By Zoe McDonald
After decades in the Australian and international music scene, UQ student Cameron Callope is back in the spotlight as he pursues a new gig – a career in medicine.
When Cameron Callope had surgery on his shoulder, he decided – like the doctor who treated him – he wanted magic hands that could fix people.
But being a surgeon hasn’t always been on the Bachelor of Health Science student’s radar. Cameron has travelled many paths in his life: despite spending periods of his young adult life homeless, he forged a successful career in the music industry, performing as a rap artist and working with international stars like Snoop Dogg and the Kardashians.
Through it all, Cameron remained committed to finding the best and most authentic version of himself. He wanted to give back and, after he saw the power of medicine in his own life, he decided to use it to transform the lives of others.
Cameron is from the Gkuthaarn peoples of the Gulf of Carpentaria – a place full of bush and big, open blue skies.
It was here he began to form the most fundamental pillars of who he was, and which would continue to guide him throughout his life.
“My uncle was the first one to leave the bush,” Cameron told Contact.
“He’d come back from boarding school in Brisbane and he’d tell us stories of life down there.
“He brought imagination, and he infused it with courage. He told us that, out there, was opportunity. You can be whoever you want to be.
“He taught me there’s true strength in a man who stands on his feet, knows who he is and protects what he loves. Everything I know is built on top of that.”
Cameron said despite the traumatic and dysfunctional things going on around him – and to him – these were the early lessons he learned that kept him strong.
Cameron Callope as a toddler, growing up in the Gulf of Carpentaria. Images supplied
“I had adverse childhood experiences, but I also had agency – I had elders and a grandmother who raised me and kept me safe,” he said.
“My great-grandmother, the matriarch of my people in the Gulf, always used to tell me I was magic.
“If you tell a child they’re magic, the world can throw anything at them… anything.”
The world did, indeed, throw things at Cameron. At the age of 19, he was sentenced to three months in a maximum-security prison on a minor charge, despite having no criminal record.
To Cameron’s surprise, a Senior Counsel came across his case and took it to the Supreme Court, where the judge declared it a gross miscarriage of justice.
Cameron’s record was expunged – legally, it never happened, but he had still experienced it.
Cameron Callope as a toddler, growing up in the Gulf of Carpentaria. Images supplied
Cameron Callope as a toddler, growing up in the Gulf of Carpentaria. Images supplied
Through the challenges during his youth, music had always been an outlet for Cameron. At 20, he performed his first professional gig as a musician, a career in which he would spend the next period of his life.
It was not surprising that he was drawn to music; growing up in the Gulf, there was always a guitar and, if there were no drums, he and his friends would make music with bins. Even in kindergarten, he’d been writing love songs to a girl in his class.
“I don’t think I could be the person I am if it wasn’t for music,” Cameron said.
“Music went hand-in-hand with openness to experience, because it allowed me to create a world in my mind that I wanted to live in.”
Cameron Callope with his Legend Award from the Australian Independent Music Awards & Music Oz. Image supplied
Cameron Callope with his Legend Award from the Australian Independent Music Awards & Music Oz. Image supplied
The Aboriginal rap group Cameron helped form – Native Ryme Syndicate – went on to win a Vibe Australia National Music Award and nominations from the Australian Recording Industry Awards (ARIA’s). In 2013, Cameron received what he sees as his most meaningful recognition – a Legend Award from the Australian Independent Music Awards & Music Oz for his contributions to the Australian people through music.
However, in the beginning, few were willing to give his music a chance.
“Nobody in Brisbane would give me a shot in the early days – they said nobody wanted to hear rap, and especially not Aboriginal rap,” Cameron said.
“I kept coming back until I annoyed them into giving me a go. I knew that people looked past preconceived ideas if they saw the product was good.”
Two years later, Cameron’s career started taking off. After a chance opportunity to stage-manage a concert, he found his way into major international special-events management as a freelance agent.
“I got myself into the ‘Holy Grail room’ of the music industry through years of hard work, but also as someone who thought outside the box. You can’t be afraid to try to turn the system on its head,” Cameron said.
Cameron Callope with international rap superstar Snoop Dogg. Image supplied
Cameron Callope with international rap superstar Snoop Dogg. Image supplied
“That room gets you access to everybody – Snoop Dogg introduced me to Justin Bieber, and that opened doors to Johnny Depp and the Kardashians. I had the biggest talent agency in the world offer me the contract for all of Australasia, and it all came from that room.
“A lot of it came back to my uncle telling me there’s a world out there full of opportunity. I was never afraid to ask because the worst somebody could say was no.”
While Cameron found huge success in the music industry, he also spent a significant part of the early years of his career without a permanent home.
Between the ages of 18 and 24, Cameron was transient. At 22, when his music career started taking off, he could afford a room at a men’s homeless shelter in Fortitude Valley. At 25, he moved into his own place.
Cameron said homelessness is a difficult experience to describe. It’s a period where nothing makes sense, and everything feels grey.
He chose to see through the chaos of his experience, and to find order in the disorder.
“Being in that place in your life, your innovation is your own mind,” he said.
“I remember thinking, ‘you’re never going to feel like this again.’ You can pretend to know what it feels like to be homeless, but you can’t. To have everything stripped from you, to have nothing.
“I wanted to be present in the experience because I knew it was trying to teach me something. My Aboriginality gives me that base of seeing a problem and thinking, what is it trying to teach me?
“When I was homeless, I remember looking up and seeing people in City Hall through the big glass windows and thinking, up there are successful people.
“I wondered who they were and what their stories were.”
Cameron recalls standing in one of those windows in City Hall years later after receiving a job offer as an executive concert producer and looking back at that same spot where he’d once watched others.
He was reminded of what he’d learned and how far he’d come.
“I think Oprah would call it a full-circle moment,” Cameron said.
“It was my time to really take note and not disassociate myself from the lessons I learned.”
Throughout his life, Cameron has always tried to remain true to the best version of himself he could be, and at the pinnacle of his music career he realised he’d started to drift from this path.
“That life was great, but it was lonely,” Cameron said.
“It was very Western capitalistic – it was all about hoarding resources, not sharing them, and I was uncomfortable with that.
“It wasn’t of service to people. Being Indigenous and growing up with the pillars of belief I had, I wanted to ask more of myself.”
Cameron found his way into medicine after injuring his shoulder while working at a factory. Orthopaedic surgeon and UQ graduate Dr Kelly Macgroarty (Bachelor of Medicine & Bachelor of Surgery, ‘95) was the doctor in charge of his recovery.
“I was in hospital and this guy walked past me. He told me, ‘Don’t worry, Dr Macgroarty is good. He’ll give you your life back,” Cameron said.
“Then Dr Macgroarty walked in and I looked at his hands and thought: this man has trained for a long time, and now he has magic hands. He puts his hands inside people’s bodies, and he fixes them.
“I decided then that I wanted magic hands too.”
As a Bachelor of Health Sciences student, Cameron is well on his way to getting magic hands.
Cameron Callope conducting medical research at UQ.
He was the first ever first-year student to be offered a place as a Medical Research Scholar at the Child Health Research Centre and has been personally endorsed by UQ Chancellor Peter Varghese AO as an Indigenous Medical Students Mentor.
Alongside his studies to become a surgeon, he is working with Professor Andrew Fairbairn in the School of Social Science on a Student-Staff Partnership program to design a course for UQ Archaeology studies, called Keeping Country. He is also piloting the IMPACT Mentoring Program, an internship for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students run by UQ’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (ATSIS) Unit and Global Engagement, through which he is interning with UQ International Development.
Cameron was also a key part of UQ’s 2021 Giving Day as a recipient of the Fiona Kennedy Memorial Scholarship, sharing his story to help inspire others to support students.
“I’m the happiest and the most stable I’ve ever been in my life,” Cameron said.
“I know that, with my education, I have an opportunity to do great things. That’s why I study 14 hours a day.”
Cameron said he’s no stranger to hard work and, if he has to give 15 years to earn his board certification, that time will be worth it.
“When I left music, I knew I wanted to do something where I was the most authentic version of myself that I could be, but I didn’t know what that was until now.
“I think it’s medicine and helping people. All of this has added up to now.”
Relationships, respect, opportunities
The UQ Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (ATSIS) Unit strongly supports the celebration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and recognises the enormous contributions that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and perspectives bring to UQ’s Learning, Discovery and Engagement activities.
Cameron Callope conducting medical research at UQ.
Cameron Callope conducting medical research at UQ.
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