‘How many dudes you know roll like this?': the re-presentation of hip hop tropes in New Zealand rap music by Kirsten Zemke-White

Online Magazine of the Visual Narrative - ISSN 1780-678X

Editorial Board

		Issue 10. The Visualization of the Subaltern in World Music. On Musical Contestation Strategies (Part 1)

	'How many dudes you know roll like this?': the re-presentation of hip hop tropes in New Zealand rap music
		Author: Kirsten Zemke-White Published: March 2005 Abstract (E): New Zealand artists take globalised American rap, converting it to suit specific local sites, peoples and struggles. Rappers in Aotearoa/New Zealand, reinforce, explode and re-present essential hip hop tropes, using them to celebrate and negotiate complex contemporary identities and locations. This paper first summarises the New Zealand hip hops scene, then engages with the trope of 'keeping it real' showing how New Zealand hip hop artists 'keep it real' by keeping it Pacific and local. New Zealand 'gangsters' decry the exigencies of their own poorer neighbourhoods, and rap's 'place' tropes extol, solidify and explore a local hip hop. Rap's bragging and battles are used to celebrate hip hop, to promote MC skills, and to articulate communities ('represent'). Narrative and auto-biography tell individual and community stories, reflecting in particular Pacific immigrant communities and the indigenous Maori youth. New Zealand rap manages to keep 'authentic' to the original hip hop culture by re-presenting core tropes and attributes; and maintaining the whole culture (including graf art, DJ-ing and b-boying). This is not mimicry, but the tropes themselves allow for localised expressions which reflect unique cultural and diasporic identities. Abstract (F): En Nouvelle-Zélande, des artistes s'approprient le rap américain globalisé, qu'ils adaptent aux besoins de sites, de peuples et de luttes locaux. Des rappers d'Aotearoa/Nouvelle Zélande renforcent, explorent et re-présentent les stéréotypes essentiels du genre, mais dans le but de célébrer et de négocier des identités et des localités contemporaines d'une grande complexité. Cet article décrit d'abord la scène hip hop en Nouvelle Zélande, puis aborde la question clé du "parler-vrai", qui est garanti par l'inscription du rap dans la zone du Pacifique comme dans la vie locale. Les récits et les autobiographies des rappeurs racontent des histoires indivdiuelles mais aussi collectives, centrées le plus souvent sur les immigrants du Pacifique et sur la jeunesse indigène Maori. Le rap néo-zélandais arrive à garder l'authenticité du rap d'origine dont il retravaille les images et les attributs. Ce rap n'est pas copie servile, mais réinvention des images fondamentales qui permettent de faire coïncider des expressions locales et des identités culturelles uniques, qu'elles soient locales ou liées à une diaspora. keywords: rap, New Zeland, Maori, Pacific, "keeping it real"


		Put our CDs on your eyes You can see what we mean through our music "Press Conference" (Usual Suspects on Various 2004) Hip hop culture and its musical element, rap music, have become a major cultural force in the last 20 plus years, spawning global proponents and cultural offshoots around the globe, many of which speak for alternative and marginalised voices, just like the parent culture. There is much to say about hip hop in Aotearoa [1]/ New Zealand, much to theorise and document, this paper looks specifically at a number of hip hop 'tropes' and how they are 're-presented' in a new cultural context, 'representing' for a related but distinct hip hop context. I show that New Zealand rappers utilise rap tropes and core features in new, localised ways. From 'keeping it real' to 'gangster rap', this exploration of key rap tropes in many ways summarises and elucidates the changes, condition, and ingenuity of hip hop in its travel, appropriation and manifestations in New Zealand. New Zealand MC's use rap's bragging and battling features to highlight their own skills, their cultures and communities and to announce and ratify hip hop's status as local music. Rap's narrative and auto-biography are used to tell personal and communal stories, as well as to elucidate the local engagement, passion and penchant for hip hop. Core rap refferent 'the hood' signifying place, ownership, belonging, and alluding to gang culture, allows hip hop culture and rap music, no matter how commercialised and mass mediated, to incorporate and insert local dimensions. This article will first briefly summarise New Zealand hip hop, contextualising the local subculture and acknowledging its seminal proponents, as well as recognizing the other elements of hip hop culture. New Zealand hip hop 101 For the uninitiated, hip hop culture consists of four core elements: breaking or b-boying (dance); DJ-ing or turntablism (music); graffiti art; and rapping or MC-ing (the word) [2]. Hip hop culture and rap music also carry other signifiers and attached themes such as empowerment for displaced people, struggle, race; community; place; rupture; and political opposition (Baker 1993; Cross 1993; Rose 1994; Potter 1995). Rap became the most predominant and commodified element of this culture (Dimitriadis 1996), and perhaps facilitated hip hop's global spread, but the culture itself, in all its elements remains a powerful global both grass roots and mass mediated expression. Hip hop came to New Zealand basically the same time it arrived everywhere else outside of New York. It arrived in the form of "Rapper's Delight" in 1979 and "The Message" in 1982 with snippets of breakdancing on "That's Incredible" and films such as "Flashdance", "Beat Street" and Michael Jackson music videos in the early eighties (Zemke-White 2000). Pacific immigrant family connections with American Samoa and the US helped bypass mainstream resistance, and produced a strong Pacific connection with hip hop. Breakdancing's reach went to the streets of even the smallest New Zealand town and was particularly popular among Maori youth (Scott 1985; Kopytko 1986; Zemke-White 2000). In 1984, Dalvanius Prime, a Maori entertainer and entrepreneur, blended Maori waitata [song] and poi dance with hip hop beats and had a video with breakdancers on a marae [traditional maori meeting house]. This musical fusion went to number one and followed the "summer of breakdancing" of 1982-3. Not until 1988, did New Zealanders come out with their own commercially released rap song: the bi-lingual (Maori and English), highly political "E Tu" from Wellington band Upper Hutt Posse. Prominent groups during the late eighties such as MC Slam and Jam, Semi MCs, and Double J and Twice the T were only the tip of the iceberg of rap and hip hop activity at that time. The early nineties saw a few local rap groups break into the local charts with Three the Hard Way, Sister's Underground, OJ and Rhythm Slave, DLT, and Igelese. South Auckland's the Lost Tribe were exploring Pacific identity and hip hop, and OMC had sucess in the United States with their not-quite-rap hit "How Bizarre". In the mid and late nineties, local rap was becoming more developed and established, receiving local attention on radio, at awards, and on television (Mai Time, MTV). DLT and Che Fu's "Chains" and Dam Native featuring Che Fu's "The Son" both went to number one in the local charts and featured overt Maori political themes and videos. Maori Niuean Che Fu (1998) and Samoan King Kapisi (2000) both had highly successful albums in the late nineties and became the most prolific and beloved hip hop 'stars' and re-enforced the use of hip hop and rap to assert local identities through their lyrics, persona and imagry. Their mainstream commercial sucess paved the way for a hip hop renaissance at the end of the century which saw breakdancing, DJ-ing and other essential hip hop elements gaining a groundswell of grass root proponents and popularity. The initiation of annual hip hop summits (the first one in 2000 in Christchurch) shows the organisation, passion and intelligence this musical subculture is being approached and appropriated with in the new millennium and has ensured the proliferation of all the core elements (Zemke-White 2004). Acts such as Nesian Mystik, Ill Semantics and the Deceptikonz released commercially successful albums and singles in the early part of the decade which projected a distinctive urban Pacific identity and style. Around the country groups such as Wellington's Footsouljahs, Christchurch hip hop divas Sheelaroc and Hamilton's Four Corners and Dubious Brothers also received critical and commercial attention, projecting a mixed Pacific, Maori and Pakeha [European] community. In 2003, a Christchurch MC of Samoan ethnicity, Scribe absolutely exploded on the local charts with his single "Stand Up" and debut album The Crusader occupying No 1 in both the album and single charts in the same week (October 2003), which was a first for any New Zealand artist since the local music industry began keeping records in 1975 (New Zealand Herald 13.11.2003). Scribe's success that year prompted the country's largest newspaper, the New Zealand Herald to declare on November first 2003 that "Hip-hop is the new pop" (1.11.2003). Matching the mainstream success, the current decade has also seen the emergence of an even stronger hip hop scene and rap underground, much of this fuelled by a battling scene with more harsh ghetto styles featuring swearing and negativity, and clever hooks (for instance those on the 833 and Breakin Wreckwordz labels). MC battles have seen the rise of the freestyling, improvising, gifted MC, asserting themselves and their skills, but an MC still closely connected with hip hop's roots and the hip hop community (as opposed to pop rap and much gangster rap). This is balanced with successful DJ's like P-money, SirVere and CXL who not only win local and international turntablist competitions, but release successful albums. There is now numerous well organised local hip hop websites (www.hip-hop.co.nz; www.hiphopnz.com) and magazines (www.back2basics.co.nz; www.disruptiv.com), showing that entrepreneurial skills are matching the prolific creativity. Nesian Mystik on their 2002 album explain their relationship with hip hop, and these reflections can arguably be extrapolated to other local rap artists and the hip hop fans and proponents in Aotearoa in general. They rap about adapting hip hop to suit their lifestyles and cultures, and hip hop as a way of life, as a means for education, and as something that fills the soul: Now pass me the mic Let me define hip hop music according to my life I adapt and modify the form that's been applied From the underground headz, the true voice that's been denied Old school new school it's still the same school A generation goes one but another one comes through It's the way that we live, pass the knowledge to our kids And if that ain't hip hop then what is Can you define for me The definition of hip hop And do you come a long way From different underground spots Know when it's real, (when it's not) when it's empty (get a cup) Fill it up, until your soul flows, rhythm's all you got "Roots discussion" (Nesian Mystik 2002) Keeping it Real Samoan rapper King Kapisi's 2003 single "U Can't Resist Us" featuring Che Fu asserts Kapisi's goal to take his music beyond Aotearoa, to the world: We got something for your listening pleasure don't ignore Got the whole world waiting for our music in your store Don't have to ask us to keep it real, we do for sure The chorus to the song, mentions the hip hop catchphrase "keep it real". This has been a contested phrase for rap music. One the one hand gangster rappers claim to be 'keeping it real' and 'telling it like it is' by rapping about poverty, gang violence, murders, 'drive-by' shootings, drug selling, drug taking, and sex: My life is violent, but violent is life Peace is a dream, reality is a knife "Colors" (Ice-T, 1988) However, other rap artists find these images fabricated, promoted by white-owned record companies, exacerbating racist stereotypes. They argue that gangster rap does not represent the full spectrum of African American experience, it does not actually 'keep it real' at all: The shit that you promote Fighting, violence Like you don't want to grow . 'Cause while you braggin' 'bout your badness You're just avoiding, adding To the real shit that's happenin' to us "It Takes More" (Ms. Dynamite 2003) This complexity sees many New Zealand artists using "keep it real" to keep it real local. When Kapisi and Che Fu claim to be '"keeping it real" for New Zealand hip hop, they are attempting to be true to both hip hop and their Pacific heritage, rapping about their own experiences. It may seem ironic to some, using an African American, commodified rap music, to encourage young people to "keep it real" by connecting with their indigenous Polynesian heritage. Many New Zealand hip hop artists including King Kapisi use hip hop to promote a message of keeping your culture, learning your language, and knowing "where you are from": It's just my savage instincts coming back from the brink Revitalise the knowledge you lost (you better think) Culture ebbing, been lost in the ignorance From the ma to the pa to the child Wonder why your child is running 'round real wild? Pass on the knowledge so the tongue leave its cradle Or take them back home to the motherland and teach The ways of our elders lifestyles and the speck "Screems from tha old plantation" (King Kapisi 2000) With his first album subtitled "Samoan hip Hop worldwide", ethnicity, identity, location and history have been essential themes of Kapisi's work. His videos, imagery and lyrics have explored his complex post-Diaspora Pacific immigrant identity. Kapisi is reflexive about this constant cultural negotiation: It's basically about a youth growing up in an urban environment away from home. I grew up in Aotearoa, New Zealand but I'm of Samoan descent. A lot people say, "Oh, you're just a Kiwi yeah?" And I say, "well yeah, I was born in New Zealand but I'm Samoan" because there's a big difference for me. I don't rap about stuff that I don't know. I just rap about stuff that I do know (interviewed by Piligaru on www.abc.net.au) So King Kapisi keeps it "real" by interrogating his connection to hip hop, and telling his own stories in his music. This is just one example of how New Zealand MC's use the contested hip hop trope of 'keeping it real' to assert and explore complex diasporic identities in their rap texts. This complicates the notion of "realness" giving it an added international, diasporic dimension, one that sees young artists perform an American originated, mass mediated form, but keep "true" to themselves, their stories, and their people. However, one notorious character in the "keeping it real" debate, present in New Zealand, is the gangster rapper. Gangster While battles may rage in the hip hop community and media about the 'authenticity' and 'realness' of gangster rap artists such as Snoop Doggy Dog, 50 Cent and Eminem (who has gone to great lengths to establish his 'realness') nonetheless, gangster rap has been by far the most popular strain of rap in New Zealand according to sales and anecdotal evidence. Even though it was popular, few local artists previously emulated this style themselves [3]. There had been a predominance of more politically oriented and culturally connected Maori rap music (Upper Hutt Posse and Dam Native), and rappers were aware that they couldn't exactly rap about things like 'drive by shootings' that they had never experienced. Rap crew, the Decepticonz are from South Auckland, an area of Auckland known for it's concentration of Pacific islands immigrants and poor statistics. They are one of the core acts on South Auckland hip hop label Dawnraid, named for the infamous raids on Polynesian immigrant homes in the 1970's for illegal "overstayers". This echoes gangster rap labels Death Row and Ruthless who appropriate and reverse negative histories and stereotypes, using the terms as a place of indignation as well as remembrance and unity. The Deceptikonz (2002) are one of New Zealand's most unabashed gangster rappers. They rap about poverty, fatherlessness, drinking, despair, their impoverished but loved neighbourhood and their stage act echoes the 'bad' Samoan gangster rappers Boo Ya Tribe from Los Angeles. Gangster rap has been the rap music with the most violence, crime themes, drugs and misogyny. While some may argue that it exacerbates negative racist stereotypes, others argue that it represents a complex way of negotiating ghetto life: Gangster rap can be understood as merely a means to sell records to an American public which thrives on violence. Conversely, gangster rap can also be seen as radical politics, which presents the gangster rap performers as "non-academic but highly articulate cultural practitioners, they are extraordinarily public intellectuals" (De Genova 1995:89). Gangster rap had its roots in seminal rap "The Message" and other early New York rappers, but it emerged as a West Coast style that capitalised on the outlaw theme deep in American popular lore (De Genova 1995), and which featured American values such as rugged individualism, rampant materialism, violence, determination, and male domination (Dimitriadis 1996:187). Gangster rap is in the complex position of being both inside and outside mainstream culture, popular with both white and black audiences. Gangster rap can be argued to serve up white American's most cherished gun-slinging mythologies in the form of its worst and blackest nightmares, yet is at the same time be able to empower black imaginations to negate the existential terror of ghetto life (De Genova 1995:107). One cultural critic (Dyson 1993) claims that the expressions of violence in rap music reflect the actual life circumstances of many black and Latino youth who he asserts, are caught in a desperate cycle of drugs and gangs. Gangster rap emerged in Los Angeles where thousands of young black men are living in so-called ghetto environments. Dyson (1993) argues that the violence and killings in the songs of gangster rap are both an answer to, and the logical outcome of, the violence, racism and oppression in American culture. He finds the brutal themes a lethal mix of both civil terrorism and personal cynicism. Yet, there is also no denying gangster rap's potential for harm to the very community is supposed to be empowering, especially in its celebrations of violence, drugs and misogyny (Crenshaw 1993; Rose 1994; Lemelle 1995). The Deceptikonz used this more aggressive form of hip hop to talk about problems in their lives, homes and communities and also brag about themselves, their rap skills and their neighbourhoods. Gangster rap also propagated the hip hop trope of "posses" and 'crews', highlighting the communal nature of this art, and hearkening to racial and ethnic communities as well as gangs. The Decepticonz and their related crews and label mates (on Dawnraid), exemplify the localised version of what Forman (2000) calls the "fundamental social unit" or "collective identity" of U. S. rap. This identity is usually based on hip hop's "spatial discourse" or connection to place. The "Hood" Scream it loud let me hear you bang it in your town New Zealand Gather Around Welli Auckland Christchurch H-town ( Mareko ) Scream it loud let me hear you bang it in your town New Zealand Gather Around Welli Auckland Christchurch H-town ( Mareko ) "Here to Stay" (Mareko 2003) The chorus of this hit song by rapper Mareko highlights New Zealand four largest cities, creating a sense of national hip hop camaraderie and community, and celebrating our "place". On the same album there is a narrative rap "City line" which graphically narrates a bus trip from his home in the south Auckland suburb of Manurewa into downtown. These referents to local places not only exemplify the rap trope of 'hood' (Forman 2000) and belonging, they highlight hip hop's versatility. The tropes of place, identity and even specificity, make hip hop a pliable and universal genre, able to be transplanted to a new location and grow sounds which reflect new identities. New Zealand rap fans have grown up knowing that their favourite U. S. artists come from Compton, the Bronx or even Atlanta, and now they use the genre to celebrate their "hoods" and stake their claim on the genre. Many New Zealand artists and record labels are associated with a particular place. The label 833 is named for the phone number prefix from their area of West Auckland, and their first compilation album is called Westees , after a colloquial name for inhabitants of that part of the city. Dawnraid, have always celebrated and promoted their South Auckland location, and their first two collaboration albums were called South Side story with the CD covers featuring local signs and maps. The second compilation integrates the local images with pictures of Oakland and New York, representing not only the American guest artists who appear on the album, but also a graphic representation of the amalgamation of images, places and influences that their music performs and negotiates. From Dawnraid, Mareko's debut solo album, White Sunday , is named after a Samoan Holy Day for Children, highlighting Mareko's Samoan identity. This album is significant for New Zealand hip hop because he is the first local artist to record tracks of a rap album in New York, the home of hip hop culture. There are guest spots on White Sunday from members New York rap acts the Wu Tang, Beatnutz, X-Ecutioners, Tha Liks, and Da Beatminerz . Of his trip to New York Mareko said in an interview: "I've been force fed this country all my life" "It was surreal. It was like so real to the point it wasn't real, you know what I mean? It was like jumping into the Sesame Street stoop and singing songs with big Bird" (Mareko interviewed in Philpott 2003) For a young Samoan from South Auckland, his New York trip represented a connecting with the idealised 'home of hip hop', to which he had looked so often. It was not only a place to find top producers and guest artists, but a space for Mareko and Dawnraid to speak to, about and from, the 'hood' most eulogised in hip hop, negotiating their place in local and global space. From H-Town's (Hamilton) Dubious Brothers, to Christchurch's Canterbury 'Crusader' Scribe, and from the various suburbs of Auckland, many New Zealand rap and hip hop artists use the 'hood' and place tropes to locate themselves, to insert localised referents, to celebrate New Zealand hip hop and to assert a localised identity and community. Place, community, and identity are sites for assertion and deconstruction, places of both pride and confrontation, especially when it comes to battling. Battling and Bragging Battling is an essential facet of all the core elements of hip hop, and battling is thriving in the New Zealand hip hop scene. B-boys compete individually and in 'crews' in dramatised street fights, competing for the best dance skills, the best 'disses' (insulting moves, disrespecting), and a mixture of authenticity and creativity. DJs also measure their prowess in one on one DJ battles. DJ's take turns in heats with either an audience or a panel judging. This is modelled on U. S. battles, but perhaps more of New Zealand's mainstream hip hop is directly fuelled by the underground and battle scenes than in the U. S. Many of New Zealand's top DJs, who release their own albums and produce for rappers are DJ battle champions like P-Money, DJ Raw, CXL, and Manchoo. Each year our turntablist champion goes to the international ITF [4] DJ battles. There is an annual New Zealand MC Battle for Supremacy, and local and other occasional battle evenings. There is even an international competition between New Zealand and Australia. The battle aesthetic contains usually couplets of jokes and put-downs, and ventures into offensive areas of frequent swearing and sexist and racist epithets. Some of the top battle rappers such as Cyphanetik, Tyna, Tourettes, the Abbot, and Taaz are also of course avid 'freestlyers', and many underground artists are releasing freestyles on mix tapes (Various 2003b). Freestyling is meant to be composed in the moment and consists usualyl of one continual verse without breaks or hooks. While bragging is an important feature of any good battle rapper, for some it can signify beyond the individual's skills and speak for a wider community, or even hip hop itself. New Zealand rapper Scribe's number one song, "Stand up" uses hip hop's bragging characteristics to venerate himself and his rap skills, and to introduce a new confidence in New Zealand hip hop. We can not stop now, New Zealand hip-hop stand the fuck up We got it locked down I'm ready to rock, ready to roll I am ready to go, Y'all ready to flow? Just let me know y'all. "Stand Up" (Scribe 2003) One source of rap's bragging tropes has been traced to the African-American literary canon of "the dozens" (Gates 1991; Dyson 1993; Lemelle 1995; Potter 1995). These words games have been linked to the historical African character of Esu, a bragging trickster, who is found in diasporic slave cultures all through the Americas (Gates 1991). Scholars label this verbal practice of bragging, exaggerating and play as "signifyin(g)" which Potter elaborates as: Improvisations on language itself, which form the verbal corollary of musical samples, repeating with a difference , troping tropes, and serving as a crucible for reformation and de formation of language. This verbal signifyin(g) is not, in the end, fully separable from the sonic signifyin(g) out of which it grew, but its practices constitute the fundamental backbone of hip-hop's political incursions" (Potter 1995:54). The nods to African literary canons by American rappers is conscious to a degree as highlighted by a line in Tupac Shakur's song 'I ain't Mad at Cha': "we used to be like distant cousins, playing the dozens". The "trickster figure" of African literature is alive and well in the boasting of rap lyrics (Gates 1981); for example rapper LLCoolJ professes "Even when I'm braggin' I'm being sincere" (LLCoolJ 1996). When transplanted to New Zealand, it becomes less related to African roots, but a new means of cultural assertion and identity exploration. Scribe's album title (and he says it in the opening line of 'Stand Up') The Crusader has layers of meaning. There is the obvious meaning, supporter, advocate, champion, and campaigner. It also is the name of the Christchurch rugby team, so he is asserting his Christchurch identity. Scribe's number one hit [5] extols New Zealand hip hop, he mentions other hip hop acts (rapper and breakers) as well as New Zealand rock bands that have done well overseas. The rap bragging features is used to celebrate a local genre, and celebrates a unity in hip hop. Another rap feature the 'shout out' is not only a nod to 'mates' but in this context becomes an acknowledgment of the local sub-culture and commuity. The following verses from this rap have some of the salient references and local images 'translated' in brackets: I'm like Nesian Mystik [Auckland hip hop group, friends of Scribe], you dissed it and now you love it New Zealand hip-hop there's not many things I hold above it Now is the time to focus, call up the Footsouljahs [Wellington rap crew] Deceptikonz, Hamofied [more local rap groups] yea we takin' over Tell 4 Corners [Hamilton rappers] that we ain't holdin' back any longer The Time Bandits [a B-boy crew] and Wanderers [A Wellington rap crew] now we gettin' stronger Down since day one like Sir-vere, Ali & Shan [important DJ's, they all worked with Sribe] Yo it's real hip-hop so you wouldn't understand why. "Stand Up" (Scribe 2003) The text is one rapper's assertion of the current state of New Zealand hip hop, coming to a cultural, creative, political and economic maturity. Scribe uses to celebrate not only his own MC skills, but also New Zealand hip hop itself, especially in its resistance to detractors and American hegemony. How many dudes you know roll like this? Flow like this? Rock a show like this? Not many, If any Uh ah, I don't know anybody "Not Many" (Scribe 2003) Narrative and autobiography Do what you gotta do - come and get me I came from the struggle; I'm bringing my pain with me "Been this way" (Scribe 2003) Even since "The Message" rap has been used to tell stories, particularly those stories of marginalised people, perhaps not served by the mainstream media (Lipshitz 1999). Another chart hit for Christchurch MC, Scribe, "Dreamin'", outlines Scribe's personal journey into rap music, asserting how it fulfils a dream for him. The success of this supposedly auto-biographical song suggests that there are perhaps others who share this passion and story: I came a long way since back in the day From a teenager trying to make it rapping this way Ever since I was a kid, I had something to say Rocking mic's was a dream, I didn't care about pay I sacrificed late nights and going out with my friends Just to stay home alone with my pad and my pen Had my eyes on the prize, and my mind on my goal As I carved these rhymes out, with my heart and my soul I didn't have a cd, all I had was a tape On the dole, through my flow was my only escape From a world where they didn't want to see me prevail Don't wanna see me take it all, they'd rather see me fail (it's like) I was down and out, Struggling Wondered how I'm gonna make it through I've got a dream, Holding on, Can't let go, 'Cos I've got to make it come true "Dreaming" (Scribe 2003) Scribe tells his story, a local story, of his engagement with hip hop, which generates, celebrates and resonates hip hop for a local audience who relate to him. Other artists such as Te Kupu, Mareko, and Savage have released poignant autobiographies, using rap to not only tell their own stories, but stories that speak for, or 'represent' for other young New Zealanders, who can relate to the local situations, ethnicities, and referents. Nesian Mystik tell stories of the various political movements of the Pacific peoples they descend from, expanding from autobiography, to the often untold stories of their marginalised communities: So much dirt laying beneath the sand Pioneers subject to jungle justice foreign lands Issues so immense you couldn't fully comprehend The extent of what our ancestors fought against Enter the dawn of the millennium like rays of light still blinded by the over flowing effects being colonised Polynesian ain't even a label we made up We were given names by the civilised discoveries How can you discover what we always knew to be? Then plant their flag on our land like its aborigine Our people were passed around by distant powers "Lost visionz" (Nesian Mystik 2002) This song talks about key political movements and events in the Pacific for Polynesian people like the Mau movement in Samoa, the 'dawn raids' of Pacific 'overstayers' in the 1970s, the Nga Tamatoa Maori movement, the Maori language renaissance, and some of the bigger Maori protests like Bastion point, Parihaka and Waitangi. Nesian Mystik's songs and stories frequently make reference to not only their ethnicity, but to their contemporary urban locations and lifestyles, with thematic aspects of family, unity, pride, religion and respect. In an opening comic interlude, they present their 'mission statement' as artists: they acknowledge that they "carry with them the voices, talents, journeys and struggles of their ancestors", that they want to "make the world a better place" and testify that their narratives are actually part of a story and journey that began with "the first voyage into the Pacific. and it's a story that gets a new teller with every cry of a new born child". Rap up I can range from spitting battles to my theory on life Won't get played on radio 'cause I'm not your stereotype Still it's alright, doesn't matter, as long as I'm true And continue to do what I love, because I love what I do "Press Conference" (Usual Suspects on Various 2004) This is only a small glimpse of hip hop culture and music in Aotearoa, but has allowed for discussion of some of rap's unique features, and its use for celebrating and negotiating complex contemporary identities and locations. Rappers in Aotearoa/New Zealand, reinforce, explode and re-present essential hip hop tropes. They use rap's bragging feature to extol hip hop, to promote their own MC skills, to articulate communities ('represent'), and to venerate New Zealand hip hop. They 'keep it real' by keeping it Pacific and local, using rap's connection to 'place' to introduce, solidify and explore a New Zealand hip hop. New Zealand 'gangsters' decry the exigencies of their own poorer neighbourhoods, and they use narrative and auto-biography to tell unique individual and community stories. New Zealand artists take globalised American rap, and hip hop approaches and ideologies, and convert them to suit specific local sites, peoples and struggles. They manage to keep 'authentic' to the original hip hop culture, re-presenting core tropes and attributes and maintaining the whole culture (including graf art, DJing and b-boying). Yet at the same time this is not mimicry, but the tropes themselves allow for localised expressions which reflect unique cultural and diasporic identities. This is mirrored all over the world with hip hop communities and distinctive adaptations appearing in countries as diverse as Cuba, Senegal, South Africa and Japan. This highlights hip hop's flexibility and universality, but also indicates perceived social, political and historic alliances between marginalised peoples who relate to hip hop's emphasis on overcoming struggle, positivity, place, community, unity and identity. References Baker, H. A. J., 1993. Black Studies, Rap and the Academy. Chicago, University of Chicago Press. Crenshaw, K. W., 1993. 'Beyond Racism and Misogyny: Black Feminism and 2 Live Crew.' In: Words that Wound. M. J. Matsuda, C. R. Lawrence, R. Delgado and K. W. Crenshaw, (Eds.). Boulder, Westview Press : 111-131. Cross, B., 1993. It's not about a Salary . . . [:] Rap, Race, and Resistance in Los Angeles. London, Verso. De Genova, N., 1995. 'Gangster Rap and Nihilism in Black America [:] Some questions of Life and Death.' Social Text 43 : 89-132. Dimitriadis, G., 1996. 'Hip hop: from live performance to mediated narrative.' Popular Music 15 (2): 179-194. Dyson, M. E., 1993. Reflecting Black: African-American Cultural Criticism. Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press. Forman, M., 2000. ''Represent': race, space and place in rap music.' Popular Music 19/1. pp 65-90. Gates, J., Henry Louis, 1991. 'The Master's Pieces: On Canon formation and the African-American Tradition.' In: The Bounds of Race [:] Perspectives on Race and Hegemony. D. LaCapra, (Ed.). Ithaca, Cornell University Press. Jewell, S. 2003. 'King Kapisi: In The Clothing Of The King.' NZ Musician June/July 2003 (Vol: 10, No: 9) pp 10-11. Kopytko, T., 1986. 'Breakdance as an Identity Marker in New Zealand.' Yearbook for Traditional Music: 21-36. Lemelle, A., 1995. Black Male Deviance. Westport, Connecticut, Praeger. Lipschitz, G,. (1999). 'World Cities and World Beat: Low-Wage Labor and Transnational Culture.' Pacific Historical Review May 1999 68/2 p213. Negus, K., 1999. 'The music business and rap: between the street and the executive suite.' Cultural Studies 13 (3): 488-508. Philpott, E. 2003. 'Taking Dawnraid Stateside.' NZ Musician June/July 2003 (Vol: 10, No: 9) pp 2-9. Potter, R. A., 1995. Spectacular Vernaculars [:] Hip-Hop and the politics of Postmodernism. Albany, State University of New York Press. Rose, T., 1994. Black Noise [:] Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America. Hanover, Wesleyan University Press. Scott, M., 1985. Street Action Aotearoa. Auckland, Arohanui Publications. Ti Kao, K., 1999. 'To B S. Pacific.' Documentary; Radio New Zealand, aired January 30 1999. Zemke-White K. M., 2000. Rap music in Aotearoa: a sociological and musicological analysis. University of auckland, Thesis. Zemke-White K. M., 2004. 'Keeping it real (indigenous): Hip Hop in Aotearoa as Community, Culture and Consciouness'. In: Bell, C. and S. Matthewman (eds) Cultural Studies in Aotearoa New Zealand: identity, space and place. Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 205-228. Internet interviews and citations (July 2004): http://www.fmrecords.co.nz/viewartist.cfm?ArtistId=484 http://xtramsn.co.nz/entertainment/0,,6243-2839280,00.html Scribe Answers The Questions 28/04/2004 05:07 PM XtraMSN Entertainment http://www.inthemix.com.au/p/np/viewnews.php?id=14383 http://xtramsn.co.nz/entertainment/0,,6243-2839280,00.html http://abc.net.au/arts/music/stories/s440020.htm http://www.artists.co.nz/npmamath.html New Zealand hip hop websites: www.apra.co.nz www.back2basics.co.nz www.hip-hop.co.nz www.hiphopnz.com www.disruptiv.com www.scribescribe.com www.dawnraid.co.nz www.kingkapisi.co.nz Global hip hop pages and articles: www.senerap.com http://www.msu.edu/user/okumurak/japan/history.html http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3324409.stm http://www.hiphop.co.za http://www.africasgateway.com http://havanajournal.com/culture_comments/P444_0_3_0/ http://www.afrocubaweb.com http://www.documentography.com/issue/5/ph/paul_panayiotou/1.html DISCOGRAPHY (NZ) Che Fu 1998 2b S.Pacific BMG Che Fu 2001 Navigator Sony Dam Native 1997 Kaupapa Driven Rhymes Uplifted Tangata Records Deceptikonz 2002 Elimination Dawn Raid DJ Sirvere 2001 Major Favours 1 Universal NZ DJ Sirvere 2002 Major Flavours 2 Universal NZ DLT 1997 The True School BMG DLT 2000 Altruism BMG NZ Dubious Brothers 2002 Trade Secrets Shock NZ Footsouljahs 2002 Stylez Deliveriez Flowz 2Much Records King Kapisi 2000 Savage Thoughts Festival Mushroom King Kapisi 2003 Second Round Testament Festival Mushroom Mareko 2003 White Sunday Dawnraid Nesian Mystics 2002 Polysaturated Bounce Records P-Money 2002 Big Things Dirty/Kog Scribe 2003 The Crusader Dirty Upper Hutt Posse 1995 Movement in Demand Tangata Records Various 1998 Aotearoa Hiphop Vol. 1 BMG Various 1999 Southside Story Dawn Raid Entertainment Various 2001 Southside Story 2: International Dawn Raid Entertainment Various 2003 Westeez 833 Various 2003b Fuckmusic Bootleg mixtape Breaking Wrekwordz Various 2004 Breakin Wreckwordz Breakin Wreckwordz Various 2004 Disruptiv Mixtape Vol. 1 Disruptiv DISCOGRAPHY (other) Ms. Dynamite 2003 Little Deeper Interscope Records Eminem 2002 The Eminem Show Interscope records Ice T 1988 on Colors Original Soundtrack, Warner Bros. Records 2Pac 1996 All Eyez On Me Death Row Records 2Pac 1998 Me Against The World Amaru/Jive LL Cool J 1996 All World Def Jam Records Snoop Doggy Dogg 1993 Doggystyle Death Row Records Snoop Doggy Dogg 1996 Tha Doggfather Death Row Records/Interscope Records Wu-Tang 1997 Wu-Tang Forever Loud Records Bone Thugs 'n' Harmony 1995 E. 1999 Eternal Ruthless Records Notes [1] Aotearoa [land of the long white cloud] is the indigenous peoples' [the Maori] designation for New Zealand. Using Aotearoa instead of New Zealand often signals a political and cultural respect for the tangata whenua [people of the land], the Maori people. [2] Another important associated art is beat boxing, and many people site entrepreneurship, the internet and fashion as associated elements. [3] Mention must be made here of Ermehn, Feelstyle and the Footsouljahs, who do embody many gangster characteristics, and have been around for many years, but they have for the most part remained more underground, and released no albums (yet!), only singles on compilations and Footsouljahs released an EP. [4] International Turntablist Federation www.hip-hop.com - see www.scratchdj.com; and others (http://www.epitonic.com/extra/scratch/, http://www.battlesounds.com/). [5] On the New Zealand charts.



		Dr. Kirsten Zemke-White is an American born New Zealander, who finished her PhD in Sociology on New Zealand hip hop in 2000. She now lectures in Popular music and Pacific Musics at the University of Auckland in the Departments of Anthropology (Ethnomusicology) and Music. She is also a performer and filmmaker.