t teach songwriting craft yet, it builds the foundation everything else in the course stands on.

Module One: Welcome, Rapper, Storyteller, Two Worlds

Module Two: Where Storytelling in Hip-Hop Comes From

Module Three: Finding the Story Only You Can Tell

Part One Workbook & Outcomes

Part One: Origins & Foundations

The Craft: Structure, Concept, Language and Production

The technical core of the course. Dobby breaks down how to structure a song like a story, scale a concept across a song or an entire album, use language itself as a storytelling choice, write the hardest stories responsibly, and treat production as a storytelling device in its own right. Closes with Dobby breaking one of his own songs all the way open.

This is where the craft actually gets built, from a blank page to a finished, structured song.

Module Four: Structure, How to Make a Start

Module Five: The Concept, Album, Song and Worldbuilding

Module Six: Language as Storytelling

Module Seven: Writing the Unwritable, Grief, Protest and Collective Story

Module Eight: Production Storytelling, Logic Session Breakdowns

Module Nine: Turning the Story Inward

Module Ten: Dobby’s Choice, a Song Broken All the Way Open

Part Two Workbook & Outcomes

Part Two: The Songwriter's Craft

Presence, Rhythm and Owning the Room

Storytelling doesn’t stop when the song is written. Dobby covers presence and rhythm as storytelling tools, a teachable rhyme-and-rhythm technique he uses with students, and what changes, and doesn’t, when a culturally specific story travels to a bigger room or a different country.

This part shifts from the page to the stage.

Module Eleven: Performing the Story, Presence, Rhythm and Connection

Module Twelve: Drapping Basics, Rhythm and Rhyme as a Teachable Craft

Module Thirteen: Owning the Room, at Any Scale

Module Fourteen: Taking the Story Across Borders

Part Three Workbook & Outcomes

Part Three: Presence & Performance

Composition and Collaboration

Storytelling without lyrics at all, composing for screen or theatre, and what changes when a story is shared with a collaborator rather than told alone.

A lighter, broader part, storytelling in mediums beyond a single song.

Module Fifteen: Composition for Screen, Theatre and Beyond

Module Sixteen: Collaboration as Shared Story

Part Four Workbook & Outcomes

Part Four: Storytelling Beyond the Song

Responsibility, and the Final Word

Dobby closes on the ethical core of storytelling, whose story it actually is to tell and how to honour that, before delivering his own closing mantra: own your story, use your voice, make the work only you can make.

The bookend to Module 1, and the course’s final word.

Module Seventeen: Whose Story Is It to Tell?

Module Eighteen: Own Your Story, Use Your Voice

Dobby’s Full Workbook & Outcomes PDF

Part Five: Dobby’s Best Advice

Step behind the curtain with Dobby, ARIA Award winner for Best World Music Album, rapper, drummer, producer and composer of Filipino and Murrawarri heritage. His debut album Warrangu; River Story won the 2024 ARIA and was shortlisted for the Australian Music Prize, and his track “I Can’t Breathe” became an unofficial Black Lives Matter anthem in Australia now used in school curricula. He has performed at the Sydney Opera House multiple times since 2018, and shared a stage with Nobel Laureates at UNSW’s Nobel Prize Dialogue.Across songwriting, live performance, production and composition, Dobby distils a single thesis, backed by his own Honours research into Aboriginal hip-hop at UNSW, into a course any artist can build on.His philosophy is simple: hip-hop isn’t a genre he picked, it’s a storytelling tradition he inherited. Every skill he brings, rapping, drumming, producing, composing, exists in service of that one idea.You’ll learn how to:<ul style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; padding-inline-start: 48px;"><li aria-level="1" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); list-style-type: disc; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Cambria, serif; background-color: transparent; font-variant: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre; margin-left: -6pt; padding-left: 6pt;">Structure a song like a story, with a beginning, real tension, and a resolution that actually lands.</li><li aria-level="1" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); list-style-type: disc; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Cambria, serif; background-color: transparent; font-variant: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre; margin-left: -6pt; padding-left: 6pt;">Find the story only you can tell, and the real difference between a topic you noticed and a story you lived.</li><li aria-level="1" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); list-style-type: disc; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Cambria, serif; background-color: transparent; font-variant: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre; margin-left: -6pt; padding-left: 6pt;">Scale a concept from one song to a whole body of work, using small, specific details to anchor it in a real time and place.</li><li aria-level="1" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); list-style-type: disc; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Cambria, serif; background-color: transparent; font-variant: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre; margin-left: -6pt; padding-left: 6pt;">Use language itself as a storytelling choice, without treating accessibility and cultural specificity as being in conflict.</li><li aria-level="1" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); list-style-type: disc; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Cambria, serif; background-color: transparent; font-variant: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre; margin-left: -6pt; padding-left: 6pt;">Treat production as a storytelling device, not just technical polish underneath the words.</li><li aria-level="1" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); list-style-type: disc; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Cambria, serif; background-color: transparent; font-variant: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre; margin-left: -6pt; padding-left: 6pt;">Perform in service of the story, using presence, rhythm and preparation as part of the craft, not separate from it.</li></ul>You’ll get exclusive access to Dobby’s own frameworks, his own songs broken all the way open, and the lived and academic grounding behind a course built entirely around one idea. By the end, you’ll understand not just how to write and perform a story, but how to carry one responsibly, across a single song or an entire body of work.Whether you’re a songwriter building storytelling into the structure of your work, a hip-hop artist or MC wanting deeper narrative craft, a First Nations artist wanting to tell your own stories with confidence, or a performer wanting your live show to carry a story rather than just deliver one, this course is your blueprint.Join Dobby as he shares the craft, the performance techniques and the responsibility behind storytelling that carries real weight, to help you tell the story only you can tell.

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Storytelling in Songwriting & Performance - In this exclusive mentor session, Dobby breaks down how a story sits underneath every song, performance and body of work he makes, so you can build storytelling into the structure of your own craft.

Course content

Dobby - Storytelling in Songwriting

Helen Marx

What you will learn

This Course Includes