WA Young Achiever Awards: Noongar Wongi rapper and youth mentor Joshua ‘Flewnt' Eggington named overall winner

West Australian

21 hours ago

When he's not under the bright lights on stage, he spends his time with young people in custody at Perth's Banksia Hill and Casuarina prisons.
Proud Noongar Wongi man Joshua 'Flewnt' Eggington, 29, was the recipient of the prestigious 2025 Western Australia Young Achiever of the Year Award presented by Minister for Youth Hannah Beazley.
Mr Eggington was selected from the nine category winners, who were announced at the 7NEWS Young Achiever Awards Gala Presentation Dinner.
He founded FN Focus, a First Nations-led music label supporting Indigenous artist development and sustainable careers, in 2023 and is known worldwide for his songs Flip the Shame and Never Forget
Since breaking into the Australian hip-hop scene in 2010, the father of five from Palmyra has used his music to pay homage to his family and culture.
'Hip-hop comes from the voiceless and the oppressed,' he told The West Australian in 2024 after being crowned the City of Melville's Auspire Young Citizen of the Year, for dedicating hours at Melville Library helping budding musicians write songs.
'Just by it's nature, hip-hop has this sort of attachment of being able to give people a chance to speak their truth.
'Music has always been one of the great forces behind political change, so I feel like I'm contributing to that through music.
'For me, it's always been about my community and the things I've observed as a young Aboriginal man, like all the rallies and protests I went to when I was a kid with my uncles, marching through the streets and protesting for our rights and Aboriginal equality and change and all these different issues that face my community.'
Mr Eggington is a youth worker — mainly in the prison system in Banksia Hill and Casuarina — who teaches songwriting and music therapy.
Many of the young people he works with are Indigenous and he previously told The West music is a way for the kids to connect with their culture.
'When you're working with young people who are disconnected from culture, they yearn for it,' he said.
'I am trying to give them a contemporary channel to be able to connect back to their culture and to their people and to be able to speak on their thoughts of what's going on.'
In between youth work and music, Mr Eggington has found himself as something of a mentor to young artists across WA, and a vocal advocate for West Coast hip-hop.
The award winner's eldest son, Ethan, is also a hip-hop artist, named Inkabee who recorded his first track at seven years old.
Their family double act was busy last year touring regional WA as part of the Perth Festival and Mr Eggington appeared on America's Got Talent with his now 13-year-old son.
All of the WA Young Achiever Award winners were announced on Friday at Pan Pacific Perth, in front of an audience of almost 400 people, hosted by 7NEWS presenter Jerrie Demasi.
Mr Eggington also won the National Indigenous Times Indigenous Community Leadership Award.
Each category winner received a free mentoring and strategy session with DMT Coaching, valued at $400, and will feature on a TV ad campaign that will be aired on the Seven Network across Western Australia.