Articles tagged with ‘masculinity’

• Lazy Grey

  We caught up with Lazy Grey backstage at the Big Top in Luna Park, as part of the Park Jam hip-hop festival. Lazy was very welcoming and humble in his manner as he talked about his influences and growing up in the early days of the Brisbane scene, and the role of graffiti and breaking in this early gestation of hip-hop in Australia. His also spoke of tape culture and 80s influences from America. Whilst always humble, Lazy is also very much a straight talker, articulating excellently his views on the rise of Australian hip-hop, being a product of one’s environment and the different vernaculars in Australian cities. He touched on (of course) the accent debate, but also discussed the role of swearing in ordinary everyday language, hip-hop and masculinity, and the complexity and contradiction of patriotism and flag-waving in relationship to hip-hop. Having just released his first fully-fledged album, Banned in Queensland with Crookneck records, he talked about the making of the album.

  Tags: masculinity, vernacular, Ken Oath, Bias B, Brothers Stoney, patriotism, breakdancing, graffiti, Lazy Grey, Brisbane, Crookneck Records, Interviews

• One Step Ahead (Review)

  A review of Reason’s LP One Step Ahead published in Music Forum

  Tags: multiculturalism, environment, Tony Mitchell, Music Forum reviews, masculinity, vernacular, Obese, politics, cultural identity, patriotism, Press & Media

• Sereck

  Paul Westgate, also known as Sereck from Def Wish Cast and as the graffiti writer Unique, has been involved in the hip-hop scene in Australia since 1983. He was a key figure in the western Sydney hip hop scene, and Def Wish cast produced what is acknowledged as the first Australian hip-hop album in 1993,Knights of the Round Table, which included the track ‘A.U.S.T. Down Under Comin’ Upper’, the video clip of which has become an anthem of early Australian hip-hop. Sereck also narrated the first Australian hip hop documentary, Basic Equipment, in 1996, and later formed a record label named after the program. After going their separate ways in the two crews Celsius and Kilawattz, Def Wish Cast reformed in 2001 and released their second album, The Legacy Continues, in 2006.

  In this interview Sereck reminisces about the early days of western Sydney hip-hop, the emergence of Def Wish Cast, their style and the people they represented. He also talks about his interconnection, via train travel and graffiti, with all the others local scenes in Sydney (Burwood, Campsie, Ryde, Redfern, etc).

  Tags: MCing, self expression, independent record labels, Hip-Hopera, Interview Transcript, Stealth magazine, production, graffiti, Western Sydney, cultural identity, vernacular, masculinity, Interviews

• Sydney-centrism, Parochialism and Popular Music Studies: a review of Ian Maxwell’s book “Phat Beats, Dope Rhymes”

  A review of Ian Maxwell’s book Phat Beats, Dope Rhymes: Hip-hop Down Under Comin’ Upper (Middletown, CT:Wesleyan University Press), 2003, 294 pp. ISBN 0-8195-6638-1), published in the UTS Cultural Studies Review.

  Tags: subcultural theory, Ian Maxwell, four elements, Tony Mitchell, Music Forum reviews, Place, localising hip-hop, hip-hop and academia, Sydney, Western Sydney, 2SER, cultural identity, self expression, masculinity, Press & Media