"Rapper on a Rampage": Theorising the Political Significance of Aboriginal Australian Hip Hop and Reggae
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Keywords:
music, culture, place, hip hop
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Abstract
Hip hop is a powerful vehicle for the expression of identity and resistance in contemporary Aboriginal popular music. This paper examines the origins of Aboriginal hip hop and explains the reasons for its cultural and political significance. By looking at the influence of reggae in Aboriginal hip hop, especially in the work of CuzCo (Wire MC and Choo Choo), it locates hip hop’s history in terms of the reggae tradition in Aboriginal popular music, represented here by the work of No Fixed Address in the early 1980s. In this way hip hop is understood as part of a longer history of Aboriginal transnationalism. The paper seeks to understand how and why transnationalism is such an important element of Aboriginal political expression. It concludes by arguing that transnationalism represents a speaking position from which Aboriginal Australians can negotiate the cultural hegemony of the state.
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Walker, C. (2000) Buried Country: The Story of Aboriginal Country Music, Sydney: Pluto Press.
Barthes, R. (1982) Camera Lucida, Richard Howard (trans.) Cape Press.
Casey, M. (2004) Creating Frames: Contemporary Indigenous Theatre. St. Lucia, Qld.: University of Queensland Press.
Clough, B. (1999) "Outernational Reggae Cultures." Unpublished MA Thesis, University of Technology Sydney.
Cooper, C. (1995) Noises in the Blood: Orality, Gender and the "Vulgar" Body of Jamaican Popualr Culture. Durham: Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822381921
Cooper, C. (2004) Sound Clash: Jamaican Dancehall Culture at Large. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403982605
Curthoys, A. (1999) "Expulsion, exodus and Exile in White Australian Historical Mythology." Journal of Australian Studies: 1-18. https://doi.org/10.1080/14443059909387469
Davies, C. L. (1993) "Aboriginal Rock Music: Space and Place." In Rock And Popular Music: Politics, Policies, Institutions, edited by Bennett, T. et al, 249-260. London; New York: Routledge.
Dunbar-Hall, P. (1997), "Music and meaning: The aboriginal rock album", Australian Aboriginal studies, 1.
Dunbar-Hall, P. and C. Gibson (2004) Deadly Sounds, Deadly Places: Contemporary Aboriginal Music in Australia. Sydney: NSW Press.
Dyson, M. E. (2007) Know What I Mean, New York, Basic Books.
Foley, G. (2001) "Black Power in Redfern 1968-1972." Available online from
Gilroy, P.(2002) [1987] There Ain't No Black in the Union Jack. London: Routledge.
Heathcott, J. (2003) "Urban spaces and working Class expressions across the Black Atlantic: Tracing the Routes of Ska." Radical History Review, 87 (Fall): 183-206. https://doi.org/10.1215/01636545-2003-87-183
Ivison, D. (2002) "Historic Injustice" in Postcolonial Liberalism, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 95-111.
Lionnet, F. and S. Shih (2005) "Introduction : Thinking Through the Minor, Transnationally", in Minor Transnationalism, Durham and London: Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822386643-001
Lothian K. (2005) "Seizing the time: Australian Aborigines and the Influence of the Black Panther Party, 1969-1972." Journal of Black Studies (35) 4: 179-200. https://doi.org/10.1177/0021934704266513
Mahon, M. (2004) Right to Rock: The Black Rock Coalition and the Cultural Politics of Race, Durham : Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822386131
Marshall, W. (2005) "Follow Me Now: The Zigzagging Zunguzung Meme", Paper delivered at Annual Meeting of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music (US branch), Boston, 28 April, as well as at Experience Music Project, Seattle, 20 April. Available at http://wayneandwax.com/?page_id=8
Maynard, J. (2005) "Transcultural/transnational interaction and influences on Aboriginal Australia." In Connected Worlds: History in Transnational Perspective, edited by Ann Curthoys and Marilyn Lake. Canberra: ANU E Press.
Maynard, J. (2007) Fight for Liberty and Freedom: The Origins of Australian Aboriginal Activism. Canberra, ACT: Aboriginal Studies Press.
Mitchell, T. (2006) "Blackfellas Rapping, Breaking and Writing: A Short History of Aboriginal Hip Hop." Aboriginal History, 30: 124-137.
Mitchell, T. (2007) "The DIY habitus of Australian hip hop", Media International Australia, vol. (123): 1, 109-122.
Moreton-Robinson, A. (2003) "I Still Call Australia Home: Indigenous Belonging and Place in a White Postcolonizing Society." In Uprootings/Reroundings: Questions of Home and Migration, edited by Sara Ahmed, Claudia Casta-eda, Anne-Marie Fortier and Mimi Sheller, Oxford; New York: Berg, 23-40.
Mudrooroo (1997) The indigenous literature of Australia: Milli Milli Wangka. Melbourne: Hyland House.
Neptune, H. (2003) "Manly Rivalries and Mopsies: Gender, Nationality a, and Sexuality in United States – Occupied Trinidad". Radical History Review 87(Fall): 78-95. https://doi.org/10.1215/01636545-2003-87-78
Oboe, A. (2003) "Introduction." In Mongrel Signatures: Reflections on the Work of Mudrooroo, edited by Analisa Oboe, vii-xxi. Amsterdam: Rodopi Press.
Robinson, T. (1979) "Marley Carries the Torch" Sydney Morning Herald. April 30 1979, 8.
Sublette, N. (2004), Cuba and its Music: From the First Drums to the Mambo, Chicago: Chicago Review Press.
Thomas, H. (1979) "Contradictory Marley Vibrations", The Age. April 24 1979, p. 2.
Veal, M. E. (2007) Dub: Soundscapes and Shattered Songs in Jamaican Reggae. Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press.
Walker, C. (2000) Buried Country: The Story of Aboriginal Country Music, Sydney: Pluto Press.