Articles tagged with ‘DJing’

• Australian Hip-hop as a Subculture

  Originally published in the journal Youth Studies Australia in 2003, ‘Australian Hip-hop as a Subculture’ is an essay that applies ideas from subcultural theory to Australian hip-hop, relating the defining features of Australian hip-hop to the theories that the ‘Birmingham School’ applied to subcultures like Punk in the 70s.

  Tags: authenticity, MCing, independent record labels, four elements, Tony Mitchell, subcultural theory, community radio, graffiti, Sydney, DJing, breakdancing, Conference Papers

• Josie Styles

  Local Noise spoke to DJ and hip-hop promoter Josie Styles in 2005 at UTS, just after her hip-hop show at 2ser and at a time when she had been offered a job with Shogun Distribution (based in Brisbane). The energetic Josie talked about her two-sided life, spread between her love of hip-hop and her work as a terristrial ecologist looking after an endangered Bell Frog population. She spoke about the early days of getting into hip-hop, early Australian hip-hop and its influence, tape culture and growing up loving hip-hop in the rock-centric mainstream. She talked of her beginnings as a DJ, crate digging and her current practice. She spoke about the relationship with Warner Music that yielded the two Australian hip-hop compilations Straight from the Art. This led to a long discussion about the history of major labels and hip-hop in Australia and working in the industry in general. Josie focuses on representing women in hip-hop, and understands the difficulties of being a woman artist, citing the examples of Canadian FemCee Eternia and Perth-based FemCee Layla as positive examples.

  Tags: Straight from the Art, Shogun, DJing, Sydney, women in hip-hop, Obese, Interviews

• MC Que

  We met up with MC Que on Brunswick Street in Fitzroy for dinner and an interview whilst we were in Melbourne in 2005. Que told us about the way she first heard hip-hop through the tapes her sister’s brought back from trips to the city, and then plugging into the underground Australian scene through radio and going to gigs. She spoke about the genesis of the film All the Ladies, and her 15-member crew Ladies Love Hip-hop, as well as a much more broad-ranging discussion about being a woman in a male-dominated hip-hop culture, dealing with discrimination and supporting women in hip-hop. Que also spoke about the strong link between her ethnicity, marginalisation and her connection to hip-hop as an alternative to the Anglo-centric mainstream pop scene.

  Tags: cultural identity, breakdancing, MC Que, Ladies Love Hip-hop, DJing, workshops, women in hip-hop, Melbourne, All The Ladies, graffiti, Interviews

• Pasobionic

  Local Noise spoke to Pasobionic at the Sydney launch of his solo album Empty Beats For Lonely Rappers at the Hopetoun in Surry Hills. In a relatively short interview, the softly-spoken producer talked to us about the origins of the name Pasobionic from his graffiti tag Paso, and getting into hip-hop via graffiti in primary school in the 80s. He also mentioned the marked separation in his life between hip-hop and Islam. He spoke about the diverse sampling practices of Curse ov Dialect, the intricacies of sampling in general and the differences of producing with TZU and Curse. Other points touched upon included his CD duplication business, working with Elefant Traks and instrumental and live hip-hop in Australia.

  Tags: TZU, instrumental hip-hop, DJing, production, Ant Farm Aphids, Elefant Traks, sampling, Melbourne, graffiti, Curse ov Dialect, Pasobionic, Interviews