Blog #3: Localization of Hip Hop

When Americans think Hip-Hop, we think of something uniquely our own. We tend to see ourselves as the originators, as the authentic ones, and as all other cultures having appropriated and diluted an art that we invented (never mind the fact that our own nation appropriated it from a certain segment of the population). So when the question comes about of if foreign hip-hop is legitimate and worthy of recognition, we often brush it off with the idea that whatever a foreign culture produces will only be an imitation of what we made, and not something new or unique.

As George Stavrias mentions, Hip-Hop in Australia did start off as a recreation of what was being exported from the USA, of b-boys and art from the Bronx. However, it didn’t remain that way. It grew, it evolved, and it became a new entity only distantly related to the Hip-Hop that arrived on the boat from America. In his words, “Australian hip hop does not consist solely of ‘wanna-be gangstas’ mimicking 50 cent’s ‘thug life’.” It has a new life, a new take, and a new purpose in its new home.

Take emcee Little G. Hip-Hop helped her come to terms with her aboriginal identity, something completely foreign to the United States. Through her lyrics, she expresses her own struggles, her own desires, and nothing but original content. It doesn’t reference the rough streets of New York, or how hard it is to be a young, black man in America. Aboriginal Hip Hop, while originating in American Hip Hop, can no longer be considered a copy-cat art form. It has been changed so fundamentally that it is another entity all together.

Americans can no longer claim total control over all things Hip Hop, because hip hop is no longer an American institution. It has been localized and commodified to fit people all over the world, from pacific islanders in Samoa to Senegalese immigrants in France. Each time it reaches a new culture, it is re-born. It is not simply copied word for word by a different voice, but rather reinvented and restructured to help advance the people that it serves. And in the end, isn’t that the real purpose of hip hop? From the beginning it was meant to provide a voice to those who needed one (like the youth in the Bronx). While each renaissance of the movement is unique, they all serve the same purpose, and therefore are all truly genuine.

-SKH