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Blackfella beats and new flows: powerful to Aboriginal youth, yet virtually invisible to mainstream white Australia, a new and distinctly Aboriginal form of hip-hop is gaining momentum.

Article Excerpt
A quote from indigenous man, Ross Watson, included in Kevin Gilbert's 1988 book, Living Black, powerfully describes the ambiguity surrounding Aboriginal identity:

What is Aboriginality? Is it being tribal? Who is an Aboriginal? ... Is Aboriginality institutionalised gutlessness, an acceptance of the label 'the most powerless people on earth?' Or is Aboriginality when all the definitions have been exhausted a yearning for a different way of being, a wholeness that was presumed to have existed before 1776?

This fundamental question of identity is very real for Aboriginal young people, most of whom have grown up on the margins of Australia's 'anglo-centric' national identity. One way in which indigenous young people are attempting to redefine their cultural identity is through the appropriation of elements of commercialised hip-hop culture--namely MCing, break-dancing and graffiti. While, on the surface this could appear to be a simple imitation of American 'gangsta' style, a deeper look reveals a hip hop style that is distinct, and significant to Australian indigenous youth culture, politics and resistance.

Hip-Hop and the Commercialisation of Subversion

The subversive element of hip hop first emerged in the early 1970s amongst African Americans in areas such as the South Bronx. Turntables, breaking and rapping over percussive beats took place in the streets, led by innovative figures such as Kool DJ Herc, King Stitt and Count Machouki. Symbolically, these block parties acted as a challenge to the power structures that enforced racial segregation and disadvantage.

Yet hip-hop at this early stage was not, as sometimes thought, an African American monoculture. It was multicultural, involving European, Asian and Filipino Americans and later groups as diverse as Samoans, Cubans, Mexicans and Koreans. This diversity has made hip-hop's adoption or appropriation into other settings more fluid. Interestingly, rap and hip-hop has been further hybridised through an incorporation of localised dialects, slang idioms, musical forms and dance moves.

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