Articles tagged with ‘independent record labels’

• 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

• Crytearia

  Crytearia is a producer and sample-based, instrumental hip-hop and electronic music artist who lives in Hobart, Tasmania. He has made two albums, Create (2003), and LandScrape (due to be released in late 2007). LandScrape features rhymes from Tasmanian MCs Tempest, Crixus and Thorts. In this interview, conducted by Tony Mitchell at Crytearia’s house in Hobart, Crytearia talks about getting into hip-hop via breakdancing at high school, the Hobart scene, crate-digging and beatmaking, his time in Italy and Italian hip-hop, and his love of the French language and French hip-hop.

  Tags: independent record labels, Hobart, multilingualism, breakdancing, sampling, instrumental hip-hop, Interviews

• Make It Happen (Review)

  A review of Upshot’s LP Make It Happen published in Music Forum.

  Tags: live band hip-hop, Music Forum reviews, Tony Mitchell, independent record labels, 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

• Sounds From Our Town: Tasmanian Hip-Hop

  “Music emanating from Tasmania has generally been pretty much off the radar in terms of mainstream or even underground success or acknowledgment in Australia.” On a trip to Tasmania in April 2007, Tony Mitchell went forraging through fragments of the Tasmanian music scene in search of the underground traces of Hobart hip-hop. This piece - published as a feature in Music Forum - is a result of a forraging which included an interview with Hobart-based porducer Crytearia (this interview can be viewed at the website also).

  Tags: globalisation, Tony Mitchell, Hobart, independent record labels, production, instrumental hip-hop, Somalia, Press & Media

• 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