Articles tagged with ‘Indigenous hip-hop’

• Aboriginal Hip-hop: a modern day corroboree

  This is my lyrical healing. I can’t go and get scarred any more and I can’t become a traditional man. I’m a modern day blackfella, this is still Dreamtime for me. Hip-hop is the new clapsticks, hip-hop is the new corroboree.

  - Wire MC

  This paper was given at the Hip-hop meets Academia conference in Chemnitz, Germany, in August 2006. It is a longer and more developed version of the essay published in Meanjin’s ‘Blak Times’ issue in 2006, and draws on all the Local Noise research and interviews with indigenous hip-hop artists.

  Tags: Lez Beckett, South West Syndicate, education, Klub Koori, Aboriginal language hip-hop, Tony Mitchell, Local G, Brotha Black, Munkimuk, Morganics, language, Western Sydney, Wire MC, workshops, breakdancing, community work, Indigenous hip-hop, Local Knowledge, Conference Papers

• Indigensing hip-hop: an Australian migrant youth culture

  “…far from representing the loss of Australian national identity in the face of global capitalism, Australian hip-hop artists are engaged in the project of attempting to build a multicultural national identity in place of a racist monocultural model that is now gaining strength in Australian national politics.”

  - Kurt Iveson

  Published in Melissa Butcher and Mandy Thomas’ (eds) Ingenious: emerging youth cultures in urban Australia, this essay discusses, from a Sydney perspective, the history of hip-hop’s localisation in an Australian context. In particular, the essay looks at ways in which ethnic and migrant youth have used its naturally syncretic form to express a hybrid sense of self and place.

  Tags: globalisation, localising hip-hop, Hip-Hopera, Tony Mitchell, MetaBass ‘N’ Breath, multilingualism, multiculturalism, Western Sydney, 2SER, breakdancing, Indigenous hip-hop, Conference Papers

• Lecture at University of Sydney - Aboriginal Hip-hop: a modern day corroboree.

  An edited recording of a lecture given by Tony Mitchell to the Koori Centre’s Indigenous Studies class (run by Peter Minter) on the 16th of May, 2007.

  Tags: DIY ethos, multilingualism, self expression, localising hip-hop, Aboriginal language hip-hop, Tony Mitchell, gangsta rap, education, Redfern, language, Sydney, workshops, cultural identity, community work, Indigenous hip-hop, Audio

• Local Knowledge

  Local Knowledge, who have now split into two different groups [Street Warriors & Last Kinection], were for a time the strongest force in Indigenous Australian hip-hop. Local Knowledge spawned after the two Wright brothers, Predator and Wok, approached Weno, who was already into hip-hop at the same time as working as a health lecturer at the University of Newcastle. The raw passion and powerful stage presence saw them gain immediate attention. This interview, which took place backstage at the Manning bar before a gig with The Herd and TZU, covers everything from Local Knowledge’s beginnings to their ideas about representing Aboriginal issues and working with communities.

  Tags: Newcastle, DJJT, Indigenous hip-hop, health, community work, Predator, Wok, social work, workshops, Local Knowledge, Weno, Interviews

• Mark Pollard

  We met with Stealth magazine editor Mark Pollard in September of 2005. His knowledge, passion and diplomacy in discussing a huge variety of issues within and around Australian hip-hop was a demonstration of the crucial role he has played in fostering the culture. Mark spoke about his early teens, making tapes with friends in summer and doing gigs at under-18 shows around town. He spoke about he entry into the scene as an 18-year-old through the Cell Block Youth Centre and the 2ser radio program The Mothership Connection, which he took over from Miguel D’Souza. Mark talked about what he considered to be the most significant moments in Australian hip-hop in the last few years, including the solidification of Obese Records, triple j’s Hip-hop Show and the success of The Hilltop Hoods. Mark also had many salient points to make about identity and music, the issue of accent and American mimicry, over-ocker Australian vernacular and the connections between gansta rap and rural Aboriginal Australia. Mark also told us about the distribution of Stealth globally and the feedback he gets from kids in the country as well as the focus of giving coverage to little known scenes overseas.

  Tags: Indigenous hip-hop, Mark Pollard, Stealth magazine, triple j, politics, 2SER, Obese, Sydney, Hilltop Hoods, Interviews

• Monkey Marc

  Local Noise met with Combat Wombat producer and Lab Rats member Monkey Marc after he had finished running a workshop on altering engines from petrol to vegetable oil at TINA (This is Not Art) festival in Newcastle 2005. Marc spoke about the beginnings of Lab Rats at the Jabiluka protests in 1998, where he met Izzy Brown (Combat Wombat MC and other half of Lab Rats) and how initially the Lab Rats were a traveling sound system that went to the front of protests and blockades, running huge parties with solar- and wind-powered sound system and cinema. Marc talked about the evolution of Lab Rats into a mobile hip-hop, circus, video production and performance workshop that tours to the most remote Indigenous communities in the country. Marc spoke about this work, the idea of cultural preservation and continuation of Indigenous languages, recording songs all across the desert and the issues of mimicking American hip-hop. Marc also talked about the recently released album Unsound $ystem, hip-hop as a form ripe for political expression and being written off as a left-wing extremist hip-hop group by the hip-hop ‘mainstream’.

  Tags: Combat Wombat, Monkey Marc, Lab Rats, community work, eco hip-hop, Indigenous hip-hop, politics, Melbourne, Curse ov Dialect, Elefant Traks, workshops, Interviews

• Morganics

  We caught up with Morganics for a quick interview at the Sydney Opera House before a performance of Morganics and Wire’s two-man hip-hop theatre show Stereotype. Morgan talked to us about the evolution of the show, the relationship of both black and white to lineage and a real sense of connection to the songlines and bloodlines of place. Morgan also discussed the crossover between hip-hop and theatre and the richness of what both forms have to offer each other. The theatrical roots of MetaBass N Breath were also discussed. Morgan also talked about the constant travel and rigours of life on the workshop trail; the great value of workshops and the issues of setting up facilities that will be of lasting effect in the communities, like recording studios.

  Tags: beatboxing, theatre, MetaBass ‘N’ Breath, community work, Indigenous hip-hop, Sydney, workshops, breakdancing, Interviews

• Munkimuk

  This interview with Munkimuk, often refered to as the grandfather of Aborignal hip-hop, took place backstage at Sydney Uni’s Manning Bar, before the inaugural Klub Koori gig in 2005. This gig was a watershed, bringing together almost all the most prominent Indigenous hip-hop artists for the first time. Munkimuk talked exuberantly about his 20 years in hip-hop, from the early days in Bankstown and Redfern with South West Syndicate to the release of his debut solo album, called Ten Years Too Late. Munki talked at length about his many adventures into the desert to use hip-hop as a tool of self-expression, especially in Aboriginal languages. Munki also spoke about his time working for the education department and his unconventional but wildly successful methods of enthusing kids to learn.

  Tags: Redfern, education, South West Syndicate, Aboriginal language hip-hop, Munkimuk, community work, Western Sydney, workshops, breakdancing, Indigenous hip-hop, Interviews

• The DIY Habitus of Australian Hip-hop: Embodied Histories, Community and Scene

  If habitus is regarded as ‘deep seated generative principles of thought, perception, appreciation, and action’, this ‘fit’ seems eminently applicable to the ‘embodied history’ of hip-hop subcultures and the expression of their ‘objectified history’ in practices such as recording, performing, internet interaction, music journalism, and independent radio and television broadcasting.

  This paper, originally published in Media International Australia, looks at the Australian hip-hop culture in terms of its do-it-yourself ethos, which is, in part, a result of a lack of support from the commerical record labels. Tony Mitchell here discusses the artists, groups and independent labels that have championed this DIY ethos and have built a community of practice outside the mainstream industry.

  Tags: localising hip-hop, community radio, authenticity, independent record labels, Tony Mitchell, Aboriginal language hip-hop, DIY ethos, Pegz, Elefant Traks, Obese, Hilltop Hoods, Koolism, Reason, Indigenous hip-hop, Conference Papers

• Wire MC

  A fascinating discussion with the articulate, pugnacious and vibrant Wire MC. In the interview, Wire uses the lens of hip-hop to zoom in on Indigenous cultural practices, history and colonisation, identity and community and avoiding being a reconciliation poster boy – all from a relentlessly contemporary viewpoint.

  Tags: Redfern, Aboriginal language hip-hop, community work, Indigenous hip-hop, Sydney, workshops, Interviews

• Wire MC – Acapella from B.L.A.C.K.

  To conclude an interview we conducted with him, Wire MC performs an acapella of the third verse from his song B.L.A.C.K.

  Tags: Indigenous hip-hop, Wire MC, Audio