Author Archives: benjamin kronick

M4 P5: Canada’s Indigenous artists are going global like never before

In this article, the author begins by highlighting the music of Hip Hop artists Neon Empty A.K.A. Bryce Lokken. His latest single Red Live’s Don’t is a critique of the culture not paying attention to the plight of Indigenous people. It is a response to the black lives matter movement which has received a lot of international attention, much more that Indigenous issues.

“No marches. No petitions. No justice. Nobody cares.”

The article goes on to highlight 5 Canadian Indigenous artists who have been gaining more international attention:

1: Adele Arsenau. A Nehiyaw/Métis visual artist with a disability, she was born in B.C., and moved from painting to beadwork, woodcarving and digital art to reclaim her displaced heritage and language. Her work has been shown across the Lower Mainland. She is guest curator of the latest instalment of the Pushing Boundaries exhibit held at CityScape Community ArtSpace running until Nov. 20 in North Vancouver.

M4 P4: International Hip Hop Awards

This year was the inaugural International Indigenous Hip Hop Awards. Due to COVID, the awards show was hosted online. The MC’s for the show were Lil Mike and Funny Bone of the Oklahoma based Hip Hop group Mike Bone. The show featured 14 music awards, and several culture based awards like most innovative clothing brand of the year. While the show was International, most of the artists featured were from North America.

What I liked most about watching this was learning about how many people there are making Indigenous music right now. In my research for the final project, I have been zoning in on several key artists, and various research papers on the topic. But watching this celebration of the Indigenous Hip Hop Culture made me realize how big this thing really is. A lot of the artists could be seen accepting awards from their homes, which were decorated in Indigenous artwork that seems to have  a Hip Hop remix vibe to it. This was a really cool part of the ceremony, to get a sense of how this is not just about DJing and MCing, but about culture at large.

There were a couple of key points of the ceremony I would like to point out and direct you towards. At 29:13, City Natives of the Maritime’s dropped an absolutely vicious freestyle, completely criticizing our government, especially Justin Trudeau. They accuse him of flip flopping and not addressing issues of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Issues.

Another was when Young D of Snotty Nose Rez Kids accepted the award for the best Hip Hop Album of the year with Born Deadly. In his speech he said:

It is so important to tell our stories the way we want it to be told, because we are natural storytellers, what better way to tell it than through music. 

I think that this award show is an amazing way to amplify the voices of indigenous Hip Hop artists who might not receive the recognition they deserve. I look forward to tuning in next year, hopefully when artists will be able to meet in person to celebrate their achievements.

M4 P3: Pop Up Classroom-Quese IMC

The Lincoln Center has a educational series on Youtube called Pop Up Classroom featuring many artists who bring unique lessons and perspectives for kids all over the world. One of the featured artists on this series is Quese IMC, a Pawnee and Seminole native who I featured in my last blog post. On his episodes, Quese discusses Indigenous culture and issues facing Indigenous people. In the episode below, he takes viewers through his home in Oklahoma and explains the tradition of the sweat lodge, a sacred fire, the hand drum and discusses the importance of identity.

M4 P2: We Can Tell Our Own History, We Can Tell Our Own Future

In this journal article, Chris Lalonde highlights the work of Hip Hop artist Quese IMC, an Indigenous rapper with a strong footing in political lyricism. What drew me to this article was that Lalonde writes at length about how Quese uses sampling to make political statements. This is is an important piece of the puzzle for my final project for this course. I have read many articles about how Hip Hop is used by Indigenous artists to promote decolonization, I have also read a lot about how Indigenous youth are affected by Hip Hop, specifically Hip Hop that discusses issues they are dealing with. What I am now starting to look for is more specifically how indigenous artists are using technology to promote these ideas. For example, Quese has a song called “Mad” where he samples an angry voice mail message from his father, who was an alcoholic and had issues with rage. as Lalonde points out:

“Mad,” is a message from his father. In that song and elsewhere, Quese chronicles the hard truth of his father’s struggleswith alcohol, with the rage that would boil up at times when a twelve pack would not cause everything to “just fade away.”

Furthermore:

The father’s recorded voice in “Mad” needs to be situated as part of the song’s foregrounding of and emphasis on media and recording technologies. The song begins in the studio, with Quese checking the microphone and asking for more volume in his headphones. The stress on amplification gives way as the conversation continues to an explanation of the song that
Quese, the producer, and the engineer are about to record. However, we only hear Quese’s side of the conversation. As such, the opening of “Mad” serves to highlight presence and absence and how technology can mediate both. 

This article has helped me thing about how technology, Hip Hop, and indigenous issues merge. It will be a great source for my final project.

Click the image below to access the article

 

Quese IMC - Brilliant Hip-Hop Artist, Actor, Speaker, Lyricist, Culture Advocate 12/17 by Danielle Lovelight Radio | Hip Hop Music

LaLONDE, C., & CHRIS LaLONDE. (02/01/2015). Mediating indianness Michigan State University Press.

M4 P1: Revolutionizing Environmental Education through Indigenous Hip Hop Culture

In this 2012 study, researchers of Environmental Education look to make a connection between Indigenous Hip Hop and the potential for Environmental Education. In doing so, they interviewed 6 members of the Beat Nation Indigenous Hip Hop collective (North America). The general theme of the article was that  Hip Hop gives voice to Indigenous Youth, which enables them to discuss issues happening in their communities. As a form of literacy, Hip Hop can be used as a way to reignite students interest in their native languages. The artists also make an argument that this form of expression has the ability to disrupt colonial and neo-colonial societal patterns which are prevelant  both in the education system and in North America at large. This disruption, through rap lyrics, can help ignite more discussion about Environmental Issues that Indigenous communities are engaged in (ie pipelines.)

 

Click below for  a link to the article:

Home | Beat Nation – Hip Hop as Indigenous Culture

 

Gorlewski, Julie. “Revolutionizing Environmental Education through Indigenous Hip Hop Culture.” Canadian Journal of Environmental Educators, vol. 17, 2012, pp. 46–61.

M3 P5: INDIGENOUS RAPPERS ARE USING THE POLITICAL ETHOS OF HIP-HOP TO DISMANTLE AUSTRALIAN RACISM

This article makes connections between Hip Hops political roots on the West Coast of the United States in the 1980’s to the current Indigenous Hip Hop in Australia:

Given the diversification of the Australian music scene artist base, the acceptance of international sounds on Australian national radio and the ease of access to technology in today’s climate, Indigenous artists are taking the mantra of Hip-hop’s golden political and rebellious era and showcasing it through Australia’s mistreatment, genocide and prosecution of First Nations People. White hip-hop has existed in Australia, but it did not channel the original ethos of the genre thematically. Now, the genre’s being fully utilised a renaissance of Australian hip-hop is occurring.

The article highlights artists such as Ziggy Ramos who are writing socially conscious lyrics about injustices happening in Australia to the Indigenous communities there:

 

Tritsiniotis, Parry. “Indigenous Rappers Are Using the Political Ethos of Hip-Hop to Dismantle Australian Racism.” Purple Sneakers, 6 July 2021, purplesneakers.com.au/2021/07/feature-indigenous-hip-hop/.

M3 P4: The Foundation

As I continue to search for content that can help me learn about Indigenous Hip Hop in Canada, I came across The Foundation. This is a series of interviews with classic and modern day hip hop artists that attempts to answer the question: What makes attracts Indigenous youth to hip hop? The answer inevitably comes from looking at Rap as a means of discussing social issues. The NWA criticized the police for their treatment of black communities. Canadian Indigenous artists like Rex Smallboy used the medium to tell stories about pain that indigenous communities have been feeling in Canada. Mama Rudegal, the interviewer, goes on to explain that indigenous kids did not always have access to have their voices heard. They are excluded from talking circles and meetings of the elders. Therefore rap and hip hop became a way to express ideas and frustrations that they had.

 

 

M3 P3: Glen Jack

This morning I read the horrifying account of Kamloops Residential School from survivor Glen Jack. The stories that he has been sharing for 50 years, which have not been made public until today, are shameful. Shameful for Canada, Shameful for the Catholic Church, Shameful for the RCMP. Completely and utterly Shameful.

That I am taking ETEC 521 right now is really important. It has given me a complete perspective, not only on what Canada did by implementing residential schools, but more so the culture which this country attempted to destroy. Glen Jack was stripped of his voice and his dignity when he arrived at the Kamloops residential school. He was stripped of his innocence when he was raped by a catholic priest and then told that he needed to pray away what he made the priest do. He was stripped of his culture and heritage when he was told that he was a heathen. Through this course, I have learned so much about what that heritage was that was stripped away from him. Every day, as more news comes out about unmarked graves and testemonies of residential schools, I mourn more for the beautiful traditions and the incredible spirituality that was taken away from an entire group of people. Cultural Genocide indeed.

 

 

Woo, Andrea. “Glen Jack Experienced the Horrors of the Kamloops Residential School. He’s Been Trying to Get People to Listen for 50 Years.” The Globe and Mail, 16 July 2021.

M3 P2: Customs and Duty: Indigenous Hip Hop and the US–Canada Border (Pryzbliski)

This  article, published for the Journal of Borderland Studies, compares songs from two Indigenous rappers; Drezus, from Canada and Waln, from the United States. Pryzbliski main goal in this article was to show how Hip Hop generally uses Place as a main catalyst for ideas, and this is just as true for Indigenous rappers. She makes three general points regarding Indigenous Hip Hop and Place:

  1. Many Indigenous rappers connect to their land, whether urban community or reservation.
  2. There is a specific authenticity that these rappers garner from defining themselves as coming from a specific place.
  3. There are intergenerational connections in the music that is specific to each community, whether urban or reservation.

Furthermore, Pryzblinski goes on to demonstrate how these two rappers use their platform to discuss political ideas. As both songs highlighted were written in 2012/2013, there is a large section of the article that focuses on Idle No More.\

From this article I have come up with several ideas for my final project: I will look more in depth into this idea of Place as being central to Indigenous Hip Hop. I will look for connections that can be made between American, Canadian and Australian Indigenous Hip Hop, and I will also look into the urban vs. reservation Hip Hop. I think that this is a starting point to look into some larger ideas.

 

Przybylski, Liz. “Customs and Duty: Indigenous Hip Hop and the US–Canada Border.” Journal of Borderlands Studies, vol. 33, no. 3, 2017, pp. 487–506., doi:10.1080/08865655.2016.1222880.

M3 P1: Introduction-Australian Indigenous Hop Hop: The Politics of Culture, Identity and Spirituality

Published in 2016, this book looks to define, break down and analyze Australian Indigenous Hip Hop. In the introductory chapter, the Author works to make connections between Hip Hop and Indigenous Culture. The most pressing what that they did this was through the concept of Bricolage. Generally speaking, this is the process of taking parts of a certain culture and using it or making it better. Minestrelli makes the point that Indigenous cultures use Bricolage as part of their Survivance (Resistance and Survival skills). “They (Indigenous peoples) are constantly engaged in critical dialogue with outside influences to decide what to reject or accept and how to indigenize and adapt to local needs what they are powerless to resist.” (pg. 6). In other words, they are constantly taking from colonial culture and critically deciding what to use and what to reject, whenever possible. Hip Hop similarly uses Bricolage by taking bits and pieces of different styles of music and accepting or rejecting them in their music. For example, Hip Hop utilizes jazz, blues, soul and R&B in its beats, but develops lyrical rhythms which are counter to what these musical forms would use.

I think that this book will be extremely helpful for my final project as it will provide an academic framework from which to pull ideas. While I would like to focus more so on Canadian Indigenous Hip Hop, I think there is a lot of cross over, especially in the way that the artform has become global and international.

 

 

Australian Indigenous Hip Hop

 

Minestrelli, Chiara. Australian Indigenous Hip Hop: the Politics of Culture, Identity, and Spirituality. Routledge, 2016.