Australian Indigenous Hip Hop

This book investigates the discursive and performative strategies employed by Australian Indigenous rappers to make sense of the world and establish a position of authority over their identity and place in society. Focusing on the aesthetics, the language, and the performativity of Hip Hop, this book pays attention to the life stance, the philosophy, and the spiritual beliefs of Australian Indigenous Hip Hop artists as ‘glocal’ producers and consumers. With Hip Hop as its main point of analysis, the author investigates, interrogates, and challenges categories and preconceived ideas about the critical notions of authenticity, ‘Indigenous’ and dominant values, spiritual practices, and political activism. Maintaining the emphasis on the importance of adopting decolonizing research strategies, the author utilises qualitative and ethnographic methods of data collection, such as semi-structured interviews, informal conversations, participant observation, and fieldwork notes. Collaborators and participants shed light on some of the dynamics underlying their musical decisions and their view within discussions on representations of ‘Indigenous identity and politics’. Looking at the Indigenous rappers’ local and global aspirations, this study shows that, by counteracting hegemonic narratives through their unique stories, Indigenous rappers have utilised Hip Hop as an expressive means to empower themselves and their audiences, entertain, and revive their Elders’ culture in ways that are contextual to the society they live in..

Focusing on the critical expression 'Indigenous/Aboriginal Hip Hop', this thesis investigates the meanings generated by this expression through the discursive strategies employed by those rappers who identify as Indigenous and whose music has been labelled 'Indigenous/Aboriginal Hip Hop' by virtue of its lyrics, musical style and the rappers' public image. Elaborating on this aspect, the thesis's argument develops around two distinct, and yet deeply intertwined, semantic areas: the politics of identity and the political power of 'Indigenous/Aboriginal Hip Hop'. Engaging in a discussion around these aspects, the thesis investigates the complexities inherent in the discourses produced by Indigenous rappers through their music and validated by their direct testimonies. Collaborators and participants shed light on some of the dynamics underlying their musical decisions and their position within discussions on representations of 'Indigenous identity and politics'. Maintaining a focus on the importance of adopting decolonising research strategies, the thesis has engaged with academic scholarship on the topic and its related areas, thus integrating pre-exiting knowledge with various in-depth analyses and two case studies. This ethnographic research utilises qualitative methods of data collection, such as formal semi-structured interviews, informal conversations, participant observation and fieldwork notes. The data gathered during my fieldwork experience was recorded in accordance with the requirements imposed by ethical protocols. The themes that emerged from the material were successively classified and interpreted in cooperation with collaborators and participants, respecting their different views and their intrinsic complexities. Looking at the Indigenous rappers' local and global aspirations, the thesis shows that, by counteracting dominant narratives through their unique stories, Indigenous rappers have utilised Hip Hop as an expressive means to empower themselves and revive their Elders' culture in ways that are contextual to the society they live in. Borrowing from different cultural practices, and moving freely across imposed categories (of race, gender and music) the younger generations of Indigenous people have found an avenue that allows them to be active performers, community members and citizens..

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An anthology of essays on the new syncretic, or 'fusion', styles of music of the indigenous peoples of the Pacific region, who have adopted forms of popular music as an expression of their cultural identity. Its strength lies in the layering up of a sense of community of inquiry, and the fostering of an intertextual head of steam, grounded in a set of empirical, rather than theoretical, concerns. It considers the interrelation between music, popular culture, politics and (national) identity, but also looks at the business aspect of producing and distributing music in the Pacific region..

An exhibition publication featuring curatorial essays and artworks by Indigenous Australian artists in the Collection.

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This anthology emanated from a conference in St. John’s, Newfoundland, that brought together popular music scholars, folklorists and ethnomusicologists from Canada and Australia. Implicit in that conference and in this anthology is the comparability of the two countries. Their ‘post-colonial’ status (if that is indeed an appropriate modifier in either case) has some points of similarity. On the other hand, their ‘distance’ – from hegemonic centres, from colonial histories – is arguably more a matter of contrast than similarity. Canada and Australia are similar in various regards. Post-colonial in the sense that they are both former British colonies, they now each have more than a century of stature as nation states. By the beginning of the 21st century, they are each modest in size but rich in ethnocultural diversity. Nonetheless, each country has some skeletons in the closet where openness to difference, to indigenous and new immigrant groups are concerned. Both countries are similarly both experiencing rapid shifts in cultural makeup with the biggest population increases in Australia coming from China, India, and South Africa, and the biggest in Canada from Afro-Caribbean, South Asian countries, and China. The chapters in this anthology constitute an important comparative initiative. Perhaps the most obvious point of comparison is that both countries create commercial music in the shadow of the hegemonic US and British industries. As the authors demonstrate, both proximity (specifically Canada’s nearness to the US) and distance have advantages and disadvantages. As the third and fourth largest Anglophone music markets for popular music, they face similar issues relating to music management, performance markets, and production. A second relationship, as chapters in this anthology attest, is the significant movement between the two countries in a matrix of exchange and influence among musicians that has rarely been studied hitherto. Third, both countries invite comparison with regard to the popular music production of diverse social groups within their national populations. In particular, the tremendous growth of indigenous popular music has resulted in opportunities as well as challenges. Additionally, however, the strategies that different waves of immigrants have adopted to devise or localize popular music that was both competitive and meaningful to their own people as well as to a larger demographic bear comparison. The historical similarities and differences as well as the global positionality of each country in the early 21st century, then, invites comparison relating to musical practices, social organization, lyrics as they articulate social issues, career strategies, industry structures and listeners..

Since 2007, the Youthbeyondblue mental health promotion initiative has worked in partnership with Indigenous Hip Hop Projects (IHHP), a team of artists who use traditional culture fused with hip hop, rap, beat-boxing and break dancing to foster positive mental health and leadership skills in remote Australian communities. This evaluation was conducted across selected sites in Western Australia, to assess the impact of the initiative on young people, their health knowledge and health promotion behaviour, and local health services. This summary report describes the methodology and key findings of the evaluation..

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An Anthology of Australian Albums offers an overview of Australian popular music through the lens of significant, yet sometimes overlooked, Australian albums. Chapters explore the unique qualities of each album within a broader history of Australian popular music. Artists covered range from the older and non-mainstream yet influential, such as the Missing Links, Wendy Saddington and the Coloured Balls, to those who have achieved very recent success (Courtney Barnett, Dami Im and Flume) and whose work contributes to international pop music (Sia), to the more exploratory or experimental (Curse ov Dialect and A.B. Original). Collectively the albums and artists covered contribute to a view of Australian popular music through the non-canonical, emphasizing albums by women, non-white artists and Indigenous artists, and expanding the focus to include genres outside of rock including hip hop, black metal and country..

Beginning in the early 1980s Aboriginal Australians found in music, radio, and filmic media a means to make themselves heard across the country and to insert themselves into the center of Australian political life. In The Voice and Its Doubles Daniel Fisher analyzes the great success of this endeavor, asking what is at stake in the sounds of such media for Aboriginal Australians. Drawing on long-term ethnographic research in northern Australia, Fisher describes the close proximity of musical media, shifting forms of governmental intervention, and those public expressions of intimacy and kinship that suffuse Aboriginal Australian social life. Today’s Aboriginal media include genres of country music and hip-hop; radio requests and broadcast speech; visual graphs of a digital audio timeline; as well as the statistical media of audience research and the discursive and numerical figures of state audits and cultural policy formation. In each of these diverse instances the mediatized voice has become a site for overlapping and at times discordant forms of political, expressive, and institutional creativity..

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"Stylin'UP is an Indigenous owned Hip Hop and R'n'B music and dance skills development workshop and event program. Stylin' UP is developed with and for young people from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds in Brisbane's South West communities. Over the past 13 years Stylin' UP has grown to become Australia's largest Indigenous Hip-Hop and R&B music and dance event and a nationally significant contemporary Indigenous creative arts development program. Stylin'UP originated as an initiative of Brisbane City Council and the Indigenous Community of Inala, and has been nurtured and developed by the Stylin'UP Community Crew, made up of elders, community leaders and government representatives. In 2009 the event drew over 15,000 attendees and participants from Inala, Brisbane and surrounding regions and from all across the country as well as official visitors and community members from Logan, Hopevale, Cherbourg, and Woorabinda through the Stylin'UP Regional Program." -- [About page].