Australia | Intellect Skip to content
1981
  1. Home
  2. A-Z Publications
  3. Global Hip Hop Studies
  4. Volume 3, Issue 1
  5. Article
1-2: Hip Hop Atlas
  • ISSN: 2632-6825
  • E-ISSN: 2632-6833
file format pdf download PDF

Abstract

In this contribution, we provide a brief overview of the development of Hip Hop culture in Australia, looking specifically at rap and breaking (breakdancing). We show how Australian rap has for a long time been dominated by white Australian artists attempting to solidify an Aussie Hip Hop identity distinct from the United States. Because rap from Indigenous and Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CaLD) communities did not fit the tropes of dominant (white) Australian culture, and were instead disregarded as simple mimicry of African American rap, the gatekeepers of Aussie Hip Hop for a long time locked out these minority artists. This created a divide in the rap scene that reflected broader Australian racial politics. In contrast, the breaking community has historically been more inclusive and reflective of a multicultural Australia, and has been more connected with the breakers of North America, Europe and Asia. In this contribution, we demonstrate how Australian Hip Hop has evolved over the past two decades to be more culturally inclusive, supported by key Australian artists, community radio, social media and finally validated by the Australian music industry as a distinct musical genre worth celebrating.

© 2023 (2022) The Author(s). Published by Intellect Ltd.
This article is Open Access under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC), which allows users to copy, distribute, transmit and adapt the article, as long as the author is attributed and the article is not used for commercial purposes. To view a copy of the licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1386/ghhs_00060_1
2023-12-20
2024-05-02
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

/deliver/fulltext/ghhs/3/1-2/ghhs.3.1-2.23_Saunders.html?itemId=/content/journals/10.1386/ghhs_00060_1&mimeType=html&fmt=ahah

References

  1. Anthony, T. (2011), ‘Sentencing Indigenous Riot Offenders in a spatial fantasy’, Griffith Law Review, 20:2, pp. 385–42.
     [Google Scholar]
  2. Australian Bureau of Statistics (2021), ‘Snapshot of Australia’, https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/people-and-communities/snapshot-australia/2021. Accessed 3 May 2023.
  3. Crooke, A. and Almeida, C. M. (2017), ‘It’s good to know something real and all that: Exploring the benefits of a school-based hip hop program’, Australian Journal of Music Education, 51:2, pp. 13–28.
     [Google Scholar]
  4. d’Souza, M. and Iveson, K. (1999), ‘Homies and homebrewz: Hip hop in Sydney’, in R. White (ed.), Australian Youth Subcultures: On the Margins and in the Mainstream, Hobart: Australian Clearinghouse for Youth Studies, pp. 55–64.
     [Google Scholar]
  5. Flaherty, A. (2014), ‘Asserting identity through music: Indigenous hip hop and self-empowerment’, in C. Malone and G. Martinez (eds), The Organic Globalizer: Hip Hop, Political Development, And Movement Culture, New York and London: Bloomsbury, pp. 129–48.
     [Google Scholar]
  6. Fogarty, M. (2006), ‘“What Ever Happened to Breakdancing?”: Transnational b-boy/b-girl networks, underground video magazines and imagined affinities’, master’s thesis, St Catharines: Brock University.
     [Google Scholar]
  7. Gosa, T. L. (2015), ‘The fifth element: Knowledge’, in J. Williams (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Hip Hop, Cambridge Companions to Music, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 56–70.
     [Google Scholar]
  8. Gunn, R. (2016), ‘“Don’t Worry, It’s Just a Girl!’”: Negotiating and challenging gendered assumptions in Sydney’s breakdancing scene’, Journal of World Popular Music, 3:1, pp. 54–74.
     [Google Scholar]
  9. Gunn, R. (2019), ‘Dancing away distinction: Queering hip hop culture through All Style battles’, Queer Studies in Media & Popular Culture, 4:1, pp. 13–26, https://doi.org/info:doi/10.1386/qsmpc_00002_1.
     [Google Scholar]
  10. Gunn, R. (2022), ‘Where the #bgirls at? Politics of (in)visibility in breaking culture’, Feminist Media Studies, 22:6, pp. 1447–62, https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2021.1890182.
     [Google Scholar]
  11. Hutchings, S. and Crooke, A. (2017), ‘The use of hip hop by Indigenous Australian artists to celebrate traditional cultural identity and increase social awareness’, Istanbul, Turkey, 9–10 June, MUSICULT ‘17 / IV: International Music and Cultural Studies Conference, Istanbul: DAKAM (Eastern Mediterranean Academic Research Centre), pp. 1–9.
     [Google Scholar]
  12. Iglesias, T. and Harris, T. (2022), ‘It’s “Hip Hop”, not “Hip-Hop”’, Journal of Hip Hop Studies, 9:1, pp. 124–28, https://doi.org/10.34718/c8gm-6j27.
     [Google Scholar]
  13. Jimblah and Corby, M. (2013), ‘Resolution: Like a version’, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ls-tNdlVnrY. Accessed 3 May 2023.
  14. Jimblah and Gaye, M. (2020), ‘What’s going on: Like a version’, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZPvmZdZ6sU. Accessed 3 May 2023.
  15. John, B. (2016), ‘The 6 greatest collabs in Aussie hip hop, with Jimblah & Georgia B’, The Brag Media, https://tonedeaf.thebrag.com/6-greatest-collabs-in-aussie-Hip Hop/. Accessed 6 November 2020.
  16. Jupiter, Maya (2018), online interview with G. L. Saunders, 8 March.
  17. Kingsmill, K. (2012), ‘Kings of the culture’, Sydney Morning Herald, https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/music/kings-of-the-culture-20120606-1zw9e.html. Accessed 3 March 2023.
     [Google Scholar]
  18. Lamaroc9 (2022), online interview with R. Gunn, 8 November.
  19. Lucas, M. (2018), ‘The day Snoop Dogg came to Redfern’, Rabbitohs News, 23 October, https://www.rabbitohs.com.au/news/2018/10/23/the-day-snoop-dogg-came-to-redfern. Accessed 3 May 2023.
     [Google Scholar]
  20. Marie, L. (2018), ‘“Our lives are lived in freestyle”: Social and dynamic productions of breaking and hip hop culture’, doctoral thesis, Perth: Curtin University, https://espace.curtin.edu.au/handle/20.500.11937/73551. Accessed 3 May 2023.
     [Google Scholar]
  21. Marie, L. (2020), ‘Negotiating hip hop persons: Authenticity, participation and breaking in Perth, Western Australia’, The Australian Journal of Anthropology, 31:3, pp. 347–62, https://doi.org/10.1111/taja.12378.
     [Google Scholar]
  22. Maxwell, I. (2003), Phat Beats, Dope Rhymes: Hip Hop Down Under Comin’ Upper, Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  23. McDermott, P. (2009), interview with G. L. Saunders.
  24. Minestrelli, C. (2017), ‘The Black from down-Unda: Contact zones and cultures of Black resistance’, in C. Ministrelli (ed.), Australian Indigenous Hip Hop: The Politics of Culture, Identity, and Spirituality, New York: Routledge, pp. 35–62.
     [Google Scholar]
  25. Mistery (2014), interview with R. Gunn, Sydney, 1 November.
  26. Mitchell, T. (ed.) (2001), Global Noise: Rap and Hip Hop Outside the USA, Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  27. Mitchell, T. (2006), ‘Blackfellas rapping, breaking and writing: A short history of aboriginal hip hop’, Aboriginal History, 30, pp. 124–37.
     [Google Scholar]
  28. Mitchell, T. (2008), ‘Australian hip hop’s multicultural literacies: A subculture emerges into the light’, in S. Homan and T. Mitchell (eds), Sounds of Then, Sounds of Now: Popular Music in Australia, Hobart: ACYS Publishing, pp. 231–52.
     [Google Scholar]
  29. Mitchell, T. (2011), ‘Indigenising hip hop: An Australian migrant youth subculture’, in M. Butcher and M. Thomas (eds), Ingenious: Emerging Youth Cultures in Urban Australia, North Melbourne: Pluto Press, pp. 198–214.
     [Google Scholar]
  30. Monro, L. (2018), interview with G. L. Saunders, Sydney, 8 March.
  31. Morgan, G. (2015), ‘Gangsta warrior bro: Hip hop and urban aboriginal youth’, in S. Baker, B. Robards and B. Buttigieg (eds), Youth Cultures and Subcultures: Australian Perspectives, London: Routledge, pp. 161–72.
     [Google Scholar]
  32. Morris, L. (2013), ‘Redfern searching for Muhammad Ali’, Sydney Morning Herald, 1 December, https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/redfern-searching-for-muhammad-ali-20131201-2yjlt.html. Accessed 4 May 2023.
     [Google Scholar]
  33. Munkimuk (2022), interview with R. Gunn, Sydney, 25 November.
  34. Owens, H. (2021), ‘Australian drill acts you need to know’, Complex, https://www.complex.com/music/australian-drill-acts-you-need-to-know. Accessed 13 March 2023.
     [Google Scholar]
  35. Pennycook, A. and Mitchell, T. (2009), ‘Hip hop as dusty foot philosophy: Engaging Locality’, in A. Alim, H. S. Ibrahim and A. Pennycook (eds), Global Linguistic Flows: Hip Hop Cultures, Youth Identities, and the Politics of Language, New York and London: Routledge, pp. 25–42.
     [Google Scholar]
  36. Red (2023), interview with R. Gunn, Sydney, 25 January.
  37. Rodger, D. (2019), ‘Forging traditions: Continuity and change in the mid-2000s Australian hip hop scene’, Ethnomusicology Forum, 28:2, pp. 217–40.
     [Google Scholar]
  38. Saunders, G. (2006), B.L.A.C.K: An Aboriginal Song of Hip Hop, Sydney: Australian Film, Television and Radio School (AFTRS).
     [Google Scholar]
  39. Saunders, G. (2020), ‘JustUS: What Hip Hop Wants You to Know’, Doctor of Creative Arts Exegesis, Open Publications of UTS Scholars, https://opus.lib.uts.edu.au/handle/10453/149456. Accessed 3 May 2023.
  40. Silberg, J. (1984), Breakin, USA: Golan-Globus Productions.
     [Google Scholar]
  41. Singh, S. (2018), interview with G. L. Saunders, Sydney, 8 March.
  42. Young, D. J. (2017), ‘Where you’re from, where you’re at: The changing face of Australian Hip Hop’, The Brag, https://thebrag.com/where-youre-from-where-youre-at-the-changing-face-of-australian-Hip Hop/. Accessed 25 November 2019.
     [Google Scholar]
http://instance.metastore.ingenta.com/content/journals/10.1386/ghhs_00060_1
Loading
  • Article Type: Article
Keyword(s): breaking; Hip Hop; identity; Indigenous; migrant; multicultural; racism; rap

Most Cited Most Cited RSS feed

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a success
Invalid data
An error occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error