Category Archives: MODULE 3

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/.

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.

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.

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.

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