Artistic Knowledge and Performance Identity Formation in Toronto's Hip

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Artistic Knowledge and Performance Identity Formation in Toronto’s Hip-Hop Communities of Practice

Maria Myrtle D. Millares

A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Faculty of Music University of Toronto

Artistic Knowledge and Performance Identity Formation in Toronto’s Hip-Hop Communities of Practice

Maria Myrtle D. Millares

Doctor of Philosophy

Faculty of Music University of Toronto

2020 Abstract

This research project illustrates, through the voices of Toronto hip-hop artists, how the complex, mutually influential interactions between individuals and their communities shape and create knowledge, while encouraging the articulation of difference through unique performance identities.

Their learning spaces are not institutional classrooms, but rather public spaces such as community centres, church basements, and concrete city squares, where the line between teacher and student is crossed and blurred.

I employ narrative methodology as a means of obtaining the rich accounts necessary to illuminate these community-based learning processes. Hip-hop’s history is passed on orally and aurally as artists cultivate their craft. Artists’ personal stories are essential to the way hip-hop’s history, together with its teaching philosophies, are internalized and passed on in community spaces.

Narratives elicited through interviews, conducted as dialogue, have the potential to more respectfully trace these individual-communal relationships. As such, the body of my data consists of the narratives of three Toronto hip-hop artists – B-boy Jazzy Jester, DJ Ariel, and MC LolaBunz – presented and interpreted according to the themes or moments that they have voiced as significant to the development of their skills and of their performance identities. iii

The narratives presented here show the dialogic relationship between musical creativity and identity- building, resulting in embodied, performed expressions of an engagement with the tensions of lived experience. Each artist reveals their personal engagement with layers of normative discourses that are constantly at play, accepted, rejected, and creatively manipulated to fashion one’s own performance identity expressed as style.

Keywords: hip-hop; Toronto hip-hop; Canadian hip-hop; urban music; popular music; informal learning; narrative methodology; musical culture; performativity; Signifyin(g), performance identity, artist identity; music education

Acknowledgments

When I asked my dad, Osmundo, for a piano at the age of 5, there is no way I could have imagined what music would allow me to learn about my place in the world, nor the connections music would allow me make. My mom, Jenny, was always listening to my progress, no matter what she was busy with. Both of them nurtured my musical development and saw to it that I had my own piano once again soon after we moved to Canada from the Philippines. They attended every performance and every competition, not knowing, perhaps, that they were supporting a core aspect of who I would come to be.

While the piano repertoire I learned was of the Western classical tradition, my Uncle George, Auntie Gina, and Auntie Judy, who lived with us, had pop on the radio the whole day. It’s no wonder then, that my brothers, Kent and Vince, picked up the guitar and drums, respectively, leaning more toward more popular genres. I’ll never forget the one time we all played Guns N’ Roses’s “November Rain” in our living room – our only ensemble performance. These musics and the occasional Philippine folk tune continue to feed my curiosity for different sounds and the communities that make them. All this to say that this project would likely never have happened without my family.

The scholarly world presented me with opportunities to ask about sounds and communities and I’d like to thank the teachers that helped me on this journey at the University of Toronto. First, to Boyanna Toyich, who passed away last year, for encouraging me to audition for Piano Pedagogy and Performance, which eventually resulted in combination graduate studies in Music Education and Piano Pedagogy. The piano has always been a way for me to “voice” the thoughts I usually keep quiet, and so I treasure Dr. Midori Koga’s guidance toward a more embodied sound at the instrument so that I could be at ease with myself.

When music-making eventually gave way to research for this Doctoral project, Dr. Lee Bartel’s pointed reminders about keeping to the trajectory of my inquiry helped me keep my data within the bounds of my questions. Who knows what unmanageable paths I might have tread through pages and pages of interviews. Dr. Jeff Packman provided incisive feedback that clarified my concepts and critiqued what I might have otherwise taken for granted. During the last stretch of this Doctoral journey, I am additionally grateful to Dr. Nasim Niknafs, and Dr. Mary Fogarty Woehrel, who provided the fresh perspectives and commentary crucial to the final sculpting of the work presented v here. At every turn through all these years, my supervisor, Dr. Lori-Anne Dolloff held me to the care and rigour required to sensitively navigate narrative inquiry. Most importantly, she generously listened to my own stories, from the light-hearted to the immensely difficult, in order to see me through to the completion of this milestone.

As Dr. Thomas King wrote in The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative, “The truth about stories is that that’s all we are” (2003, p. 2). My heartfelt gratitude goes out to those who generously gave of their selves to this project – Abdominal, Skyboxx, LolaBunz, Benzo, Jazzy Jester, JuLo, Dopey, Andy B Bad, and Ariel – your insights and knowledge are invaluable. I hear your voices in my head when I read your words and I hope what I have re-presented here are true to the sincere reflections you have shared with me.

A big shout out to the Streetdance Academy crew: Miss Maehem, Rowdy B, Chuie, Doogie, King Josh. Remember when I did 37 rounds while almost two months pregnant? I knew that if I could do that without dying, I could finish this thesis! Breaking is where my interest in hip-hop started, so I’d also like to acknowledge the Toronto b-girls and b-boys who first showed me, though they were not aware, the various facets of this Toronto community. It was a sound foundation from which I will continue to explore the creativity and complexity of Hip-Hop Culture.

And finally, to Matt and Freya, you have both shown me life in very different ways. Matt (“Doogie”), your excitement about breaking began this whole project, and your appreciation for that patch of moss reminds me of the infinitely small beauty of the earth. But what I am most thankful for is your enduring strength and your unwavering commitment to the very do-able ways of making the world better. To our fierce Sparrow, this work is an expression of hope that you will grow through a world increasingly willing to break boundaries and to enact ideas toward the realization of a complex and deep kindness. vi

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ...... iv

Table of Contents ...... vi

Chapter 1 Introduction ...... 1

1 I wanna be a b-girl ...... 1

1.1 Research problem ...... 2

1.1.1 What is hip-hop? ...... 2

1.1.2 Hip-hop and education ...... 4

1.2 Exploring performance identity ...... 5

1.3 Research questions ...... 5

1.4 Methodology and methods ...... 6

1.5 Interview data analysis ...... 6

1.6 Potential impact on music education...... 7

1.7 Key terms ...... 8

1.8 Chapter overview ...... 9

Chapter 2 Literature Review ...... 11

2 Introduction ...... 11

2.1 Hip-hop: Art and politics ...... 11

2.2 A culture called hip-hop ...... 12

2.3 Hip-hop for social change ...... 14

2.3.1 Hip-hop feminism ...... 15

2.4 Hip-hop identity ...... 17

2.5 Identity, performativity, and Signification ...... 19

2.5.1 Performativity ...... 20

2.5.2 Signifyin(g) ...... 21

2.6 Performing hip-hop identity...... 22 vii

2.6.1 Emcees represent ...... 23

2.6.2 B-boys and b-girls represent ...... 28

2.6.3 DJs represent ...... 31

2.6.4 Performance identity ...... 33

2.7 Hip-hop and education ...... 34

2.7.1 Hip-hop in music education ...... 36

Chapter 3 Methodology ...... 39

3 Identity as narrative ...... 39

3.1 A structure of stories ...... 39

3.1.1 Tell me a story ...... 40

3.1.2 Ethnographic techniques ...... 41

3.2 Method ...... 41

3.2.1 Recruitment ...... 41

3.2.2 Interviews ...... 42

3.3 Analysis and interpretation ...... 43

3.3.1 Re-storying and thematic analysis ...... 43

3.3.2 Dialogic/Performance analysis ...... 44

Chapter 4 Hip-hop in the T-Dot ...... 45

4 From Tdot Odot to The 6 ...... 45

4.1 Golden Era ...... 45

4.1.1 Rewind ...... 47

4.2 Toronto style: Sound and motion ...... 52

4.3 T-dot becomes The 6 ...... 54

4.4 Where we’re at ...... 55

Chapter 5 Jazzy Jester ...... 59

5 “I am Jesse Catibog, also known as Jazzy Jester.” ...... 59 viii

5.1 Introduction to hip-hop ...... 59

5.2 Acquiring skill (Knowledge) ...... 64

5.2.1 People ...... 64

5.2.2 Spaces and places ...... 72

5.3 B-boy identity ...... 76

5.3.1 Hip-hop state of mind ...... 79

Chapter 6 DJ Ariel ...... 85

6 From the West Coast to the East Coast ...... 85

6.1 Intro to DJing ...... 85

6.2 Finding hip-hop ...... 89

6.3 Where the ladies at? ...... 91

6.4 Hip-hop state of mind ...... 97

6.5 Style and place ...... 99

6.5.1 On the margins ...... 100

6.6 Cultural limits...... 102

Chapter 7 LolaBunz ...... 105

7 Female in the cypher ...... 105

7.1 It’s just begun ...... 105

7.2 Where you’re at is where you’re from ...... 106

7.3 The message ...... 109

7.4 Ladies first ...... 110

7.5 Real hip-hop ...... 114

7.6 Knowledge ...... 117

7.7 On the come up ...... 121

Chapter 8 Synthesis ...... 124

8 Overview ...... 124 ix

8.1 Defining the culture ...... 125

8.1.1 Place: Location, people, situation, self ...... 125

8.1.2 Creativity: Mixing and sampling (people and time) ...... 126

8.1.3 The “real” story ...... 128

8.2 Acquiring skill ...... 130

8.2.1 Observation, reflection, experimentation ...... 130

8.2.2 Role of hip-hop community of practice ...... 131

8.3 Role of music ...... 138

8.3.1 Music and memory ...... 140

8.3.2 Creation – expressions, community, identity ...... 142

8.4 Factors affecting artist identity formation ...... 143

8.4.1 The loop and the break ...... 146

8.5 Conclusions and implications for further study ...... 150

8.5.1 Learning and pedagogy ...... 150

8.5.2 Collective narratives: Toronto hip-hop history ...... 152

References ...... 154

Chapter 1 Introduction 1 I wanna be a b-girl

A personal narrative, 2013

I was 27 years old when I got it into my head that I wanted to learn to breakdance. A friend of mine was so excited to share videos of b-boys from Korea that his excitement was contagious. Another friend in my university residence had begun learning how to “break” from him and I started to become curious. So, I did what many do to learn – I took classes, taking some friends along for fun and support.

The dance studio was located upstairs at the El Mocambo, a grimy old building legendary for the musical acts that graced its stage (e.g. Rolling Stones, U2), whose front walls are now decorated with graffiti. Our teacher, B-boy Awkward from Ottawa, was energetic and taught with sound effects rather than words. He taught a few foundational moves, like the six step, bronx, and brooklyn. There was then time to practice these, and finally, to use them at the end of the class while everyone looked on encouragingly. My footwork, the dance steps performed at ground level, developed quickly and I remember feeling light and fast as I moved to the beats. I was surprised and felt a sense of achievement when I was told, “Yeah, yeah, in a couple of months, you’ll be battling!”

After the first few lessons, a few of us from the class were invited to practice in a university building basement, “Cat’s Eye” at Victoria College at the University of Toronto, where b-boys and b-girls nodded heads and tested new moves, encouraging and critiquing each other, helping each other figure out the best way to move their bodies to the music in a style all their own. Though in the dance studio I learned specific moves, the b-girls and b-boys I saw were using these as a basis for drawing their own bodily figures within the musical space. Friends gathered around to watch a dancer experiment, whooping when something incredibly good worked, and empathetically expressing pain, “Oooooh,” when someone crashed to the ground after testing a physically challenging move. Some groups created a cypher, the circle formed by dancers or spectators while watching a b-boy or b-girl move in the centre. It is where a battle might emerge as b-boys and b-girls attempt to outskill one another. It could also be a place to show how much you’ve improved, without the need to be better than someone else. Sometimes, it can be a rather intimidating space, especially for someone new, like me, who has always been more reserved. Most people seemed friendly and supportive, though, so I felt motivated toward someday dancing in the cypher. 2

I soon learned that most b-girls and b-boys didn’t take classes, they just sought practice sessions in their neighbourhoods and learned from each other – there is no one “teacher.” In effect, peers help each other. “Each one, teach one” is frequently heard in the hip-hop community as I’ve experienced it in Toronto. In fact, it took me some time to figure out who organized practices in the first place. With groups meeting at the University of Toronto, York University, a community centre in Parkdale, in the St. Lawrence Market area, basically anywhere an inexpensive (or better yet, free) room or floor could be had, the initiative to bring groups together could come from anyone.

The hip-hop1 I experienced was intensely musical, involving everything I had learned as a musician, while compelling me to use my whole body to experiment and create movements together with dancers of various ages, ethnicities, physical abilities (and even disabilities); students, those working in all types of jobs, or unemployed; the personalities were diverse. For me, it was a full-person immersion in a musical community unlike anything I had previously experienced.

1.1 Research problem

Conventional teaching methods place the teacher in an authoritative, expert, position relative to their students. As a result, students are not always given opportunity to direct their own learning and to discover their ability to creatively solve their own educational challenges. The informal learning environments created within hip-hop culture, however, show that even in the absence of a formal “teacher,” students can become self-motivated, inquisitive, and creative learners.

This dissertation is a narrative inquiry into how members of the hip-hop artistic community learn outside an institutional classroom. In particular, breakers, emcees and DJs in Toronto, for whom music is a cornerstone of their art, are interviewed in order to understand their learning process. Ethnographic techniques are employed to gain deeper insight into the learning community in which participants are situated. It is hoped that stories will reveal sources of self-motivation, modes of evaluation, and the effects of the larger social context in which learning takes place.

1.1.1 What is hip-hop?

Defining hip-hop is a complex endeavour. Those to whom I posed this question struggled to express its depths, shades, and frequencies, while nevertheless being able to state what hip-hop means to

1 Authors of both scholarly and popular literature use various spellings of “hip-hop,” without stating any particular reason for their choices. In this dissertation, I have chosen “hip-hop.” Where I quote an author who uses the word, I keep their spelling as is. 3 them, personally. Hip-hop does not seem to have lines of definition, set as borders, but instead, bleeds in unpredictable directions like DIY marker posters after a rain – so fresh. What follows in this section is a brief overview of hip-hop’s generally-accepted historical facts, and its use in educational settings.

Hip-hop is frequently conflated with rap music, particularly as portrayed in popular music videos and magazines. Many of these images, primarily featuring African-Americans, glamourize violence, objectify women, and seem to encourage consumer excess. Yet ask a local emcee (MC or rapper), graffiti artist, DJ (disc jockey or turntablist), or b-boy and b-girl about hip-hop and a different picture emerges. The less commercial (and in many cases, non-commercial) experience of hip-hop emphasizes community, a strong sense of identity, a critical social stance, a respect for history, and a dynamic artistic practice.

A few books have now been written on hip-hop that give prominence to interviews of the very people involved in the neighbourhoods that created what would eventually be encapsulated as “hip- hop culture” (e.g.Chang, 2005; Fricke & Ahearn, 2002).2 This image of hip-hop is one of parties that brought neighbourhoods together. The realities of gang conflict, poverty, and racial tensions became the inspiration for a new artistic culture, even as its participants sought to transcend them.

As the process of “‘urban renewal’”3 (Rose, 1994b, p. 76) began in areas of New York City in the 1970s, residents and businesses were displaced (Rose, 1994b) through the construction of highways meant to connect the city to its suburbs. Simultaneously, an increase in corporate-type jobs meant a decrease in demand for skilled labour, leaving many unemployed at a time when social funding was decreasing. Most affected were Black and Hispanic people who were relocated to the South Bronx, where hip-hop is said to have begun.

Rose argues that this emerging culture gave youth an alternative way to form their identities, rejecting common depictions of their neighborhoods as “drained of life, energy and vitality. The message was loud and clear; to be stuck here was to be lost. And yet, while these visions of loss and futility became defining characteristics” (1994b, p. 77), a generation of artists was building a creative movement amidst the rubble.

2 The use of the term “culture” in the context of this research study will be discussed in Chapter 2.

3 Rose (1994b) places this term in scare quotes to emphasize that the South Bronx was destroyed, rather than renewed by this New York City project. 4

In contrast to the stark realities of life in the South Bronx at the time, interviews with its legendary first participants recall events with the excitement and party spirit that gave it momentum. Many are still alive today, able to pass on first-hand accounts of the culture’s development. DJ Kool Herc is credited as the “father” of hip-hop, as it was his idea of extending the break beat (to which dancers would show off their moves) that gave rise to the development of b-boying/b-girling, DJing, and emceeing. These, together with graffiti writing, in which Herc also participated, became hip-hop’s four main elements. Not long after, these elements would be used by Afrika Bambaataa, founder of the Zulu Nation (removed from leadership in 2016 due to reports of sexual assault of minors4), to provide youth with alternative routes for community and recognition through creative expressions.

Scholarship on hip-hop is growing and attention is being given to each of its constituent art forms. Rap and its lyrics have been studied for its political content, social critique (Au, 2005; Parmar, 2009), and negative public representations (Rose, 2008; Watkins, 2005). Turntable techniques and creative processes involved in DJing have been analyzed (S. Smith, 2000, 2007), while more contentious issues of gender (Katz, 2006) and race (Snapper, 2004) have also been examined. Explorations of b-boying and b-girling or breaking (popularly and imprecisely called breakdancing) also address these issues as they present themselves in international competitions or battles (Johnson, 2011). Ethnographic studies continue to further our understanding through researcher immersion in hip-hop’s dance and musical cultures. Notable are Schloss’s comprehensive accounts of DJ (2004) and b-boy/b-girl (2009) communities, which tackle common misconceptions and make sense of sometimes conflicting historical memories. Also significant is Fogarty’s (2010) exploration of musical taste development among breakers. Here, the extent of global cross-cultural exchanges is revealed, enabled by increased travel by artists.5

1.1.2 Hip-hop and education

The idea of hip-hop pedagogy is increasingly explored as a means of engaging students in classrooms (Hill, 2009; Mahiri, 1998). Hill (2009) describes hip-hop pedagogy as a flexible perspective based on relationships between all participants in education so that students’ realities are reflected in curriculum and strategies that aim to provide practical means of engaging in broader social contexts.

4 Allegations were brought forward years past the statute of limitations in New York for such charges to be brought to criminal and civil courts. Victims, who were minors at the time of the incidents, only had two to five years after the fact, or two to five years after turning 18 to lay charges. Bambaataa denied the accusations. For details, see “Afrika Bambaataa denies accusations he sexually assaulted boys in the 1980s” (2016) and Kreps (2016).

5 Complete review of literature is in Chapter 2. 5

Similarly, Bridges (2011) aims to “re-introduce Hip Hop to the field of urban teacher education as more than an educational tool or a segment of popular culture that Black and Latino youth predominate, but as a critical epistemology or a theoretical framework that challenges our beliefs about teaching, shapes our conception of the function of schooling, and informs our understandings of the qualities of effective educators” (p. 3). It can also go a step further when viewed as a transformative pedagogy (Abe, 2009) that uses its critiques of sociopolitical structures to change and improve communities.

1.2 Exploring performance identity

Hip-hop artists who attain recognition have a particular look, sound, or moves that become associated with their public personas. This impression of an artist’s image is what I’m calling their performance identity.6

With this research study, I explore how DJs, b-girls and b-boys, and emcees in Toronto acquire the artistic skills necessary for developing their performance identities. These three categories of hip-hop participants are being isolated as their work is directly tied to the practice of hip-hop music. These artists can also be seen as representatives of three of hip-hop’s original elements. Dancers are included because it is for them that much of the music is created and, as Fogarty (2010) found, “street dancers make consistent claims that ‘it’s all about the music’” (Abstract). It is also through breaking that I have experienced hip-hop as an embodied musical phenomenon. Having contacts working in the field was very helpful as I sought an in-depth understanding of hip-hop learning environments.

1.3 Research questions

My research endeavours to answer the following question: How do a breaker, DJ, and emcee develop a unique performance identity within Toronto’s hip-hop communities of practice? To further illuminate this process, the following subquestions will be explored:

a) How is hip-hop culture defined by those who participate in it?

b) How does an aspiring breaker, DJ, or emcee acquire artistic skill?

c) What is the role of music throughout an artist’s development?

6 The complexity of performance identities will be explored in Chapter 2, Section 2.6. 6

d) What is the role of the hip-hop community of practice in artist development?

e) What factors affect artist identity?

1.4 Methodology and methods

Focusing on the question of individual artist identity formation amidst Toronto’s hip-hop cultural communities, narrative methodology is well suited to my present inquiry. My goal was to conduct research in a way that respects hip-hop culture’s ways of knowing and creating. By listening to participants’ stories, I hear not only about events, but the emphases placed on them. The trajectory a story takes, with its diversions of related thought, allows a glimpse into the connections a speaker makes in response to my queries and acknowledgements. As DJ Spooky points out, “In hip-hop people are building their own narrative structure. They don’t really care to engage the conventional art world” (Becker, Crawford, & Miller, 2002, p. 90). By developing narrative texts for analysis from artists’ own words, the structure of their recollections becomes the foundation for data representation, as opposed to inflexibly applying a linear, chronological structure to their stories.

Situating these stories in Toronto’s hip-hop cultural context through ethnographic data – written, pictorial, and video observations; publicly available videos and photos; attendance at events and workshops; and popular media coverage of Toronto’s hip-hop scene – allows a greater depth of analysis.

Potential participants with whom I have previous acquaintance through events, practice sessions, or workshops, were contacted to gauge interest in being a narrative study participant. I conducted preliminary, recorded interviews with nine hip-hop artists that led me to three people who were particularly responsive to the idea of storytelling, and with whom initial conversations invited further inquiry. One DJ, one breaker, and one emcee participated in one or two additional in-depth, conversational interviews that were audio recorded for accuracy. These were transcribed and returned to participants for comment, verification, additions, and detractions. This ensured that the bases for my interpretations of their stories are as accurate as possible and maintained the integrity of their perspectives. Artists from a diversity of backgrounds (e.g. gender, country of origin, crew affiliation) were selected in order to reflect the greater hip-hop community in Toronto.

1.5 Interview data analysis

Data from the nine initial short interviews was used to triangulate information from in-depth interviews and provided descriptions of the broader community of practice in Toronto. This 7 triangulation resulted in interjected quotations that were included in the interpretation and presentation of the in-depth narratives that were central to my analysis.

Short interview data from the three selected narrative participants generated essential interview prompts for their in-depth interviews. Thematic codification of this data resulted in section labels for narrative texts, patterns of learning, recurrent influential characters, and factors deemed important in each participant’s artistic identity development. This codification also provided points for discussion and clarification that were addressed in the final set of interviews. It is at this point that the data was “ask[ed] questions of meaning and social significance...[thereby] shap[ing] field texts into research texts” (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000, pp. 130-131). To this effect, each participant’s narrative was restoried in a manner that illuminates responses to the research sub-questions in order to conclude with a response to the main research question from each participant’s perspective. This re-storying included my interpretations, sequencing of events, and where appropriate, the interjection of ideas from other artists interviewed. The resulting, re-storied, texts were informed by Dialogic/Performance Analysis that views dialogue as a performance of self, collaboratively enacted with the listener (researcher) (Riessman, 2008). These narrative texts were returned to participants for final verification.

1.6 Potential impact on music education

A research study that focuses on and highlights the voices of students, particularly those unrestrained by institutional curricula and agendas, would interest those with sociological, educational, and political concerns. This study could also serve as an introduction to hip-hop for those curious about its lived history, art forms, and localized expressions and interpretations.

Educators may find parallels between their students’ experiences and those depicted in this dissertation, providing avenues for conversation with their students. They may also find personal resonance with artists’ stories that prompt reflection on their own teaching practices.

Schmidt (2011) asks:

[C]an we envision music classrooms where music deals with performance, pedagogy, composition, instrumentation, and technology, but done in close and mindful relation to race, poverty, violence, self-expression, and economic production?...class, race, and ethnicity need to be acknowledged as crucial if we are to understand and engage with urban schools. 8

The implication here is not simply fostering politically aware interactions, but a commitment to educating students for the world, for their world and for the transformation of both. (p. 5)

Hip-hop culture, in its creation and artistic practices readily addresses, lives with, and fights against restrictive social concepts and structures.

Understanding learning processes directly situated in such a culture may provide applicable educational tools for the development of more relevant learning experiences that recognize students’ agency. Insight into how interview participants describe their role in developing their skills may help educators create an environment in which students take charge of their own learning processes in a way that recognizes their abilities and encourages individual, creative responses to challenges.

1.7 Key terms

The following are terms frequently used throughout this dissertation, which may not be familiar to readers. Definitions arise from my experience of their contextual use in scholarly and non-scholarly texts as well as in colloquial use. b-boy/b-girl A male/female who break dances and is engaged in, and committed to, learning the many aspects of hip-hop culture. b-boy stance A pose assumed by a b-boy or b-girl, e.g. at the end of a dance sequence to show one’s confidence. boom bap Onomatopoeic term for hip-hop beats, particularly as used in New York hip-hop in the era of Marley Marl, KRS-One, Gang Starr, Run DMC, etc. crate digging The act of looking for musical segments, or samples, to be used in music production. Before digital music was prevalent, DJs would search for these segments in vinyl record crates. cypher A circle formed by an audience around hip-hop performers who take turns showcasing their skills in the circle’s center. Audience-performer interaction is audible, palpable, and paramount in this dynamic space. Alternate spelling, “cipher.” jam A hip-hop party that can consist of any number of hip-hop artistic elements or art forms. 9 molly As in “poppin’ mollies.” A form of the drug ecstasy or MDMA (3,4-methylenedioxy- methamphetamine). represent To “represent” is to make a statement about your sense of self. It is a presentation of the ways an individual has produced creative works amidst and through engagement with the complexities of their lived experience. sound As used in DJ Ariel’s narrative. Short for “sound system,” of Jamaican origin. A full technical setup, including the emcees and DJs, for playing music at street parties emphasizing a loud speaker system designed to create a wall of sound. Sound system battles were a precursor to Bronx party competitions in early hip-hop.

1.8 Chapter overview

This current chapter has opened with my personal narrative, which led to my interest in the learning contexts of hip-hop artists. It has also provided the rationale for the research questions that guide this inquiry and how the field of music education might benefit from this exploration.

Chapter 2 is a review of literature that begins with a condensed history of hip-hop as it began in the Bronx, New York in the 1970s. It outlines the use of hip-hop’s developing art forms by a politically disempowered and racialized population to exert a political presence through gradual community renewal that would come to be seen as a culture in and of itself. The review then probes questions of individual and collective identity within this growing culture as its artistic expressions became emblematic of the artists who performed them. Issues of performativity, as theorized by Judith Butler, and the ways that the African-American process of Signifyin(g) forge and announce individuality are examined through performances by emcees, DJs, and b-boys and b-girls as illuminated in scholarly literature. The chapter closes with a discussion of hip-hop’s use in general education and finally, in music education specifically.

Chapter 3 defines my use of narrative inquiry and methodology to answer my research questions. The use of narrative to study a culture whose art forms aim to tell the stories of artists and their communities can serve to amplify the voices of artists whose experiences of learning and acquiring musical skills has not been frequently heard or sought until recently. I also make the link between the formation of stories and the formation of identities as the narrative act can serve to speak an identity into being, however briefly, through its telling. 10

Chapter 4 aims to paint the backdrop of Toronto hip-hop as a diversity of people and communities, connected to a broader, global hip-hop culture. Historical information that I have gathered from my research participants, together with popular media sources of information on Toronto hip-hop artists and seminal events and spaces, form the brief local history presented here.

Against this Toronto hip-hop story, the narratives of three artists – B-boy Jazzy Jester, DJ Ariel, and MC LolaBunz – emerge. Each artist’s story is interpreted, presented and analyzed in Chapters 5, 6, and 7.

The Synthesis in Chapter 8 draws on these narratives to provide answers to my research sub- questions, which lead to the conclusions of my overarching inquiry. The tensions between individual creative aims and the normative demands of hip-hop culture, and of the broader social contexts of each artist, serve as resources for expressions of difference embodied in their performance identities. The chapter concludes with avenues for further research sparked by the complexities of my research findings. Chapter 2 Literature Review 2 Introduction

The dynamism of hip-hop culture continues to provoke scholarly inquiry in ever-broadening fields of research. The purpose of this literature review is to create a particular track, layered with existing knowledge and questions that proceed from hip-hop’s early history through to certain, enduring, frequently-expressed cultural agreements rearticulated as educational objectives, strategies, and pedagogies. Hip-hop culture and the artistic forms within it have malleable boundaries refashioned from the crossings of people and experiences through its permeable gates. Actions at the limits effect identities and the intentional styling of their expressions. This potential for positively creating spaces for self-identity experimentation through acts of learning is what attracts educators to hip-hop culture.

2.1 Hip-hop: Art and politics

The social and creative practices that would come to be called “hip-hop”7 began to converge in the South Bronx neighbourhoods of New York in the 1970s. Rose (1994a) describes the postindustrial8 political and economic forces that resulted in neighbourhood displacement as areas of New York City were torn down to make way for urban renewal. Specifically, Robert Moses’s Cross-Bronx Expressway project, linking suburbs to the city, decimated Bronx neighbourhoods, forcing the relocation of residents and businesses. These once-thriving, culturally diverse neighbourhoods were structurally torn apart, both physically (business and residence buildings) and socially as more affluent residents, primarily Jewish, Italian, German, and Irish, fled to the suburbs, and others were relocated to the South Bronx, which was nevertheless demolished in the process of this so-called renewal. Additionally, an increase in corporate jobs meant a decreased demand for other types of labour, leaving many unemployed. Most affected were Black (many American-born, and from the Caribbean) and Hispanic (many of whom were Puerto Rican) residents who did not benefit from the planned progress of urban renewal.

7 Cowboy from Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five is said to be the first to refer to “hip-hop.” 8 For Rose’s note on her use of “postindustrial,” refer to Black Noise (1994a, p. 189).

Youth gangs proliferated amidst this political and economic turmoil effected by political “‘benign neglect’” (Chang, 2005, p. 14)9 that resulted in the withdrawal of public services from those who needed them most. Yet amidst images of neighbourhoods “drained of life, energy and vitality” (Rose, 1994a, p. 33) and despite media portrayals of “loss and futility” (p. 33), Rose notes, “the youngest generation of South Bronx exiles were building creative and aggressive outlets for expression and identification” (p. 33). This shared invective has been powerful in creating a “hip- hop nation,” or community (E. Clay, 2009; Hayduk, 2004) that extends globally (Helbig, 2011) among people of diverse backgrounds. From this perspective, the development of hip-hop is inherently political. Indeed, for early participants, it became a refuge from societal pressures while confounding expectations and categorizations.

In contrast to the gravity of the political and social issues faced by Bronx residents, hip-hop is frequently said to have begun in August 197310 at a house party thrown by Clive Campbell. He would come to be known as DJ Kool Herc, the “father” of hip-hop, whose youthful memories of Jamaican sound system parties were transported to 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, inspiring another generation of Afro-diasporic sound and dance. Herc’s observation that dancers “went off” on the instrumental sections of his music sets led him to extend the break beat, spurring a movement that would give rise to the development of b-boying/b-girling, DJing, emceeing, and graffiti writing as its four main elements. Hip-hop music was (and still is, in many cases) inseparable from each of these distinct art practices, born from the need to dance and express individual style and skill.

2.2 A culture called hip-hop

The creative impulses and forms fashioned amidst the socio-political context of the South Bronx in the 1970s are now recalled as catalysts for a culture that came to labelled “hip-hop.” In the context of my dissertation study, I define culture as a continually evolving system of relationships that generates frameworks for interaction between individuals, and between individuals and the resources in the spaces they occupy. Individuals within a culture need not hold perspectives in common about the definition of the frameworks, nor how they are applied but nevertheless perceive themselves to be acting within them or transgressing their boundaries.

What I call frameworks are akin to the “control mechanisms” that Geertz (1973, p. 44) describes as circulating “significant symbols – words…gestures, drawings, musical sounds, mechanical devices

9 Specifically, in a letter to President Richard Nixon, New York's senator at the time, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, wrote, “The time may have come...when the issue of race could benefit from ‘benign neglect’” (Chang, 2005, p. 14).

10 See for example Allah (2018); Chang (2005, Ch. 4). 13 like clocks, or natural objects like jewels – anything, in fact,…used to impose meaning upon experience…to orient [oneself].” These “webs of significance” are “spun” (p. 5) as symbols are used in daily interactions. Geertz adds:

Undirected by culture patterns – organized systems of significant symbols – man’s11 behavior would be virtually ungovernable, a mere chaos of pointless acts and exploding emotions, his experience virtually shapeless. Culture, the accumulated totality of such patterns, is not just an ornament of human existence but...an essential condition for it. (p. 46)

In his statement that culture is that totality of “culture patterns,” we see an inescapable tautology which, rather than invalidating the concept of culture or the symbols of meaning within it, reminds us of our embeddedness in our interactions with each other and with the resources at hand. We exist in a loop and we break from it by manipulating it through the addition of reconceived symbols, that is, “patterns.”

People are crucial to culture, and understanding how they act in the context of a culture, that is, how they identify with a culture, according to Geertz, “exposes their normalness without reducing their particularity…It renders them accessible: setting them in the frame of their own banalities, it dissolves their opacity” (p. 14). Here is where Geertz’s delineation of culture reveals its situatedness in an arguably less cross-woven, global perspective of interrelations. For him, cultural patterns are “historically created systems of meaning in terms of which we give form, order, point, and direction to our lives” (p. 52). By living according to these patterns, our actions become banal; we become transparent. That is, by identifying a person or people as part of a culture, we can discover “what men [sic] are…It is in understanding [their] variousness…that we shall come to construct a concept of human nature that…has both substance and truth” (p. 52). In our current context of a technologically-enabled inter-cultural web of meaning, surface banality and transparency can mask opacity.

In investigating culture at the level of identity, as Geertz does, Bhabha explores this very phenomenon through an inquiring ‘eye that does not see’ (paraphrased from the context of “Interrogating Identity” in Bhabha (1994):

11 Geertz’s reference to “man” and his use of “him/his” throughout his essays is, of course, attributable to the time and location of his writing. It bears mentioning here as concepts regarding what culture is, borne from a universalizing perspective of “Man,” continue to influence what hip-hop culture is and in turn, whose gestures circulate as validated cultural symbols. 14

Each time the encounter with identity occurs at the point at which something exceeds the frame of the image, it eludes the eye, evacuates the self as site of identity and autonomy and – most important – leaves a resistant trace, a stain of the subject, a sign of resistance…the demand for identification becomes, primarily, a response to other questions of signification and desire, culture and politics. (Bhabha, 1994, p. 71)

Bhabha goes on to explain that the desire to understand an individual, or a group of individuals, within a culture “enacts the complexity and contradictions of your desire to see, to fix cultural difference in a containable, visible object” (emphasis in original, p. 72). Employing the eye seeks an image which can never really get at the truth of the Other, because only that which can be mirrored to and by the inquirer will ultimately be seen. The transparency trick of the mirror belies its persistent opacity.

Hip-hop culture was populated by the socio-politically invisible, willfully erased, of the razed South Bronx. Their images were reflected in the mirror cast toward them by the politics of the time. As South Bronx communities became more isolated, they nevertheless continued to use the resources at hand, not least of which was the opportunity to capitalize on their opacity to those who sought to govern them. By emphasizing individualizing creativity through its art forms, hip-hop, as a culture, repeatedly aspires to opacity through difference, refusing the invisibility of surface transparency.

The definition of culture I delineated above applies to hip-hop as culture: a continually evolving system of relationships that generates frameworks for interaction between individuals, and between individuals and the resources in the spaces they occupy. Individuals within a culture need not hold perspectives in common about the definition of the frameworks, nor how they are applied but nevertheless perceive themselves to be acting within them or transgressing their boundaries. What I refer to as hip-hop culture, then, are instances of these relationships forged under the perceived context of its emergence as a site of innovative identification in the South Bronx. How hip-hop culture is defined is a complexity to be explored in this narrative study.

2.3 Hip-hop for social change

The party spirit of early hip-hop parties encouraged less volatile interactions between rival groups of the Bronx in order to keep the jam going. The emerging culture’s potential for promoting peaceful relationships among youth was harnessed by Afrika Bambaataa,12 the “godfather” of hip-hop, who

12 Bambaataa maintained leadership of the Zulu Nation until 2016 when reports of sexual assault of minors became public, prompting the organization to reorganize its leadership (Kreps, 2016). 15 eventually formed the Zulu Nation in 197313 and intentionally began using hip-hop cultural art forms to engage youth in alternative expressions that encourage positive, life-affirming communities.

Ruza “Kool Lady” Blue,14 recalls, “‘[T]here was this whole thing going on in New York where it was the youth culture getting together in unity and peace and having fun. No segregation and everyone joining together. Just the opposite of what was going on politically.’ And Crazy Legs, a true believer in the power of hip-hop, saw what many others saw – a bit of magic happening. ‘It was the beginning of the breaking down of racial barriers,’ he says, ‘‘82 was the beginning of worldwide understanding.’” (Chang, 2005, p. 168).

“Peace, unity, love, and having fun,”15 became hip-hop’s credo, frequently heard to this day. By 1982, Bam was referring to the “hip-hop movement” (Chang, 2005, p. 170), and his record, Planet Rock, “was hip-hop’s universal invitation, a hypnotic vision of one world under a groove, beyond race, poverty, sociology and geography” (p. 172). Gender boundaries, however, do not appear to be specifically transcended, despite being configured within this “world.”

2.3.1 Hip-hop feminism

Females have participated in hip-hop culture as performers, creators, and audiences from its earliest days. The culture’s predominantly male celebrities and the mainstream media’s masculine (often hyper-masculine) depictions of hip-hop expressions obscure the contributions and perspectives of women and almost completely overshadow the presence of anyone who does not identify with heteronormative categories.

Joan Morgan, in When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost (1999/2017), bluntly grapples with the contradictions that emerge when one is a woman who loves hip-hop, who might even groove to the beats of the genre’s more sexist lyrics, and a feminist. This work ushered in scholarship on hip-hop feminism, tackling the intersectional realities of layered socio-cultural experiences. Writing from her own African-American perspective, Morgan’s interrogations and contradictions resonate through the difficult questions she poses regarding female representation, race loyalty, and an embattled relationship with “feminism.”

13 A history of the organization is available on its website (Universal Zulu Nation, 2016). 14 Kool Lady Blue began hosting “Wheels of Steel” nights at the Negril in NY in 1981, introducing hip-hop to the punk and rasta crowd. According to (Chang, 2005), her nights were the “steamy embodiment of the Planet Rock ethos” (p. 173). 15 Lyrics from “Unity” (Bambaataa & Brown, 1984). 16

Her book speaks to generations of women of colour who could not find the strength of the women in their communities reflected in the “feminism” Morgan was learning about in college. Despite feeling the passion of “white” feminist activism, she “needed a feminism that would allow us to continue loving ourselves and the brothers who hurt us without letting race loyalty buy us early tombstones” (p. 36). Discovering black feminist thinkers such as Alice Walker, Angela Davis, Audre Lorde, Paula Giddings, and bell hooks, “empowered [her] with language to express the unique oppression that comes with being colored and a woman” (p. 37). In the process, Morgan articulates feminist goals imbued with “the same fundamental understanding held by any true student of hip-hop. Truth can’t be found in the voice of any one…but in the juxtaposition of many…the juncture where ‘truth’ is no longer black and white, but subtle, intriguing shades of gray” (p. 62). In this version, rap is recognized as “one of the few forums in which young black men, even surreptitiously are allowed to express their pain” (p. 74) and hip-hop, with “its illuminating, informative narration and its incredible ability to articulate our collective pain is an invaluable tool when examining gender relations” (p. 80).

Continuing inquiry within the “gray,” contemporary hip-hop feminists “refuse easy and essentialist political stances about what is right or wrong and who or what gets to be called feminist” (Durham, Cooper, & Morris, 2013, p. 723). In this way, hip-hop feminists can more readily connect with youth who are affected by the issues confronting the hip-hop generation (Peoples, 2008), arguably expanding Planet Rock through critical interventions that acknowledge and interrogate lived, often contradictory, experiences and meanings. Specifically, Durham et al. (2013), “see hip-hop feminism as a generationally specific articulation of feminist consciousness, epistemology, and politics rooted in the pioneering work of multiple generations of black feminists based in the United States and elsewhere in the diaspora but focused on questions and issues that grow out of the aesthetic and political prerogatives of hip-hop culture” (p. 722). In addition to gender relations, hip-hop feminists critique socio-political systems that threaten, and even end, the lives of people of colour.16,17 Hip-hop feminists are concerned with more than just female representation in mainstream hip-hop (which frequently stands in for all of hip-hop culture), simultaneously questioning the existing boundaries of hip-hop expressions in order to make visible the participation of those on the margins (A. Clay, 2008; Lindsey, 2015). As Lindsey (2015) points out, limiting research, analyses, and critiques of hip-

16 Discussions of hip-hop feminism included in this Literature Review are centred on the experiences of Black and Brown people of colour. 17 Lindsey (2015) in “Let Me Blow Your Mind: Hip Hop Feminist Futures in Theory and Praxis,” highlights the pressing issues that hip-hop feminists address and foreground in their works.

17 hop to rap (as is frequently done in the fields of general education and music education), “can implicitly marginalize the spaces in which women and girls create, shape, and remix hip hop. Within hip-hop-based education, the inclusion of elements of hip-hop beyond the traditional four of emceeing, deejaying, graffiti, and b-boying/b-girling offers the opportunity to have students critically engage corporeal knowledge and to see women and girls as innovators, and not just consumers” (p. 59).

Attention must also be given to the continued marginalization of LGBTQ2S+ participants whose artistry in hip-hop communities is still frequently unrecognized both in scholarly literature and in public media outlets (Dean, 2008). Among those who have noted these otherwise overlooked members of hip-hop communities is Andreana Clay (2008), who challenges assumptions about the boundaries of hip-hop music through the work of Me’shell Ndegeocello. Clay notes that Ndegeocello’s lyrics give complex expression to her queer identity, adding that this music’s categorization as “R&B” warrants discussion about what music receives the “hip-hop” label. Lindsey (2015) points out the urgency of hip-hop feminists’ praxis in the area of queer studies as it reveals hip-hop culture’s shortcomings and possibilities for progress. In this way, hip-hop feminists, as Pough (2004) puts it, bring “wreck” to hegemonic systems that continue to constrain non- heteronormative participation in all too many spheres of public life, redeploying and broadening the social consciousness espoused by many of hip-hop culture’s earliest proponents.

2.4 Hip-hop identity

The hip-hop arts became a means for gaining recognition among peers at a time when the status afforded by economic and political participation was out of reach. In cultivating these art forms, individuality and skill was paramount:

Hip hop is very competitive and confrontational; these traits are both resistance to and preparation for a hostile world which denies and denigrates young people of color…. Competitions among and cross-fertilization between breaking, graffiti writing and rap music was fueled by shared local experiences and social position, and similarities in approaches to sound, motion, communication and style among hip hop’s Afro-diasporic communities. (Rose, 1994b, p. 79)

The established frameworks for understanding “sound, motion, communication and style” became the foundations for the recognition of hip-hop as a culture represented in large part by the art forms of breaking, DJing, and emceeing. In the context of the battle, so important in these musical 18 practices, variation is not just a possibility, it is the aim and basis for the conferrence of recognition. Here, difference is expected and “no biting” continues to be the primary rule of artistic creation.18

Hip-hop battles then, became central to the development of a performed identity as one could not win if one’s skills or style were comparable to another’s. Conflict and confrontation in these artistic practices were not only a means to sharpen skills, they became symbolic of the struggle to participate in and be recognized by the rest of American society to whom they seemed invisible. With reference to a conversation with cultural critic, Arthur Jafa, Rose (1994a) observes that “stylistic continuities between breaking, graffiti, style, rapping, and musical construction seem to center around three concepts: flow, layering, and ruptures in line” (emphasis in original, p. 38). In other words, hip-hop musical practices are meant to take advantage of repetitions (e.g. when a DJ loops a sample) and layered sounds and movements in order to heighten expectation while making room for disturbance (e.g. the beat drop19) as a source of creative pleasure (p. 39). Intentionally fashioning a recognizable, unique, identity and style is, then, the enactment of agency in which deviation and the risk of unintelligibility are transformed into a process of self-construction within the confines of one’s socio- political situation, and in this case, artistic parameters.

This interplay between identity and social location (and situation) creates a field of performance in which hip-hop artists must “represent,” i.e. to be “a walking signifier, the self-embodiment of one’s value system concerning power, success, and individual/communal claim” (C. H. Smith, 1997, p. 347), by showing knowledge of, and respect for, one’s cultural history, often including spatial roots, through “keeping it real.” This is paramount, as evidenced by Rahzel’s (from rap crew, The Roots) reminder to youth at a beatboxing workshop in Toronto: “Know your information...That’s how you’re gonna know your identity. Whenever I get up on stage, I know who I am” (Unity Charity Beatboxing Workshop personal notes, 2013). This implies a conscientious and conscious attempt to understand one’s personal and social history (ethnic, geographic, musical, familial, etc.) as a form of personal identity narrative in order for others to “recognize.” This recognition can only occur where “a sign or some other manifestation of an external stimulus conjures an awareness formed by a previous encounter….To ‘recognise’ is to decode this interpellation and make sense of it in a manner that often pays homage to the code bearer” (C. H. Smith, 1997, p. 350). It is a form of respect given when an artist creates something new that delineates her/his individuality. Here, Judith Butler’s

18 “No biting” was mentioned by many scholars. This rule forbids imitation and requires that one's output be original, or that one “flips” (i.e. alters) the original so that it becomes unquestionably one's own. See Fogarty (2010) for the rule's application to breaking, and Schloss (2004) as it pertains to DJing, specifically in the process of producing beats. 19 The “beat drop” is the moment in a musical track in which a beat begins a highly anticipated, new moment of energetic flow created through sound manipulation. 19

(2005) account of a substitutable singularity is useful. A hip-hop artist’s individuality, or singularity, when it resonates with others, binds the relationship between performer and audience through a commonality that highlights difference. If an artist’s representation of personal circumstances is “real” it becomes more likely that the crafted individuality will be accepted and respected.

“Keeping it real” is an essential tenet of hip-hop creativity.20 For hip-hop artists, it means being true to oneself and not “frontin’,” or expressing something you know nothing about. It encapsulates hip- hop artistic culture’s quest for authenticity as linked to one’s self, embedded in its historical and contemporary contexts, acknowledged through sampled sounds, “flipped” moves – quotations made new in the instance of execution. Carefully crafted, these expressions and representations intentionally announce influences in a way that recalls histories, including, at times, those that may be otherwise be forgotten. How artists cultivate the presentation of “realness” is explored throughout the narratives presented in Chapters 5 through 7.

2.5 Identity, performativity, and Signification

Comprehensively identifying aspects of identity is necessarily complex, owing to the rapid influx of local and global influences afforded by technologies that impact one’s self-concept. Here, I suggest that self-concept reflects an attempt to find coherence in one’s experiences that is, in turn, perceived as an “identity.” This apparent coherence can only be apprehended based on perceived performances, as we are unable to witness anything other than these outward gestures by signifying bodies. With this perspective, I define identity as the temporal performance of one’s self-concept within a socio-cultural locality. It is a temporal performance in that it is a bodily expression of being in the moment it is asserted – in silence, with voice, action, or inaction. Its expression is local to the space of performance even as it conjures a self-concept that may have developed in various locales. A person is always situated, in time and space, within a socio-cultural locale to which one either belongs or is excluded. Identity can therefore be seen as a spatial-temporal manifestation of one’s life story, or at least some aspect of it, in the sense that one has a self-view that can be “performed” just as a story can be expressed.

In speaking of a self-concept that gives rise to identity, the body appears to be at the centre of actions and inscriptions of identity that tend to be essentialized into categories. These categories are numerous and overlap. Frequently discussed in relation to hip-hop are: gender as male or female; race, as signified by skin colour, tied to ethnicities; and ethnicities as tied to geography, with the

20 Chapter 2.6 details ways that “realness” is signified by emcees/rappers, b-boys and b-girls, and DJs. 20 performing body tagged with superficial markers of identity. The theories presented below provide ways to understand how individuals come to be associated with, and, at times, essentially linked (albeit incorrectly or inaccurately), to identity categorizations.

2.5.1 Performativity

Judith Butler’s (1990/2007) discussion of performativity in Gender Trouble, illuminates the ways bodies are thought to express an internal self that is subsequently interpreted and categorically marked:

[A]cts, gestures, and desire produce the effect of an internal core or substance, but produce this on the surface of the body, through the play of signifying absences that suggest, but never reveal, the organizing principle of identity as a cause. Such acts, gestures, enactments, generally construed, are performative in the sense that the essence or identity that they otherwise purport to express are fabrications manufactured and sustained through corporeal signs and other discursive means. (emphasis in original, p. 185)

Societal norms provide the discursive basis for interpretations of performances. These norms or cultural imperatives set the stage for a “stylized repetition of acts” (emphasis in original, p. 191) by which bodies become intelligible. In such repetition, however, lies the possibility of “failure…a de- formity” (p. 192). Agency is “located within the possibility of a variation on that repetition…[I]t is only within the practices of repetitive signifying that a subversion of identity becomes possible” (emphasis in original, pp. 198-199). Increasingly inter-cultural performance milieus are conducive to the emergence of variations or “failures” in the moment of apprehended performativity, as multiple frames of interpretation are accessed, complicating intelligibility.

Identity performances occur in a social field in which a person is addressed in order to ask for, or even demand, an account, a narrative, of that person’s history. In Giving an Account of Oneself, Butler (2005) posits that it is this injunction to tell one’s story that gives rise to the possibility of knowing oneself. The Other (the artist or the audience, depending on perspective) is therefore necessary in the continued quest to satisfy the desire for self-discovery.

Butler (2005) goes on to point out that recognition of the “I” or the self is only possible within a normative frame that is pre-set, in order for performances, as linked to bodies, to be intelligible. But since we cannot know our whole story, as much has preceded our coming to the moment of performance, incoherence is inevitable, putting us at risk of unintelligibility, and perhaps violence. What is revealed at this break in our attempt to tell a coherent story is an “opacity that fall[s] outside 21 the terms of identity [as essence]…any effort made ‘to give an account of oneself’ will have to fail in order to approach being true” (Butler, 2001, p. 28). The break or failure is then crucial to resisting oppressive categorization in order to express difference that may eventually alter normative frames of reference.

The moment of rupture or variation in which an uncategorized moment of expression confounds established normative moulds, is the creative imperative of hip-hop artists whose “failure” to align with hegemonic categories that attempt to “school” individuals becomes the basis of a unique expressive style.

2.5.2 Signifyin(g)

It is here that Henry Louis Gates, Jr.’s (2014) analysis of Signification illuminates the process by which hip-hop artists participate in an African tradition of creative revision that harnesses possibilities of meaning that can attach to any given gesture – of sound, word, or movement – a constant “play of differences” (p. 67). Where Butler acknowledges the possibility of a variation, Gates points out intentional revision; and where Butler frames the “de-formity” as a “failure,” Gates notes a successful deviance.

In his book The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of African-American Literary Criticism, Gates explains that Signifyin(g) is “a mode of formal revision...most crucially, it turns on repetition of formal structures and their differences” (2014, p. 57). Through this process, the writer takes advantage of all the possible meanings that attach to words or signifiers and, instead of erasing meanings to arrive at one, puts any number of them into play.

In tracing possible origins of this tradition of revision, Gates uncovers its transport to the New World through the stories of the Signifying Monkey, a conflation between the god Esu-Elegbara and its monkey whose origins come from Fon (Benin) and Yoruba (Nigeria) mythology. Esu-Elegbara reigns over indeterminacy and interpretation and the Signifying Monkey stories highlight the Monkey’s tricks of confusion as a reminder that what we see, hear, read (or sense) has multiple meanings based on perspective and context. In adhering to one interpretation, one risks playing the fool.

These stories traveled to the New World and, in America, manifested itself in cloaked communications between enslaved Africans who used their white oppressors’ words, their received frames of reference, and flipped them, shifted them, manipulated them, to voice their subjectivities and gesture towards their own identities. 22

Significant to the formation of identity and the utterances or gestures that signify them, is that Signifyin(g), following the Yoruba belief system, does not require choice between binaries or sets of binaries, nor a resolution of conflicting possibilities, but rather the production of a third, whose meanings are indeterminate and open to a proliferation of possibilities.

Hip-hop artists create in this tradition, harnessing a consensus of meaning and manipulating it to open up alternate meanings. Specifically, Gates explains, “When a black person speaks of Signifyin(g), he or she means a ‘style-focused message...styling which is foregrounded by the devices of making a point by indirection and wit’”(p. 85).

Gates’s theory provides a framework for understanding the intentional reworkings of normative foundations by hip-hop artists in order to create novel expressions.

2.6 Performing hip-hop identity

Scholars have highlighted artists’ expressions of identity through music, dance, and lyrics. Forman (2000, 2002b) emphasizes the importance of place – one’s neighbourhood, crew, or practice spaces – in rappers’ representations and performances. Emcees around the world continue to use rap in order to make marginal voices heard. This is frequently seen in mixed-language lyrics that infuse a region’s dominant language with regional or foreign dialects (Mitchell, 2004; Sarkar & Winer, 2006) thereby symbolically asserting diversity, particularly where minority groups are not politically empowered (Mitchell, 2004; Sarkar & Allen, 2007).

The following sections look more closely at the arts of emceeing, breaking, and DJing in order to analyze the ways identities are performed. In this discussion, I take performances to be performative in that they are bound to normative frames that make them intelligible. This perspective also acknowledges the repetitions of sound and movement that make creativity and originality possible through variation and originality. The hip-hop imperatives to “keep it real” and “represent” also warrant analyses of these arts with an eye to the lived experiences of artists as they inform performances.

Literature on hip-hop culture and its art forms have most often focused on rap music, perhaps because its performances provide visual, aural, as well as spoken evidence that lends itself more easily to analyses. The literature surveyed consistently highlights race, ethnicity, and gender in discussions of artistic performance. As a result, these aspects will be the focus of the following sections, but it must be said that there are many more dimensions of identity that complicate its construction, perception, performances, reception, and ensuing interpretations. It must also be noted 23 that issues of race, ethnicity, and gender will be seen to overlap even as one is foregrounded in each section.

2.6.1 Emcees represent

The emcee, as artist, evolved from the role of the party MC (Master of Ceremonies) who was tasked with heightening the crowd’s excitement. It has become a potent medium for lyricism and expression. KRS-One differentiates emcees from rappers: emcees are “conscious” rappers who have an educational or critical message to convey while other rappers rhyme for profit. However, any given rapper can assume these roles at one time or another (Parmar, 2009). Emceeing, breaking, and DJing were inseparable in the early stages of hip-hop’s development and live performance was the focal point of participation.

The cultivation of rap’s image began with The Sugarhill Gang’s 1979 hit, “Rapper’s Delight.” Rap could now be set on vinyl and disseminated to a larger public. Its lyrics feature a description of the performance spaces through which people were moved to dance, referencing DJ’s beats, break (dance) moves, and emcees rocking the mic (skillfully rhyming). It also features lyrical bravado in a way reminiscent of “the dozens,” an interplay of African origin, that involves outwitting another with insults that serve to emphasize the speaker’s superiority.

Dimitriadis (2009) and Forman (2002a) attribute the eventual separation of rapping from its original performance-based setting to this single’s popularity and the increasing portability and mobility of music through technological advances. In 1982, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five released “The Message,” frequently cited for its depictions of “ghetto” life. This appears to be the earliest example of the use of one’s neighbourhood and lived experiences, marked by its unsafe, apathetic, impoverished landscape, as the basis for rap lyrics. The track’s popularity arguably signaled that reality-based tracks would become increasingly marketable.

These early images of hip-hop culture visually promote identification of its artists as African- American (in simplistic racial terms, “black”) regardless of their country of origin. However, other ethnicities have always been a part of hip-hop’s development. In fact, Rock Steady Crew, whose membership is comprised of mostly Puerto Ricans (Rose, 1994b) was one of hip-hop’s earliest representatives. Flores (1994) points out the lack of recognition Puerto Ricans are given for their role in hip-hop’s development. Charlie Chase, a Puerto Rican DJ says, “‘Puerto Rican rappers always knew that they were operating in a ‘black world.’ However ‘down’ they felt and were made to feel with the homies, however much they loved the music, the angry question: What the fuck are you doing here, Porto Rican? Still resonates in their memory’” (Flores, p. 93). Despite this, “[a]mong 24 young blacks and Puerto Ricans, hip hop has generally been a mortar of remarkable intensity…its unifying potential has certainly been one of its strongest legacies and sources of appeal among youth in countless settings around the world” (p. 93). Notwithstanding this gap in historical documentation, rap, and hip-hop in general, is commonly understood to be embedded in an African- American aesthetic, perhaps because the music, the central element in the culture’s arts, developed from Jamaican-born, DJ Kool Herc’s pioneering turntable techniques. An even stronger association is made by Rabaka (2011), particularly with regard to rap: “[T]he hip hop generation has inherited African Americans’ long-standing emphasis on eloquence, rhetoric, and the spiritual dimensions of the spoken word, especially as conceived of, and articulated during the Civil Rights and Black Power movements” (p. 4). Hip-hop is linked not only to African-American art forms, but to political movements and the music that accompanied them.

Hip-hop’s association with “blackness” continues to raise important points for discussion. The first of which is the essentializing force of this racial categorization, particularly discussed through Paul Gilroy’s (1993) concept of “black Atlantic,” a “rhizomorphic, fractal structure of the transcultural, international formation” (p. 4) not bound by geography, but rather by the “themes of nationality, exile, and cultural affiliation [that] accentuate the inescapable fragmentation and differentiation of the black subject…recently compounded further by the questions of gender, sexuality, and male domination which have been made unavoidable by the struggles of black women and the voices of black gay men and lesbians” (p. 35). With reference to hip-hop, Gilroy first recognizes the translocation of Jamaican sound system culture to America and then exposes its problematic interpretation as “an expression of some authentic African-American essence” (pp. 33-34). He also points out that black political struggles have now become “automatically expressive of the national or ethnic differences with which they are associated” (p. 31). The result is a flattening of complex histories, origins, and intercultural exchanges under a singular “black” identity that belies, and at times dismisses, the rich and varied experiences of hip-hop’s artists and audiences.

In addition, this supposed “black” essence has become increasingly linked with its location in the American ghetto and its seemingly glorified images of poverty, violence, hyper-masculinity and misogyny as performed in rap’s lyrics and videos. Forman (2000, 2002b) probes the ghetto’s importance to gangsta rap in particular through the sounds and relationships that this space produces and facilitates. Importantly, he differentiates the “ghetto” as an abstract concept of space, from the “‘hood,” which acknowledges a more localized experience performatively enacted by “gangstas,” who “expound their own versions of alienating power, drawing on the imagery and codes of the street…entering into a discourse of domination that subjugate women, opposing gang members or those who are perceived as being weaker and thus less than them....these expressions are 25 intended to diminish the presence of others who represent other cities and other ‘hoods” (Forman, 2000, p. 82). For Forman, what is important in these depictions is to ask why youth resonate with such violent imagery and how they see this affecting their identities. These performances point to the importance of “spaces and places…to an understanding of the ways that a great number of urban black youths imagine their environments and the ways that they relate those images to their own individual sense of self” (p. 83), a process that has not been adequately explored from youth perspectives, with few exceptions.21 It is nevertheless apparent that youth do build imagined communities22,23 through rap’s localized, authenticated, and therefore more believable, stories.

Forman (2000) also emphasizes that space facilitates bonds between rap crew members who gain approval from their neighbourhoods, thereby bolstering their success outside the ‘hood. These are bonds of near-familial support that nurture artists as they develop their craft and launch careers, acknowledged in “shout-outs” at shows and on record/CD covers.

It must be noted that the “ghetto” and “blackness” are frequently used in references to American hip-hop, which continues to be, at the very least, a basis of comparison for hip-hop practices around the world (Forman, 2002b; Hernandez & Garofalo, 2004; Krims, 2002; Mitchell, 2004).24 In their deviation from these essentializing categorizations, Forman (2000) applauds Canadian group Dream Warriors, who, in their track “Ludi” (Dream Warriors, 1991), manages to acknowledge a worldwide African diaspora without appeal to a single African origin, and without nostalgia for their Caribbean heritage. At the same time, they situate themselves within Toronto’s hybrid Afro-Caribbean community, expressing the particularities of their identity development as influenced by local and global communities.

The attention given to blackness in scholarly discussions of rap highlights its binary opposition to “whiteness.” Earlier explorations were primarily concerned with the consumption of rap music by white youth as evidenced by record sales (Forman, 2002a; George, 1998) and concert attendance (Forman, 2002a). Interestingly, George (1998) notes that in the early ‘80s, black music executives were not very supportive of the burgeoning hip-hop music scene, and that it was small, white-owned

21 Some research has ventured to answer this question: Barnwell (2004), Dimitriadis (2009), and Hill (2009).

22 This is an application of Benedict Anderson’s concept of “imagined communities” (1983). 23 In another application of Anderson’s “imagined communities,” Fogarty (2007) noted connections made between breakers who hold shared meanings formed through mediated interactions, referring to these connections as “imagined affinities” that cross geographic boundaries. 24 Significantly, definitions of “blackness” differ around the world as discussed with regard to Somali youth in Krims (2002) and with reference to Africans and other non-Europeans in Helbig (2011). 26 businesses that helped nurture and spur its popularity, which made “defining the music solely in terms of an African-American context...problematic” (Forman, 2002a, p. 111). Interest in regulating ownership of hip-hop grew with the emergence of white rap acts (George, 1998) despite the emphasis placed on a ghetto reality that generally made rap more difficult to appreciate and appropriate among non-black fans (Forman, 2002a). Beginning with the Beastie Boys, white artists have been able to garner respect for their artistic skills. The salience of race issues remains, however, as the success of the Beastie Boys has been attributed to their manager, Russell Simmons, who was able to “bridge Black and white tastes” (Chang, 2005, p. 245) and to capitalize on what he thought was “a rebellious, nonconformist attitude in rap…analogous to the rock attitude” that resonated with teenaged white male rockers (George, 1998, p. 65). Rick Rubin, who is of Jewish descent, and who started Def Jam Records with Simmons, also saw the potential of aligning a punk sensibility with rap and a successful crossover resulted from his production of Run-D.M.C’s “Walk This Way,” featuring Steven Tyler and Joe Perry of Aerosmith (Forman, 2002a). In this discourse, along a racial, black-white binary, artists are seen to perform punk/rock and rap identities in order to merge them into a musical product that would appeal to a wider audience.

This did not make Eminem’s entry into the rap scene any easier or less controversial, however, as he had to prove his skills of rhyme and flow according to rap aesthetics before being “recognized.” As with other white rap acts such as Pete Nice and Third Bass, he not only adopted hip-hop’s visual identifiers (e.g. clothing and mannerisms), he also spoke about his own spatial environment, with its attendant politics and economics (Fraley, 2009). Fraley argues that in this way, skin color became less relevant. The ‘hood, however, as a spatial location of “real” experience remained necessary for recognition.

Perhaps owing to hip-hop’s insistence on the “real,” located in more intimate neighbourhood settings, rappers around the world differentiate themselves through their use of regional dialects that are frequently viewed as “resistance vernaculars” that push against the hegemony of a country’s dominant language, particularly where it enables oppressive living conditions. Such is the case for the Maori in New Zealand who “re-territorialize…major Anglophone rules of intelligibility” and for Italian rappers in Cosenza, who use their dialect to cause a rift in the dominant culture’s understandings of Italian “standard” language use (Mitchell, 2004, p. 108). For the Maori in Mitchell’s study, the waiata (song) tradition easily merges with hip-hop musical elements and attitudes to create a syncretic musical form. Similarly, though for different purposes, members of Cosenza’s South Posse use their dialect to forge affinities with the region’s people, while an Ethiopian-born member of their group uses it to show his adoption of a new home in Calabria. According to Mitchell (2004), South Posse addresses racism directed at southern Italians and 27 immigrants while inflecting the region’s dialect with slang and “switching different ‘resistance vernaculars’ in the form of immigrant languages ‘macaronically’ to express transnational and translocal linguistic hybrids” (p. 116).

For rappers in Quebec, an increasingly multiethnic urban milieu has made switching between languages a significant challenge to Quebec’s nationalist aim effected through Quebec French language instruction. This phenomenon is analyzed by Sarkar and Winer (2006), who found that words from African-American Vernacular English, hip-hop English, standard Quebec French, and Haitian and Jamaican Creole were all mixed into rap lyrics, providing new ways to address their audience while expanding the possibilities of rhyme construction. Interestingly, these words are adopted regardless of birthplace, infusing everyday speech with the same codeswitches. Quebec rap artists are consciously using these new resources to signify their actual backgrounds, while gesturing towards their view of a “unified” Quebec in which differences are acknowledged and adopted (Sarkar & Allen, 2007).

In these examples, “the active use of language…allows individuals to present themselves in and from a cultural standpoint, and reinforcing this standpoint can itself facilitate change….Rap…has become central to identity formation within a context of social resistance, as part of a process of collective self-definition” (Whiteley, 2004, p. 10). Rap’s performative possibilities are exploited in order to envision and enact new social relationships.

Women also enact new modes of social relations through rap, questioning and ignoring normative prescriptions of gender behaviour. In an analysis of the lyrics of Mia X (the “Unlady-like Diva”) and Lady of Rage, Haugen (2003) illustrates each emcee’s reconfiguration of generally acceptable “ladylike” behaviours. Both express their deviation from the norm by announcing their claim to greater space, physically or figuratively. They place themselves in control of language (e.g. reclaiming “bitch”) while showing themselves to be more skillful than men and capable of exerting power over them in the rap arena and within sexual relations. Haugen further observes that in these examples, women are seen to use the hegemony of gangsta rap practices in order to subvert them with their own performative articulations of gender.

In the same vein, Jean Grae is discussed by Paradigm Smalls (2011) as “performing Black heteronormativity, and exposing it as a show, a performative posture, allow[ing] one to engage with the critical possibilities of alternative or ‘queered’ formations to heteronormativity” (p. 88). Grae’s (2002) lyrics in “God’s Gift,” in particular, are cited for her adoption of a male misogynistic persona 28 while a distant male voice commands her, “Dumb bitch! Play your position!” Hearing her voice while rapping “male” rhymes creates a dizzying exposition of heteronormative performativity.25

Though relatively little attention has been given to female rappers in scholarly discussions, it is important to note that they have been a part of hip-hop culture from its early stages (Rose, 1994b) and continue to exert their presence, often on feminist terms in the rap scene.26

2.6.2 B-boys and b-girls represent

Hip-hop’s original dance form, breaking, has currently not been analyzed to the same extent as rap. Nevertheless, combing the existing literature for the ways breakers perform identities reveals differentiated means of expressing identity.

Johnson (2011) specifically seeks to understand the way issues of race are integrated into dance practices and discussions. In her analysis of a battle between the Mighty Zulu Kings (MZK), a New York-based group made up of dancers from mixed ethnicities (Latino, African-American, and East Asian) and the Korean Gamblerz crew, Johnson reveals key style differences that signify localities of practice. MZK, founded by Afrika Bambaataa (one of hip-hop’s founding DJs) is seen to exemplify bravado through quick footwork, burns,27 and emotional intensity. Gamblerz, on the other hand, are described as slowly but surely creating anticipation for their powerful, acrobatic moves. Johnson sees the victory of MZK as an affirmation of the “Old School,” New York-based style of breaking over that of the “New School,” which, interestingly, has grown out of the dance’s circulation in Korea. A debate ensued among spectators and continued through internet commentary, revealing contesting philosophies behind the dance form. Evidently, “the layers of meaning drawn from differences in dance style are extrapolated to represent, and even explain, differences in nationality, race, gender and knowledge about b-boying history” (Johnson, 2011, p. 174). As the dance is now practiced around the world, breaking highlights embodied cultural differences that are made to contest each other in the battle context.

These differences are more clearly revealed in discussions that inevitably implicate race. In a conversation with b-girl Rokafella, Johnson (2011) comes to understand that while skill is of utmost

25 It should be noted that this particular articulation of gender relations might be US-specific. Mitchell (2004) found that the rap lyrics of Maori and Pacific Islanders do not exhibit misogynist tendencies, perhaps owing to a different perception and recognition of women’s strengths and roles in these cultures. 26 Many examples are provided in an anthology of essays on hip-hop feminism by Pough, Richardson, Durham, and Raimist (2007). 27 Footwork refers to moves performed on the ground, as opposed to those executed upright. Burns are gestures of insult toward opponents. 29 importance and tends to overshadow conversations surrounding race, skill is nevertheless rooted in an understanding of breaking as an African dance. For Rokafella, this recognition is key to understanding the dance’s link to socio-political and economic history that translates into what Johnson calls, a “kinesthetic knowledge,” and that Rokafella refers to as “soul.” In this way, “breaking is not about race, yet it is about racism, at least in part” (p. 189), with “movement…both the medium of contestation and an important form of meaning-making within the culture” (p. 174). Battles help determine the boundaries of expectation that breakers are nonetheless expected to convincingly transgress. As Johnson aptly says, “On the overlapping terrain of what one should do and what one can do is where style is born” (p. 174), denoting a personal way of embodying the dance’s history and aesthetics, however shifting its manifestations.

One’s repertoire of movements not only situates a dancer within a regional style (thereby giving importance to space and place), it is also a testament to her or his developmental lineage, as revealed through performances of acquired musical tastes (Fogarty, 2010), made visible through dance moves (Schloss, 2009), that are passed on from teacher to student in workshops, between crew members, and through contact with other b-girls/b-boys when travelling. Music is essential to the creation of new movements and their execution. As such, one’s tastes are performative of personal28 and local breaking histories. A dancer’s learning and social history within the dance form can also be indexed by taste development. A dancer in Fogarty’s study informed her that he was listening to the “wrong” music earlier in his development, indicating not only a sense of “progress,” but also a sense of belonging to a greater circle of cultural taste.

In this sense, the existence of a body of songs most appropriate to the dance form is implied. Schloss (2009), through his immersion in the b-boy/b-girl culture of New York, describes a “b-boy canon…a recognized repertoire of songs that b-boys and b-girls are expected to be able to dance to” (p. 12) that defines the community. This canon has a reach outside New York, as b-boys such as Ken Swift travel and teach around the world. Fogarty (2010) also acknowledges that there are certain songs to which even a novice breaker should be able to dance, marking membership in the culture. Within this prescription, however, are opportunities to explore one’s own tastes, through one’s exploration of music and through the array of musical styles presented by DJs at break events.

Indeed, individuality appears privileged in breaking due to the undeniably embodied nature of dance. This becomes apparent in a YouTube video posted by R16KOREA (2013, July 23), featuring internationally renowned b-boys. They challenge each other to “bite” or copy each other’s moves.

28 Fogarty (2010) noted that one b-boy she encountered preferred dancing to Depêche Mode and Björk, artists whose music is not usually connected with hip-hop. 30

Their attempts immediately expose each b-boys limitations in strength and flexibility, as well as reveal the uniqueness of their catalogue of movements. Even when the attempt to bite nears success, the executed move does not bear the stylistic mark of its originator. This phenomenon shows that although the culture’s foundational dance moves are internalized, the creative rupture enacted, Signified, by unique bodies will inevitably reveal the results of a negotiation between group culture and individual agency.

Issues of agency, as exercised by women, have been discussed primarily through involvement in rap where it revolves around male-female sexual relations and their representations. Such discussions in breaking, however, seem centred around the idea of acceptance within the breaking scene. Indeed, the dance is still frequently referred to as “b-boying” even while female participation is increasing. For example, Johnson’s (2011) discussion of racial identities expressed through style uses the term “b-boying” when referring to the general practice of breaking, revealing the continued prominence of males in this artistic community. In his ethnographic study, Schloss (2009) alternates between using the terms b-boy, b-girl, breaker, dancer, but frequently settles on “b-boy,” with the explanation that this is widely viewed in the community as a generic term that includes women. “While this may appear to be begging the question, [he argues] that the ambiguity of the term reflects an actual social ambiguity: to what degree, and in what senses, is a b-girl a kind of b-boy?” (p. 15). His suggestion that there are degrees of b-boying, one of which is “b-girl” further demonstrates the way women, and indeed, anyone who does not identify with “boy,” are subsumed within the term, obscuring, and arguably hindering the emergence of other identities.

And yet, as with rap, women have been involved with hip-hop dance from its earliest stages, though Rose (1994b) points out that they usually did not perform the power moves b-boys were doing. Most break crews at the time, however, did not include females (this is also true today) due to “lack of exposure, social support, and male discouragement,” according to b-girl Baby Love from Rock Steady (Rose, 1994b, p. 48). Rose further explains that b-girls were seen as unfeminine, and the moves unsafe for a girl. Wiggles, a b-boy with the same crew admitted that he “would respect a female breaker, but was not as comfortable with females exhibiting the level of physical exertion breaking required” (p. 49). This is contradicted by Richard Santiago, a b-boy in Schloss’s study, who said that he does not change his teaching style according to gender: “‘You want to be a b-girl? That’s it: you gonna do the same training....I don’t care [if] you’re a girl....it’s no ‘b-girl cypher’ or ‘b-boy cypher.’ No. It’s a cypher! There’s no gender breakdown, this is what you got. You want to do it, you do it!’” (2009, p. 66). Echoing Johnson’s (2011) observation that skill is paramount in discussions of breaking, Santiago’s statement hints at the tensions inherent in the practice for b-girls, requiring them to learn and perform on men’s terms. Further confining women, when a b-girl shows 31 ingenuity, her moves may nonetheless be attributed to her b-boy boyfriend (Fogarty, 2010). The following statement from Schloss’s (2009) interview with b-girl Seoulsonyk is telling:

“Is b-girling a different dance form than guys’?” asks b-girl Seoulsonyk:

We haven’t really talked about it as women....But at this point, the women that have been dancing and been active and visible on the local, national, international scale are the women who are physically accomplishing what men are accomplishing. But they’re not setting the standards for everyone [regardless of] gender. The guys are still the one[s] that are setting the standards. So, I don’t have a problem, personally. If people are like, “Oh, that’s b-boying,” I have no problems with it. …

Complicating the picture even more, as Seoulsonyk notes, is that b-girls often refer to what they do as “b-boying,” but b-boys never call their dance “b-girling.” This suggests not only that the term b-boying is normative, but that so is the projection of masculinity itself. (p. 65)

This reveals a complicated set of overlooked issues that are only beginning to be addressed, in part, through b-girl collectives that provide a supportive network, e.g. KeepRockinYou in Toronto, and seek to break down gender role stereotypes (J. Lopez, personal communication, November 1, 2014).29

2.6.3 DJs represent

Perhaps due to the DJ’s role, usually performed in the background, except when battling, the art of the hip-hop DJ has been analyzed to an even lesser extent than breaking. Nevertheless, DJs are no less affected by hip-hop cultural imperatives and by the prescriptions of broader social norms.

Hip-hop DJs provide live music for clubs and breaking events, but are also “producers” of beats for rap albums. DJs may also be called “turntablists” or “tablists,” which refers to DJs who perform technically difficult sets in live settings, which include competitive formats. These roles may be performed by any given DJ at one time or another.

In the introduction to his ethnographic study of producers in Seattle, Schloss (2004) notes the multiethnic make-up of a DJ community that does not highlight issues of race, apart from situating the music in the same African-American tradition from which rap and breaking emerged in the Bronx.

29 The experiences of participants in KeepRockinYou’s b-girling program is analyzed by Fogarty, Cleto, Zsolt, and Melindy (2018) to understand the ways they negotiate gender representation through breaking.

In the music itself, diverse influences could be heard, even in the early productions of DJ Afrika Bambaataa whose “sound became a rhythmic analogue to his peace-making philosophy” (Chang (Chang, 2005, p. 97).30 This ethos of diversity within a unified form continues to be a basis for the hip-hop DJ’s creative process with the result that each artist’s fragmented identity can be performed through the musical samples they weave into a sonic performance.

This is achieved by taking musical fragments, sought for their sonic qualities (Schloss, 2004) and the historical or communal links they forge (Lena, 2004), and weaving them into a new narrative creation (Snapper, 2004). Turntablists access audience’s memories, “teas[ing] their listeners’ experience of narrative time” (Snapper, 2004, p. 12), by establishing a groove that is manipulated, defying expectations. Snapper (2004) argues that DJs have the ability to disrupt history through a symbolic critique of American “progress” that overlooks the well-being of those who do not, or cannot, participate in what she sees as an imperialist agenda. For DJ Spooky, the fragmentation inherent in turntablism mirrors the fragmentation brought about by the displacement of people that nevertheless results in patois and a collage of identities (Becker et al., 2002), much like the codeswitching evident in some rap lyrics.

Such merging of musical cultures through sampling is evident in the use of Bhangra samples in hip- hop. According to Hankins (2011), Bhangra began to mix with hip-hop styles as it made its way to the UK and was used in daytime discos by youth. Migrations eventually led to US hip-hop artists’ discovery and use of Bhangra samples in their music, at first without any respect for their origins. As Indian music samples were increasingly used, criticism and legal action from the Indian community and its artists raised awareness about the samples’ histories. Hankins notes that what first began as a mutual exchange of sounds and a cursory knowledge of shared resistance discourses has led to a deeper knowledge of shared struggle, thereby strengthening identifications and perceived identities.

This process of identity-building incorporating cross-cultural influences is shown to be important in the expression of Japanese DJs’ national identities. In an interview with Manabe (2013), DJ Krush explains that he originally did not use Japanese sounds in his compositions because he did not grow up listening to them. In his view, this would have been a lie, inconsistent with “keeping it real.” When he collaborated with American rapper, C.L. Smooth, however, his use of the shamisen sound not only served their musical goals, but made him reconsider Japan’s music. Through subsequent research, he gained an understanding of the Japanese aesthetic concept of ma (“space”), which

30 Stoever (2016) highlights the role of women in the development of early DJ’s musical inventories/taste(s) as they were usually the ones at home selecting music to listen to as future DJs, children at the time, heard their mothers’ records. 33 began to inform his compositions. With this new understanding, he proceeded to include sounds evocative of Japanese landscapes, later including the use of live performances on traditional instruments to generate new music.

Contrary to Schloss (2004), Manabe (2013) finds that racial identity does affect social relations and musical perceptions in the DJ community. Schloss mentions the mixed ethnic origins of American DJs, while Manabe suggests that more subtle and complicated dynamics are at play, particularly at international competitions where judges tend to be well-acquainted with each other through social gatherings before and after battles. For those who are not comfortable speaking English or who are more introverted, inclusion in the international network of DJs is more difficult. As there is no set evaluation framework for battle judgments, people may win based on familiarity rather than originality, potentially ignoring the creativity and musically expressed identities of non-English speakers. Surprisingly, Japanese DJs do not sense any ethnic discrimination, explaining that skill is the primary focus. Manabe (2013) argues however, that in order to be recognized, Japanese DJs must perform to a higher standard than their English-speaking counterparts, despite the music “speaking” for itself.

DJs themselves are cited by Katz (2006) and Snapper (2004) as wishing their music were the focus of attention, rather than their gender or ethnicity. To begin with, before the music starts, many female DJs seem invisible as they may not be recognized as the turntablist behind the equipment (Katz, 2012) or are mistaken for singers (Schloss, 2004). And once they are seen, commentary on their image supercedes their music. Another obstacle to musical recognition is females’ alternate perspectives on competition. Snapper (2004) and Katz (2006) suggest that though women do enjoy battling, not all of them do so with the same masculine heroics applauded in male DJs.31 Similar to developments in breaking, DJs who identify as women and/or on the LGBTQ2S+ spectrum have started collectives (e.g. Intersessions in Toronto) that aim to provide education and a more comfortable environment for aspiring DJs of various musical genres who no longer have to rely on male friends for technical knowledge.

2.6.4 Performance identity

The discussion in the preceding section has detailed the ways that emcees, b-boys and b-girls, and DJs perform their identities. These public performances are affected and effected by myriad factors

31 Katz (2006) also suggests that the momentary glory given to male DJs can be significant for those who have been marked as technical “nerds.” This highlights the inherent hierarchies reflected in hip-hop culture practices that inadvertently emphasize one form of marginality over another. 34 interacting in multiple ways during the moment of performance, meant to be received by audiences. This perceived image is what I call performance identity. Davidson (2002) refers to this as a “‘projected self’” (p. 102) publicly presented. This projection also has the potential to open up discussions, including evaluations, of both the performer and the identity they have shown, with a more positive evaluation accorded performers who can both effect an engaging “presentational style, but also…show something of one’s individuality and inner state” (p. 108). In hip-hop, an added imperative is that this performance identity be “real,” true to the artist’s experience, and a testament to their authenticity.

The processes involved in the development of hip-hop performance identities is the overarching object of my narrative inquiry.

2.7 Hip-hop and education

Hip-hop culture was created through an active process, with live performance at its centre. However, with The Sugarhill’s Gang’s discovery and subsequent record release, the music industry recognized the potential for packaging the culture’s music (George, 1998), which would begin to travel and settle across the globe.

This musical migration has been paralleled by cross-cultural migrations as people were uprooted, unwillingly or by choice, from their geographic origins. This circulation of people and of music has created a web of influence, meanings, and uses of hip-hop music that are subsequently performed, read, interpreted, and re-circulated.

Rapidly evolving and increasingly efficient technological means of communication ensure that hip- hop music travels quickly and has an ever-widening reach. This has enabled connections, without geographical root, forged by “an altogether new condition of neighborliness, even with those most distant from ourselves” (Appadurai, 1990, p. 2), expanding “cultural affinities and dialogues” (p. 2). Through this exchange, images (visual or sonic) transmitted via technology cohere in imaginary worlds that are inevitably indigenized when appropriated (p. 5). Appadurai (1990) goes on to explain that global cultural flows have created ideoscapes comprised of intermingling and resisting ideologies that have roots in Enlightenment “ideas and images, including ‘freedom’, ‘welfare’, ‘rights’, ‘sovereignty’, ‘representation’ and the master-term ‘democracy’” (p. 10). These ideoscapes are inevitably fractured by very real reminders that these concepts were built on humanist premises that rationalized the enslavement of colonized and marginalized peoples who did not readily qualify as “human” (Gilroy, 1993). The continuing existence of these ideals amidst socio-economic tides that leave widening disparities between groups, on a global (Grant, 2013, May 14) and local 35

(Hulchanski, 2010)32 level, trouble the communities in which many educators, music educators among them, live and teach.

Student demographics therefore represent a mix of lived and changing influences that challenge the rigid boundaries of essentialized identity markers such as gender, race, ethnicity, class, and religion. As both teachers and students negotiate the dynamics of their relationships, new tools for pedagogic engagement become necessary as difference stubbornly refuses to resolve into the wishful neutrality of school curricula. Patrick Schmidt (2011) acknowledges this inevitability and challenges us to engage with the effects of “race, poverty, violence, self-expression, and economic production....The implication here is not simply fostering politically aware interactions, but a commitment to educating students for the world, for their world and for the transformation of both” (p. 5). Such an agenda is difficult to enact, as teachers’ own experiences and identity markers may distance them from students.33 Such a diverse set of influences can create identity dissonances that surface in the classroom in a variety of expressions and performances – silence, engagement, indifference, violence, dialogue, debate, to name a few. The immediacy of this educational landscape calls for a dialogue with difference that welcomes conflict as a means of forging transformative connections (Abe, 2009; Schmidt, 2012). Hip-hop music, frequently cited as a voice for struggle and resistance (e.g. Barnwell, 2004; Mitchell, 2004; Whiteley, 2004), presents itself as a medium for the representation of identities in which “conflict becomes something not to be managed or dismissed, but rather embraced....Conflict in rap and hip hop is and has always been a form of power manifested in the attempt to ‘connect’ with or address others and ‘ramify’ our own selves” (Schmidt, 2012, p. 10). Importantly, it is a medium that does not dismiss the powerful emotions that can accompany identity dissonances.

This possibility of identity recognition and negotiation in hip-hop culture’s musical practices has led scholars to articulate the idea of hip-hop pedagogy (Bridges, 2011; Hill, 2009; Mahiri, 1998; Pardue, 2007) as a means of accessing students’ experiential knowledge, always represented in a performative realm, in order to devise more relevant curricula (Jackson & Anderson, 2009; Vagi, 2010). The use of hip-hop in this manner implies that understanding identities as shaped by one’s lived experiences is at the core of hip-hop pedagogy. This is substantiated by studies that have illuminated the ways in which students use hip-hop music in their daily lives such that it becomes part of how they understand themselves, others, and the socio-political forces in which they are

32 A report issued by the University of Toronto’s Cities Centre has delineated three income-based “cities” within Toronto with the low-income “city” growing at a much faster rate than the others, accompanied by a shrinking middle class. 33 Rappers frequently express disappointment with the educational system, as seen in Au’s (2005) analysis of rap lyrics. 36 situated (Barnwell, 2004; Dimitriadis, 2009; Hill, 2009). Research in this area has, however, only focused on rap lyrics and artists. Nevertheless, the ability of the music to permeate youth understandings of their cultural milieus has lead educators to use it as a tool for engaging students in classrooms. Hill (2009) articulates, “hip-hop pedagogy...[is] not...a prefigured set of strategies or activities for reaching students through hip-hop culture...Rather, hip-hop pedagogy reflects an alternate, more expansive vision of pedagogy that reconsiders the relationships among students, teachers, texts, school, and the broader social world” (p. 120). In this way, hip-hop pedagogy aims to prepare students for the world as they experience it.

Introducing this pedagogy in classrooms must begin with teacher training, as Bridges (2011) argues. Hip-hop pedagogy in this context would aim to challenge future teachers’ long-held beliefs about teaching philosophies, methods, and the role of schools.

As transformative pedagogy (Abe, 2009), hip-hop is used to critique sociopolitical structures to change and improve communities. Isoke (2012) provides a concrete example of this through the use of a cypher in her university classroom. In her description of the classroom experience, each student is able to create an understanding of how hip-hop culture has shaped their lives. They discuss their, at times, conflicting relationship to hip-hop and its cultural expressions. In the process, issues such as black sexuality, family roles, hip-hop genres, hip-hop history are discussed in a way that does not reference, as much as possible, the perceived authority of experience that the teacher might bring to the classroom.

At the core of these pedagogical applications is the perspective that hip-hop artists’ representations of themselves are indicative of their broader community contexts. Given that students gravitate toward hip-hop expressions, artist representations are seen to resonate with students as they deal with similar situations (in reality or in the abstract). These artists, in effect, perform their identities through chosen representations, which include identity markers that have been discussed and theorized by scholars, particularly those in the field of cultural studies. Understanding the way scholars have interpreted markers of identity in hip-hop performances, as revelatory of artists’ lived experiences, can lead educators to a more engaged and informed critique of hip-hop-based pedagogies.

2.7.1 Hip-hop in music education

As the foregoing literature review shows, hip-hop culture, at its best, values community, identity, transformative knowledge, and sociopolitical critique. It can offer a fighting, expressive stance toward categorizations that marginalize people of colour, women, those who are LGBTQ2S+- 37 identified, the economically disadvantaged, indeed, anyone not readily accepted by dominant societal structures. As a result, it continues to attract youth as they cultivate their own identities. Pedagogical practices may be enriched by exploring the way that hip-hop artists have come to learn within this culture, whose learning spaces are not institutionalized classrooms, but rather public spaces such as community centres, church basements, friends’ basements, or concrete city squares.

Much of the scholarly writing on hip-hop focuses on American conceptualizations. However, hip- hop art forms are practiced around the world, and localized experience, e.g. in the Ukraine (Helbig, 2011), Mexico (Ragland, 2003), and the UK (S. Smith, 2007), is increasingly studied and documented. When I began dissertation research in 2014, no study had yet been found, that focuses on hip-hop artists and culture in Toronto.34

Though scholarship on the subject of hip-hop is broadening and its creative artifacts are increasingly incorporated into school curriculum (usually through the composition and analysis of rap lyrics), not much is known about the learning processes of those directly involved in hip-hop artistic practices whose works serve as the basis for student engagement and inspire hip-hop pedagogies.

In my search for literature, I have only encountered one autobiographical account by Fikentscher (1999) that describes how one might learn to become a DJ. But in recent years, music education scholars have begun explorations into hip-hop musicians’ learning processes. Through a collection of interviews gathered from multiple angles of inquiry, Snell and Söderman (2014) provoke discussions on learning, career trajectories, as well as the burgeoning field of hip-hop studies in the academy. This has been complemented by scholarship that interrogates educator-researcher positionality (Kruse, 2015) to more respectfully navigate the incorporation of hip-hop in music education curriculum (Kruse, 2018a). Kruse (2018b) has also documented first-hand descriptions of hip-hop musicians’ ways of learning as a way to develop teaching and learning techniques more closely aligned with hip-hop culture’s practices.

As we turn to hip-hop culture as a resource, critical reflection is necessary for addressing issues of appropriation. Tobias (2014) cautions, “[I]t is problematic to treat Hip Hop culture and rap music as content that can simply be inserted into a classroom or ensemble….Developing appropriate pedagogies for integrating Hip Hop in music classrooms necessitates an appreciation of the depth and complexity involved in disrupting homogenized narratives” (p. 63), with attention to images

34 Mark V. Campbell (2018b) has illuminated the Toronto hip-hop context through sonic representations by rappers and DJs in an archival exhibit. He also explores this context as part of a broader focus on the Afro-diasporic experience as present in “sonic narrative” (Campbell, 2010, Abstract) form executed by turntablists, particularly as it reveals practices of freedom and notions of home within the politics of multiculturalism. 38 and representations of hip-hop culture that contribute to “misogynoir”35 (Bailey, 2013, p. 35) and denigrate its participants. Music educators should aim to develop pedagogies, curriculum, and strategies based on the knowledge, contributions, and experiences of hip-hop artists directly embedded in the culture. Looking for artists close to home has great potential for enhancing students’ resonance with the music and culture in the communities around them, while juxtaposing local ideas with commercially available hip-hop music.

With my current inquiry, I aim to contribute to the growing body of work in music education by amplifying the voices of hip-hop artists, themselves. Through this emic approach, “rituals, metaphors, and constructs of hip-hop [artists] are starting and ending points of analysis” (Petchauer, 2012, p. 9).36 In this way, I hope their perspectives, situated in their current local contexts, illuminate the processes of musical, artistic development that circulate and re-circulate with hip-hop’s global influence.

35 Bailey explains, “The term is a combination of misogyny, the hatred of women and noir, which means black but also carries film and media connotations. It is the particular amalgamation of anti black racism and misogyny in popular media and culture that targets black trans and cis women” (emphasis in original, 2013: 35).

36 In Hip-hop Culture in College Students' Lives: Elements, Embodiment, and Higher Edutainment, Petchauer (2012) took an emic approach to analysis of data that included interviews with college students involved with hip-hop art forms in order to show how their hip-hop identities were used to navigate their campus lives. This was a conscious attempt to “understand [hip-hop] on its own terms as much as possible” (Petchauer, 2012, p. 9). 39

Chapter 3 Methodology 3 Identity as narrative

Given the performative perspective I take on identity as an iterative process of acts and signifying gestures, narrative inquiry and analysis are well-suited approaches to explore artist performance identity formation.

The creation of storied responses runs in intriguing parallel to the creation of participants’ artist performance identities with narrative, Signifyin(g) gestures mediating recollections of performative acts that signify their artist selves. “[T]hrough this interrelationship between the dramatic event of narrative performance and the narrated events depicted therein…the temporal-sequential character of narrative culminates in the present, in the crescendo of ‘real time,’ rendering the narrative telling into a social action in and of itself” (Noy, 2004, p. 117). What I have the privilege of witnessing as a researcher is a snippet of live, dynamic identity production. Hearing a patchwork of recollections sewn together from a conversation of questions, responses, silences, vocalizations, and non-vocally produced sounds is a micro-view into the ways the social is reflexively incorporated into the self, refashioned, and reflexively authored as elaborations of identity for others to hear/see/read/feel. In this way, narrative inquiry traverses a path alongside questions of identity development and its performed construction.

Given that “we are a living body of gestures and articulations that exist in extensive inter-action with other acting bodies and the products of semiosis….Our notion of self will depend upon our reflective grasp of, and participation in, this network of social communication and praxis” (Kerby, 1997, p. 139). The storying of selves, then, necessarily reveals participants’ social worlds and their attendant socio-political tensions.

3.1 A structure of stories

Identity is narrative – a story that accesses our senses to make the intangible substantial and consequential. Hip-hop culture’s history is a narrative of the culture’s identity – a mosaic of the stories of the Bronx’s people that began in the 1970s. Storytelling pervades hip-hop culture and its many art forms and the use of Signifyin(g) (Gates, 2014) by many hip-hop artists, manifests the oral/aural aspects of a storied heritage. 40

Hip-hop culture is approximately 50 years old, its birthdate dependent on the narrator’s chosen starting point. Some argue that it began with Kool Herc’s first party, while others pin it to the period in which the art forms came together through Afrika Bambaataa’s founding of the Zulu Nation. The telling of hip-hop’s histories is versioned, as recollections by its early participants, many alive today, are told and retold in interviews (in Signified, performative iteration). It is telling that Jeff Chang’s (2005) account of hip-hop’s development is subtitled “A” History of the Hip-Hop Generation, rather than “The” History of the Hip-Hop Generation. It is one account put together from the stories of a certain generation who have a specific view of the culture’s development. Rather than detract from the verity any account, overlapping and differing perspectives tell us something about the richness of experiences that any one story cannot capture. It is a reminder that “[t]ruth is what happens when…cumulative voices fill in the breaks, provide the remixes, and rework the chorus” (Morgan, 1999, p. 26). Hip-hop artists’ stories and artistic creations reveal their personalized versions of the hip-hop story as it merges with their own contexts, adding to the mosaic of the culture’s story, of its identity.

3.1.1 Tell me a story

Through narrative inquiry I gathered stories of learning, knowledge production, and identity. This process provided space for the participant and I, as researcher, to converse toward our understandings of the research purpose. Though describing inquiry directed at the self, Novitz (1997) raises an important point about narrative inquiry in general, “The process is an active one,….What we recall depends in large measure on the sorts of questions we ask, and these, in turn, depend on our purposes in asking them: purposes which do not spring out of thin air, but are, in their turn, shaped by a variety of social influences” (Novitz, 1997, p. 145). My questions and comments as an active listener in this research process are informed by my research purposes and the experiences I bring to moments of inquiry. Participants, in reflecting on my questions and comments, weave responses built on their own purposes and experiences. The result is a “shared narrative construction and reconstruction” (Clandinin & Connelly, 1991, p. 265) that rebuilds, through conversation, our respective identities in relation to hip-hop culture and to academia.

I have chosen to use narrative inquiry as a primary method as it allows individual histories and identities to shape the data and its collection. It also lays bare the ways that my personal interests and the gaps in my knowledge of hip-hop spark the trajectory of participant narratives.

Hip-hop’s history is passed on orally, as DJs, emcees, and breakers improve their skills. This results in debate, depending on one’s experience and location within the history (explored with regard to b- 41 boying/b-girling in Schloss (2009)). Even in Toronto, discussions rage over who created which dance style first. Various spellings of “hip-hop,” as I have encountered them in both academic and popular literature, also illustrate the fluidity of the culture. Personal stories then become essential in the way hip-hop’s history, together with its teaching philosophies, are internalized and passed on in community spaces. “These stories, told and retold, furnish the stock from which individual life narratives can be constructed. In other words, the story of an individual life usually plays off of one or more historically and socially transmitted narratives, which serve as prototypes for the elaboration of personal identity” (Hinchman & Hinchman, 1997, p. xxiii). Narratives elicited through conversational interviews have the potential to more respectfully trace individual-communal relationships. Individual stories will therefore reflect individual negotiation of artistic performance identity within the circulating possibilities in Toronto’s hip-hop community.

3.1.2 Ethnographic techniques

Ethnography has proven, particularly in Schloss’s (2004, 2009) work, to provide an immersive experience for the researcher-participant in hip-hop culture. Ethnographic techniques, including observations, informal conversations, and artifacts (e.g. forum posts, event flyers, photographs, and videos pertaining to the events, places and people mentioned by my participants), situate the gathered narratives in its broader context. Data gathered in this manner allows me to “study music in its social context, to consider the nuances and inflections of musical sharing, the shaping of musical values and the nurturing of musical attitudes and the nature of the experience which attends the practice and performance of music” (Bannister, 1992, p. 134). Since community engagement, social interaction, and musical expression have always been a key feature of hip-hop, ethnographic techniques seem particularly suited to my study, allowing for both an insider and outsider view through its reliance on participant observation. The intent is not to generalize about hip-hop learning practices in Toronto, but rather to understand the social backdrop within which individual experiences, retold as narratives, take place.

3.2 Method

3.2.1 Recruitment

Twelve hip-hop artists – b-boys and b-girls, rappers/emcees, and DJs – were contacted in December 2013, January and February 2014 and October 2015 to see if they would be interested in being interviewed. I began the recruitment process by sending Facebook messages to four breakers I personally knew. Two of them referred me to two other artists. Most of the emcees I contacted were part of a collective called 1st Ladies of the Rebellion who performed at one of Toronto’s biggest hip- 42 hop festivals, Manifesto, in 2013. Two of the emcees I finally interviewed were not part of this group. One, whose music I’ve listened to, both recorded and live, was referred to me, unexpectedly, by my dental hygienist. That emcee connected me to a DJ whose work I thoroughly enjoyed. The other emcee was mentioned a few times by participants I had interviewed earlier. Only one artist didn’t respond. The rest were interested in being interviewed.

3.2.2 Interviews

Interviews were conducted in two stages. Each interview session lasted an hour and 15 minutes on average. Stage 2 interviews took place over two hours. Interviews took place between February 2014 and August 2016.

Stage 1 Interviews

The purpose of the first stage was to understand the Toronto hip-hop scene and the communities that are part of it. Out of the group of 12 interested artists, three breakers, three emcees/rappers, and three DJs (9 participants) were interviewed for Stage 1. The first three artists from each art form who responded to my interview request became participants. These interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed.

Stage 2 Interviews

Out of the nine Stage 1 participants, three (one DJ, one breaker, and one emcee) who were particularly responsive to the idea of storytelling, and with whom initial conversations yielded further questions that could produce rich texts, became the focus of my narrative study and therefore participants in Stage 2 interviews.

Transcribed Stage 1 interviews with these Stage 2 participants were returned to them for comment, verification, additions, and retractions. These transcriptions also served as points of conversation for Stage 2 interviews.

During Stage 2 interviews, participants were asked questions that encouraged reflection on the confluence of their life experiences and artistic practices as they storied their artistic development. These in-depth interviews were audio recorded, transcribed, and returned to the three participants for comment, verification, additions, and retractions.

The interview data gathered was complemented by online research of publicly available information about each artist, including photographs, biographies, interviews, videos, and music, sourced from 43 websites and social media (between 2014 and 2018). Wherever possible, I attended artist performances and any hip-hop events.

3.3 Analysis and interpretation

Interviews from Stage 1 were used to detail the chapter on Toronto’s hip-hop scene (Chapter 4). The patchwork of details is not meant to provide a history of Toronto hip-hop, but puts together information about Toronto hip-hop as passed on to me through participants’ stories. This is the backdrop for the re-storied, and therefore analyzed and interpreted, narratives presented in Chapters 5, 6, and 7.

The interview data gathered from Stage 2 participants became the primary objects of analysis and interpretation. Necessarily, this data included the information they provided in the first stage of the process.

3.3.1 Re-storying and thematic analysis

An important feature of narrative research is the process of re-storying participants’ accounts in a way that responds to research questions and creates the research text. Allowing artist voices primary importance in my project posed challenges to the (re)presentation of their interview responses as narrative texts in the following chapters. As I had hoped, artists did more than just answer my questions. I was privileged to hear aspects of their life stories that allowed me a glimpse into the background histories from which their performance identities emerge. These life stories were, however, not always easy to fit into the trajectory of my research questions, but were nevertheless of obvious importance to artists. This was evident through the emotions that accompanied their telling, the vocal emphasis they placed on events, or the repeated allusions made. Wherever these shorter, enriching glimpses occurred, they are represented in the chapters as “snapshots” and italicized.

Thematic analysis allowed me to categorize interview data under labels that pertain to my research sub-questions and to determine “snapshots.” The focus of this stage in the re-storying process was the content of artists’ stories as they provided much of ‘who-what-when-where’ answers that some of my research questions sought. Theme labels are not the same across the three narrative texts, despite being closely related, as each artist’s interviews showed obvious nuances that reflected their specific learning and performance identity development trajectories.

In creating these narrative texts, I eschewed a primarily chronological approach to organizing events, and instead ordered the data in a way that provides the reader the necessary information at the right time for understanding the narrative text. This manner of arranging data also allowed me to 44 make transparent the ways that my understandings came together – at times, in the disjunct fashion that the theme labels (represented as subheadings in the narrative chapters) help clarify, as well as through snapshots. This arrangement also makes more apparent the ways in which memories, told as stories, zoom in and out of view, so to speak, and are pulled from different, non-chronological time periods, depending on the points being made about the speaker’s current sense of identity.

I decided to quote artists at length in my re-storying as their manner of speech, captured as best I could through pauses, parenthetical sound effects, and descriptions of emotional cues, in order to provoke a sound image (and perhaps a visual one) in readers. My interjections are included wherever I perceived them to have influenced the trajectory of the conversation, but are otherwise left out. I did not correct sentence structures or styles of speech to make stories grammatically correct. Styles of speech, evident through repetitions of phrases, add to the dynamism of the moment and are not mistakes. In fact, these characteristics at times served to index37 place and belonging, pointing to contexts and meanings with which they are associated (De Fina & Georgakopoulou, 2012).

3.3.2 Dialogic/Performance analysis

Once the interview data were analyzed for important events/stories and themes and finally re- storied, the resulting narrative texts were analyzed against the backdrop of Butler’s performative view of identity and Henry Louis Gates, Jr.’s literary theory of Signifyin(g). These theoretical lenses are at play in my dialogic/performance analysis of narrative texts, which is enclosed in textboxes throughout Chapters 5 through 7 and marked “DPA.” I have also included quotations from Stage 1 participants, signaled by a font change (Calibri), in order to show the broader circulation of related ideas. These provide context and allow a glimpse into the interactions between narratives within communities. Through this process, I am able to discover “how talk among speakers is interactively (dialogically) produced and performed as narrative” (Riessman, 2008, p. 105). Attending to language, form, contexts, and audience, I gain a deeper understanding of the identities spoken and speaking in the interview moment. My own perspectives, assumptions, and biases can also be more honestly depicted. The goal is to reveal both the performative aspects of artists’ identities as well as their intentional, creative revisions.

37 See De Fina and Georgakopoulou (2012), Chapter 6, Analyzing Narrative: Discourse and Sociolinguistic Perspectives, for a discussion of “indexicality.” 45

Chapter 4 Hip-hop in the T-Dot 4 From Tdot Odot to The 6

The artists I interviewed for this project range in age from their early 20s to their early 40s. As a result, the perspectives and pieces of Toronto’s hip-hop story are presented from a spectrum of times, places, and learning and career stages, not necessarily continuous. I used participant recollections as starting points for further research, gathering this additional information from publicly available online media, i.e. videos, online magazine articles, and blog posts featuring interviews of hip-hop artists, publicly available during my data collection period (late 2013 to 2018). During this time, no comprehensive resource existed on the development of hip-hop culture in Toronto.38 A search of Toronto documentaries and magazine articles quickly revealed that Toronto’s hip-hop culture, through hip-hop’s art forms was starting to get media attention by the mid- to late-1980s.

This is not a comprehensive Toronto hip-hop history as I have sewn pieces of this story from my interviews of only a few individuals. Nevertheless, the following descriptions provided a basis for contextualizing the narratives presented in Chapters 5 through 7. Many of the artists interviewed know each other personally, or have, at the very least, heard or seen each other’s work.

4.1 Golden Era

Toronto in the mid-1990s was a hub of hip-hop activity. As DJ Dopey, 2003 DMC World Champion, put it, “Toronto was the place to be if you wanted to […] put your name up there and […] do the proper parties” (J. Santiago, personal communication, March 24, 2014). And Checkmate, one of the Vancouver emcees on the “Northern Touch” track that put Canadian hip- hop on the map, agrees, “There was no hip-hop scene anywhere but Toronto” (Goh, 2018). The elements of breaking, rapping, DJing, and graffiti writing were developing amidst personal connections between today’s important figures in Toronto hip-hop history who were, back then, just learning the ins and outs of their art form and discovering the vibrant culture that mixtapes and VHS tapes were revealing. These recordings were brought to Toronto primarily by friends and family visiting from the U.S.

38 In September 2018, Mark V. Campbell published, Everything Remains Raw, an archival collection depicting Toronto hip- hop, particularly rap and DJing, through its infancy in the 1980s. This followed an exhibit at the McMichael Art Gallery of material collected at nshharchive.ca and curated for the Gallery. 46

Toronto’s multi-cultural mix, however, likely effected variedly mediated information. B-boy Benzo, from legendary B-boy Crew, Bag of Trix, recalls his brother coming back from Barbados, “with this NYC mentality of being a b-boy and he was like, […] ‘This is the dance that everybody’s […] doing.’ He’s like, ‘That record you’re listening to, that’s how you dance to that record.’” He also points out the European influence on his style of dance, “We used to get VHS tapes of Maurizio, Storm, like Battle Squad and […] even Toughton and Twist from England, and...I can go on with the older guys from […] the Europe scene. We used to get their tapes. Now, when you put it a VHS tape that’s from overseas, it doesn’t play at the same speed. It actually plays faster. […] So we get these tapes and we’d be like, “Yo! This guy’s flying!,” like windmills at a hundred miles per hour! We’re like, “I’ve gotta do that!” (C. Daniel, personal communication, March 13, 2014). Hip-hop was already being remixed through its transport around the globe.

High schools and hip-hop-minded youth played an important role in Toronto hip-hop’s early development. MC Abdominal (Abs) was drawn to the sound of rap and as he began writing rhymes, he drew encouragement from the success of rapper, Thrust, an older student at his high school, Northern Secondary (A. Bernstein, personal communication, February 13, 2014). DJ Dopey was surrounded by peers from Father Michael Goetz Secondary School in Mississauga, a short drive from Toronto, who all took an interest in turntablism. This group of friends helped each other and gave honest feedback that pushed all of them to develop their skills (J. Santiago, personal communication, March 24, 2014). B-boy Benzo recalls that Michie Mee, the first Canadian rapper to sign with a major American record label,39 would emcee at his high school dance; DJX played, Cougar and Blass (Maestro Fresh Wes’s) dancers would come to dance – Weston Collegiate was the place to be and even students from nearby Mississauga and Brampton knew it (C. Daniel, personal communication, March 13, 2014).

For these eager young students of hip-hop, learning and practicing art forms was done in isolation and in small peer groups. Fortuitous encounters with artists who were starting to gain recognition generated excitement and visions of possibility.

Abdominal recalls working as a busboy at a restaurant called Studebaker’s when he was 18 years old. One of the chefs was DJ DTS from CIUT’s Masterplan Show who gave him sound advice when Abs handed him a cassette tape that he and DJ Serious40 made, pretending it was “a friend’s.” He

39 For more on Michie Mee, visit (Michie Mee, n.d.), (Mee, 2016).

40 DJ Serious has been making music for over 20 years and has produced for both hip-hop and rock acts (DJ Serious, n.d.). He was nominated for a Juno Award in 2001 for the album “Dim Sum.” (The Juno Awards, n.d.). 47 was told, “You gotta tell your ‘friend’ that these rhyme flows are terrible…He needs to go […] listen to some EPMD and stuff and write down the lyrics and study their rhyme patterns and hit the drawing board.” The next step was performing. “[T]here was scenes in Scarborough, with like, the huge Monolith Crew, Dan-e-o, […], there was guys in the West end…so there’s lots of stuff bubbling, but it was all over, so really, like the only way to hear and see what was going on and to connect with people was to go out to shows […] So that was, you know, that’s also how you got better” (A. Bernstein, personal communication, February 13, 2014).

Abs recalls a particularly memorable event at Industry Night Club where all his rap heroes and big names, like Kardinal Offishall and Monolith Crew, were in the audience with hundreds who came to see the show. He and D-Sisive were on the list of performers, but they kept getting pushed back. Abs was so frustrated that by the time his turn came around, his pent-up energy was channeled into “one of the best freestyles of [his] life and the whole place was going bananas” (A. Bernstein, personal communication, February 13, 2014). It made the audience take notice.

Parties were another a place to observe, learn, and gain exposure. Both Benzo and Dopey recall the parties that Ivan and Junior of 2 Swift Household threw. Benzo credits them with involving many Filipinos41 in Toronto’s hip-hop scene, while Dopey, himself Filipino, saw these parties as an opportunity to understand the live DJ context. It was also a time for learning about other DJs, like Turnstylez Crew, whose DJs were already gaining recognition as skilled turntablists.

4.1.1 Rewind

Rap, Radio, and Records

Though there isn’t a particular year cited as the birth of Toronto hip-hop, documentation provided by video clips, documentaries, and magazine and newspaper interviews of its early participants show that its art forms were already developing by the mid-1980s.

Rap, then as now, was representative of the culture in popular media, and most references to early Toronto hip-hop pertain primarily to its lively, passionate rap history. Developing artists of the 1980s were spurred and inspired by hip-hop sounds coming from the U.S. and broadcast through influential college and university radio station DJs and their programs.

41 The term “Filipino” has generally referred to both men and women. No mention of Filipina artists was made throughout the interview process but, having been on the periphery of the burgeoning hip-hop scene in Mississauga, specifically, at my former high school Father Michael Goetz Secondary School, I readily observed hip-hop’s (and R&B’s) popularity among Filipinas as well. 48

Ron Nelson’s “Fantastic Voyage” at Ryerson University’s42 88.1 CKLN was the first hip-hop radio show in Toronto. Running for three hours on Saturday mornings, it allowed Toronto listeners an aural experience that no other media outlets were providing. Nelson expanded his role as DJ to promoter of Toronto hip-hop concerts that gave exposure to young Canadian talent, and connected them to Toronto’s hip-hop fans (Anderson, 2017; Duncan, 2018; Ritchie, 2017). It also drew American acts to Toronto. Michie Mee recalls a 1987 rap battle against Sugar Love from New York at the Concert Hall, a Nelson-promoted show, in which she won the crowd over: “Winning at the Concert Hall really let them know I could battle any American. It let them know I’m Jamaican and I’m Canadian. There was nothing to fear. And female artists are here to stay – all from that one show” (Ritchie, 2017; WorldWide Entertainment TVWWETV, 2009). A little-known fact, according to MC Thrust, is that “Toronto, at the start, was known for female rappers, like, it was crazy. We had so many female rappers, when I was comin’ up, I was like, ‘should I even rap?’ I’m just being funny, but, on the real tip, like, it was crazy. It was real crazy!” (Thrust & Big Tweeze, 2017b). DJX concurs, explaining that Michie Mee was more requested than Maestro Fresh Wes was. She was also “cool,” in a way that Maestro wasn’t and was getting respect from well-known New York City rap personalities and radio stations (Thrust & Big Tweeze, 2017a). Toronto DJs of that era had a perspective on the unfolding story that no one else has.

Also in the 1980s, York University housed CHRY 105.5, where Dave Clarke, a.k.a. DTS, got his start and was challenged to do better by fellow DJ, Malik X. So, when an opportunity came along to apply to host a show at the University of Toronto’s CIUT 89.5, he and friend, John Bronski proposed a hip-hop show. Their proposal was accepted. At CIUT, they eventually teamed up with other DJs, Wendy “Motion” Braithwaite43 and DJ Power to launch Toronto’s longest running hip- hop show, “Masterplan” (Davis, 2004), which is still going strong. It was also the first hip-hop show in Canada to have a female host.

CHRY also carried DJ Mastermind’s show, in the 1980s. Mastermind (Paul Parhar) got his start after one of his mix tapes was heard on “Fantastic Voyage” on CKLN. He was also part of Ron Nelson’s concert promoting street team and got his DJ name once Nelson recognized his ability to recall details about every rap record. Mastermind’s show was the second hip-hop show in the city (DJ Bill Cool & Diggy the DJ, 2018; Pastuk, 2015b). By the 1990s, CHRY was home to “Strait

42 At the time, it was called Ryerson Polytechnic Institute. The school was granted full university status in 1993.

43 Braithwaite was a youth activist with Unity Force, a group formed to educate Black youth in Toronto (Drummond, 2018) 49

Frum Da Undaground,” with DJ Grouch,44 who would later form Turnstylez Crew with battle rival, D-Scratch, and Lil’ Jaz. Together and individually, they would go on to win international competitions, collaborate with renowned artists and influence up-and-coming ones (DJ Grouch, n.d.).

Motion (Motion, 2018) describes the role of college/university radio stations:

Through the power of the airwaves, The Masterplan gave us the platform to centre Toronto – T-dot – as an identity. Many of us running shows on the trilogy of college radio stations – CIUT 89.5 FM, CKLN 88.1 FM, and CHRY 105.5 FM – were first generations born of migration or transplanted in the Northside, changing the face, sound, and culture of both the city and “O Canada.” The show was audible affirmation: through the music, so-called ‘minorities’ could become the mass…the show constantly sounded the clarion call to “Stand up and be identified!”

These stations were particularly important and influential as Toronto would not have a commercial rap (labelled “urban”) radio show until FLOW 93.5’s appearance in 2001 (DJ Bill Cool & Diggy the DJ, 2018; Thrust & Big Tweeze, 2017a; Weekes, 2015).

Non-commercial radio DJs also played a role in the development of Toronto’s turntablists. Not only were they sources of Black music history, new American hip-hop releases, and promoters of Canadian talent, they also provided a broader platform for turntablists to be heard. Adrien King, DJX (who was also part of Nelson’s street promotion team), began as a turntablist, gaining recognition through renowned competitions, like the DMC (Disco Mix Club). Mastermind invited him to DJ on his show on CHRY, but after their “egos clashed,” DJX called Nelson who then invited him to come on “Fantastic Voyage” (Thrust & Big Tweeze, 2017a). Eventually, Nelson gave DJX his show spot, advising him to rename it and make it his own. “Power Move” ran from 1989 to 2001 (A. King, 2015) and would eventually provide on-air time to Mastermind after he was fired from CHRY (Thrust & Big Tweeze, 2017a). DJX was of the same generation as DJ Power, also a turntablist, from “Masterplan” on CIUT, who was also winning DJ battles. The interaction between hip-hop personalities on these shows was representative of the percolating creative energy that came together through the elements of hip-hop at school and house parties, concerts, and battles.

44 In 2015, Grouch joined Los Poetas, a Latinx hip-hop group that showcases “music and poetry brought as gifts from immigrants and refugees” (Los Poetas, n.d.). 50

These turntablists inspired and influenced many future DJs, turntablists, and producers, like DJ Grouch who would come to host “Strait Frum Da Undaground” on CHRY in 1993. Grouch would go on to win championships himself and become inspiration for future DJs, like DMC World Champion, DJ Dopey.

Space and Sound

Nourished by the new sounds of their neighbours to the south and of preceding Black music influences on these radio airwaves, Toronto hip-hop heads were stirring up an aural concoction of old and new homelands and making space for Toronto sound. In late 1980s and 1990s Toronto, the sound was West Indian (primarily Jamaican) identified through generous doses of reggae and increasingly popular dancehall, attracting Toronto’s Caribbean youth to The Concert Hall to hear Toronto rap. Ritchie’s (2017) article gathers memories from key participants of that era. They recall an atmosphere of raw excitement as artists from hip-hop’s mecca,45 New York City, came up to celebrate and battle Toronto’s hottest rappers. CKLN’s Ron Nelson led the way and brought Public Enemy, Boogie Down Productions (BDP), Roxanne Shanté, Salt-N-Pepa, Eric B. & Rakim, Ice Cube and Queen Latifah to Toronto. Nelson promoted shows on the streets, and MC Thrust remembers, “We had a grid of the whole city and went from the east end to the west end. We met up downtown to get flyers and hit every major bus stop where high school kids were (Ritchie, 2017). King Lou of the Dream Warriors reminisces, “The Concert Hall became the ideology of growth for people in project neighbourhoods. That’s where we all went to meet other people like us from other environments.” He adds, “Once you went there, you knew right off the bat where certain guys were from. A downtown person, that’s different from a Scarborough person, that’s different from a west- end person” (Ritchie, 2017), the same areas where hip-hop scenes would “bubble,” as Abdominal described (A. Bernstein, personal communication, February 13, 2014). Capital Q from Canadian rap group, Dream Warriors, also described dance battles that would take place on the floor, particularly if a neighbourhood battle took place before a show. The Concert Hall was the place to listen, dance, meet people, sell and wear fashion, and be recognized. As Kardinal Offishall (Kardi) put it, “The Choclairs, the Socrateses, Kardinals – we were influenced by Concert Hall in an aspirational way. You lived your life hoping one day you’d be able to rock that stage” (Ritchie, 2017).

45 New York is often referred to as hip-hop’s “mecca,” i.e. the birthplace of hip-hop. A closer examination of the relationship between Islam and hip-hop shows that “mecca” connotes a deeper engagement with Islam as evidenced both by rappers’ lyrics and their personal connections to the Nation of Islam (especially the Five Percenters) (Alim, 2006; McMurray, 2008; Miyakawa, 2005). 51

It was the blend of reggae, dancehall, and hip-hop that made Toronto’s sound unique, unabashedly declared in Michie Mee’s use of Jamaican patois that has influenced Toronto hip-hop from Kardi, the Dream Warriors, to Drake. In this tradition, Toronto’s hip-hop artists revel in the mix of immigrant influences, revising its hip-hop culture with each wave.

The Break

Breaking (or breakdancing as it is called in mainstream media) was blowing up in Toronto in the early 1980s, made popular through US movies,46 music videos, and commercials. There is currently no comprehensive resource on the history of breaking in Toronto, nor of Canada, a fact lamented by B-boy Benzo from Bag of Trix who only learned of Ottawa breaking crew, Canadian Floormasters 12 years after their formation in 1984:

[be]cause we weren’t exposed to it and a lotta the radio stations and TV stations, they weren’t tryina show us any of that stuff. They were, they were like, trying to keep all that stuff out of Canada at that time. Saying all that, who knew Canadian Floormasters47 […] was doin’ all of this while most of us where like, learning off of Beat Street? (C. Daniel, personal communication, March 13, 2014)

Robin “Rocabye” Coltez has begun documenting Toronto’s hip-hop dance history through first- person accounts. He released a 10-minute documentary (2012) highlighting interviews with some of Toronto’s b-boys between 1983 and 1985. According to Dale Sammy from Cold Crush crew, “racism was rampant” at the time, but crews became an “amalgamation” of Guyanese and Eastern Europeans, inspired in part by Sunday kung-fu movies on TV and images of hip-hop broadcast from the US. He adds, “As much as we were rebellin’ being hip-hop, we were also becoming a part of a society by being hip-hop. That was our identity” (Coltez, 2012). As practitioners of a new dance style in Toronto, “funkers,” as Dizzy from Magnetic Rockers remembers being called, were made fun of, their music disliked and misunderstood. Nevertheless, breaking was spreading and every area and every school had a crew.

46 The movies Wild Style (1983), Beat Street (1984), and Flashdance (1983) are frequently cited as inspirational by many b- boys and b-girls that I have met in Toronto.

47 Canadian Floor Masters is Canada’s original break dance crew, founded in 1983. Co-founder, Stephen Leafloor, aka Buddha ("Stephen Leafloor," 2019) founded Blueprint for Life, “a hip-hop outreach program that focuses on Canada’s youth prisons and First Nations communities” (Strombo.com, 2013). 52

By 1985, however, breaking seemed to die out, as a new genre of popular hip-hop music (e.g. by Kid ‘n’ Play, according to Sammy in Coltez (2012)) brought with it new dance styles. A similar phenomenon happened in Europe (DJ Renegade, 2015; Robitzky, n.d.). The years between 1986 to the early 1990s coincide with the rise of hip-hop dancers who came to accompany rap artists, mixing freestyled movements with choreographed steps (DJ Renegade, 2015; mauludSADIQ, 2015), some of which were popularized as club or party dances (DJ Renegade, 2015). Rather than dancing to break beats, these dancers grooved to full rap songs, inspiring the next generation of Toronto breakers who added these new visuals to those passed down on earlier video recordings and from inspirational European b-boys like Storm (Battle Squad crew), and Maurizio. B-boy Benzo specifically cites freestyle hip-hop dancers who inspired his own movement: Fendi (with EPMD), Scoob and Scrap (With Big Daddy Kane) and Moptop (C. Daniel, personal communication, March 13, 2014).

The near disappearance of breaking between 1985 and 1990 and its percolation through rap, turntablism, and music production developments in Toronto, need further research. Nevertheless, by 1990, hip-hop in Toronto was catching mainstream media attention. The Masterplan and Fantastic Voyage radio shows had built excitement for Ron Nelson’s shows, and DJ Grouch’s Strait Frum Da Undaground was getting started. Michee Mee had been introduced by Scott La Rock and KRS- One48 on her track “Elements of Style” (1987), making the US and the rest of Canada begin to take notice of Toronto’s hip-hop scene. Soon after, Maestro Fresh Wes’s “Let your Backbone Slide” (1989)49 became a hit. This latter and Michie Mee’s “Jamaican Funk,” released in 1991 featured the freestyle hip-hop dance that had become popular in rap videos. Through all this, the new generation of b-boys and b-girls, inspired as young children by earlier hip-hop movies (i.e. Beat Street, Wild Style, Flashdance) were growing into teenagers while listening to hip-hop gradually being broadcast on Toronto’s airwaves and travelling between friends’ and relatives’ hands.

4.2 Toronto style: Sound and motion

Artists continue to talk about Toronto’s multicultural mix as creating its unique sound and dance style, “a testament to Toronto’s unique cultural diversity: the city’s population is about 50 percent foreign born, with immigrant communities from countries like Jamaica, the Philippines, India, and many others. To be influenced by Toronto, in other words, is to be influenced by cultures from all

48 Founders of Boogie Down Productions together with Derrick “D-Nice” Jones in New York City ("Boogie Down Productions," n.d.).

49 Maestro won the first Rap Recording of the Year Juno Award in 1991 (Del Cowie, 2018). 53 over the world” (Neyfakh, 2015). Barker (2018) adds, “if any city shouldn’t have an easily pigeonholed sound, it’s Toronto. One of the most diverse cities in the Western Hemisphere, the Toronto hip-hop scene is likewise a rainbow coalition of ethnicities…all making their presence felt, introducing new sounds and textures to mainstream hip-hop’s sonic landscape.” Kardinal Offishall gives credit to Drake and the Weeknd for promoting Toronto and “being Canadian-centric, that’s starting to be more and more a part of who they are as artists. At the end of the day, that’s what it’s all about. That’s what myself and the people that came before me, I think that’s what we always wanted” (Kardinal Offishall, 2015). But while Toronto’s hip-hop artists proudly proclaim their roots and present place through music, dance, and visual art, the city’s curatorial propensities lean toward stereotypically white, western productions:

Black music, and black art, like black people are undervalued in Canada, and here we are back to the question of value.

Cultural curators that belong primarily to one culture are harvesting and curating a cultural space that is increasingly multicultural and multi-genre, but the influence of these cultures and genres is largely superficial though their stories fit into the multicultural rhetoric of Canada. For instance, hip-hop in Toronto may be “diverse” but is disproportionately controlled and curated by non-blacks. Cultural curators build cultural capital by using the power and privilege that they receive from their own socio-political position to amass this cultural capital and often intentionally hoard or neglect to share their power, privilege and/or profit with the communities they appropriate from. Some of them, like many of us, are aware of the processes of marginalization that keep people away from decision-making but remain mostly silent on the subject. Assumptions about advertising revenue, a small mostly homogeneous business class, and some willful blindness on the part of seemingly progressive cultural curators exacerbate this unfortunate situation. All of this may be seen as an example of institutional racism that values a particular Canadian experience over all other Canadian cultural experiences. There is a hierarchy of power, a hierarchy of privilege and a hierarchy of opportunity and access. If Canada’s independent rock community experienced the same limited investment and marginalization in its infancy I’m not sure that we would have a thriving indie and alternative rock culture either. This is about value. (Kamau, 2015)

Though artists were claiming a Canadian, hip-hop identity, Toronto did not have a commercial radio station dedicated to hip-hop until FLOW 93.5 went on air in 2001. Toronto, and indeed the rest of Canada, did not readily acknowledge the talent, and by extension, the youth, proudly laying 54 claim to Toronto, and Canada, as sites of cultural expression, artistic creation, and hip-hop identity. It took three attempts, the first in 1990, by Milestone Radio Inc., Canada’s first black-owned and operated broadcast company, before a radio license was granted (Clarke, 2013; Weekes, 2015). Though the “commercial” quality of FLOW meant DJs couldn’t promote whatever they wanted, it was a welcome avenue for many of Toronto’s Black music devotees. Unfortunately, the station format changed to become a Top 40, dance beat-oriented platform when it was sold to CHUM Radio in 2011 (Infantry, 2011; Thrust & Big Tweeze, 2017a; Weekes, 2015), despite consistently high listener ratings.

The Juno Awards also continue to face criticism for not giving due, deserved, acknowledgement to Canadian hip-hop artists (Kennedy, 2017). Vancouver’s Rascalz declined their Juno for Best Rap Recording in 1998 to protest the absence of rap, reggae and dance in the televised portion of the awards show (CBC Editorial Staff, 2018; Del Cowie, 2018; McBride, 2014). The Best Rap Recording Award was televised in 1999, but not again until 2011, when Drake hosted the show but did not win a single award. In 2018, the Rascalz, Checkmate, Thrust, Choclair, and Kardinal Offishall performed “Northern Touch,” on the Junos, but by then, hip-hop artists had found other avenues for gaining recognition (Ashley, 2018; Campbell, 2018a).

4.3 T-dot becomes The 6

Online music and outlets like Soundcloud and YouTube now play an important role in allowing hip- hop artists to gain a fan following worldwide. Regardless, today, as in Toronto’s early hip-hop days, artists need to be recognized Stateside by renowned American artists to eventually be signed to a reputable label that will launch their careers.

Drake did just that by being introduced to J Prince, who then introduced him to Lil Wayne (Pastuk, 2015a), who signed him on to his label, Young Money Records (Reid, 2009). It seems Drake took Mastermind’s advice when they met years ago: that he needs to leave Toronto to start his career, then come back, and Toronto will pay attention (DJ Bill Cool & Diggy the DJ, 2018). Drake has come to signify Toronto such that the city is no longer nicknamed “T-dot,”50 a name cemented by Kardinal Offishall, but “The 6,” first uttered by rapper Jimmy Prime and popularized by Drake on his album, “Views.” Drake’s success has included his launch of OVO Sound, which some argue

50 “T-dot” is short for “Tdot Odot,” (i.e. Toronto, Ontario frequently abbreviated “T.O.”). K4CE, known as a hip-hop “impresario” (McAndrew, 2010) and “legend” (Higgins, 2015) first used the term in lyrics to shorten the frequently seen, “T.O.” (Higgins, 2015). Kardinal popularized it on his track, “Bakardi Slang” (KardinalOffishall416, 2001). 55 allows emerging talents from the city to be more easily recognized (Barker, 2018); but as Tory Lanez explains, “I haven’t had a chance to have my teammates with me. On XO they got Weeknd, Nav, Belly. You’ve got OVO with Drake, Party, everyone. They’ve got teams. I’ve just been out here by myself, like yo, running through the jungle” (Barker, 2018).

Commercial radio’s focus on big name hip-hop acts continues to make the path to success difficult for Toronto artists (Thrust & Big Tweeze, 2017a) whose music continues to remain “underground,” played through online platforms and college and university radio stations. This has lead MC Skyboxx to observe that “the fans are not really supportive as they could be. […] [T]here are a lotta good artists in Toronto, but if you go to shows, you don’t see a lotta people watching, you know. You don’t see a lotta people coming out and showing support. Whereas like, if we have other people coming in, […] the crowd is bigger” (MC Skyboxx, personal communication, March 6, 2014). In her view, contrary to popular news outlets’ declarations of a “Toronto sound,” the city hasn’t defined itself yet.

This may not necessarily be a detriment. Small artist communities throughout the city offer support, challenge, and loyalty, growing Toronto hip-hop culture just under the commercial radar. The original ethos of grassroots art that accompanied hip-hop culture’s early history is deeply felt by the artists I interviewed. Importantly, the current culture’s rootedness at the intersection of place and time is announced every time someone calls Toronto, “T-dot” or “The 6,” a claim to the city by a “minority” demographic, that recalls people and their generation of experience; names adopted by the wider population largely unaware of the histories that gave Toronto its hip-hop names.

4.4 Where we’re at

Toronto hip-hop culture lives in the web of commercial and non-commercial forces. Local artists are community-grown, as evidenced by artists’ citations of practice sessions, open mics, jams, clubs, and battle venues. Students of hip-hop can be placed within generations, according to the spaces they frequented and where they honed their skills.

For MC Abdominal and his contemporaries, Freestyle nights at The Weave were memorable, while Planet Mars, run by Planet P in the mid-1990s on College St. was the place to hear, be heard, and be challenged (A. Bernstein, personal communication, February 13, 2014). Recordings from this 56 location, featuring acts such as, Choclair, Solitair, Kardinal Offishall, are now considered legendary artifacts.51

Today’s up-and-coming emcees have other outlets. Skyboxx considers RISE Poetry Mondays in Scarborough, just north of Toronto’s centre

a safe place, like, you could go in […] with your flaws, and people will still observe and take you in and appreciate you. Like, you still get a good love for whatever you do. Like, you’re accepted no matter what, and they have a platform for anyone who comes out. And you just, […] be free and do you, you know what I mean? It’s a good place for like, up and coming artists like myself to just go and test out the latest craft that you created, you know what I mean, and see what responses you get from the people. And um…yeah, I’ve […] seen so much growth at RISE […]. [T]he response I get there makes me more comfortable to go out and share with other places. (MC Skyboxx, personal communication, March 6, 2014)

For b-boys and b-girls, practice sessions throughout the Greater Toronto Area continue to be spaces to learn from more experienced dancers while training with newcomers. Sessions are run by fellow dancers and crews, e.g. in the early 2000s, Benzo from Bag of Trix ran practices at what we called, “The Grange,” i.e. University Settlement Community Centre beside OCAD University; Drops from Supernaturalz (and previously, Drunken Monks) ran them at Cat’s Eye, Victoria College at the University of Toronto; Doogie and Debo ran Clown Hall at a warehouse on Broadview Avenue.

Dancers would then go out to clubs and listen to DJs like Serious (Gypsy Co-op),52 Fase (“Footwork” at Andy Poolhall, NASA) (Slootsky, 2007), General Eclectic, and Jason Palma (“Footprints” at the Rivoli), while mingling with other “street” dancers. Una Mas (Perlich, 2000) was mentioned frequently during my early years of learning to b-girl, and came up again during my interviews. B-boy Handlez, who is also known as DJ Andy B Bad, recalls the club fondly:

Una Mas was like my first introduction to like…cause there’s b-boying, you know and like competitions, but then you could still b-boy at parties, and my first like example of that was at Una Mas ‘cause it was more of like, they played hip-hop and house. So like when hip-hop was playing people was breaking, and then when house was playing, people were housing

51 Planet Mars brought together hip-hop artistic elements but became known for its rap sessions (Officer, 2009; “Planet Mars,” n.d.).

52 See discussions on these club nights in Perlich (2000); Slootsky (2007); Villeneuve (2016). 57

it’s just like, but everyone’s partying. […] yeah there were battles but it’s not, like about a competition, you know, it’s just like, they’re goin’ at each [other] so I’m like, “Yo, this is, this is sick.” (A. James, personal communication, March 16, 2014)

B-boy Jazzy Jester agrees and recalls the full line-up of Toronto’s seminal dance spaces:

Una Mas was, I think, the most pivotal point in my opinion, in Toronto Dance history. […] ‘Cause, that was the one night where there was no discrimination of any dance style, any gender. You had a circle, and you had a tapper, you had a ballet dancer, you had, b-boys. Anybody, anything, would just run the circle. No one kicked anybody out. Everyone would just, it was just […] like, clump of dancers and it was all through house, hip-hop, R&B, you know, reggae. It was just so good. And it was just all unifying the dance styles. And I feel like that was just such an evolution of, uh, the dance scene in Toronto, because the dance scene was heavily […] focused on, like, Do Dat, which was the main hip-hop group here in Toronto, and Bag of Trix. And because they were so closely tied together within like, you know, the movement and the music, which is what binded us, Una Mas was kinda the evolution, because Una Mas took them into there and then had the music […] that would give other people a chance to like, move, with that […] community and I, I feel like […] built the community up even stronger […]. [I]t was amazing, so like, having that like, having NASA on Tuesday nights, having Una Mas Thursday nights, but also having Alto Basso on Monday nights, and Reilly’s on Wednesdays […] Sometimes Fez Batik on Thursday nights and then Roxy Blu on Fridays, it was a whole week of […] getting out there and dancing during the week, with like, different styles […] and I met a lotta good people through that time. (J. Catibog, personal communication, May 5, 2016)

Andy Poolhall, until very recently, was another place to find inspiration. B-Boy Benzo hosted “Let It All Hang Out” with DJ Serious, (and sometimes, guest DJs), “‘cause that’s the closest we’ll ever get to being involved in hip-hop in it’s true essence. It’s just a party [matter-of-factly]. There’s no guidelines. […] [H]ave a good time, and enjoy the music. And we play different genres of music. Talking to Kool Herc about that opened my eyes. It made me realize that it’s not the competitions that are important. It’s not the videos, it’s not the tours, it’s being able to present hip-hop in its truest form, which is the party. And what are parties? Festivals. What are festivals, rituals?” (C. Daniel, personal communication, March 13, 2014). And rituals, of course, connote a way of life, spirituality, traditional modes of community connection, all engagements that continue to generate and regenerate Toronto hip-hop culture. 58

It was at this “ritual” party that Judi Lopez (a.k.a B-girl JuLo) would start to learn about the Toronto breaking scene. She happened upon this event at a time when it seemed there were no females participating53 (J. Lopez, personal communication, November 1, 2014). This confirmed her resolve to launch KeepRockinYou and The Toronto B-Girl Movement, which graduated its first group of new b-girls in 2013, further broadening the diversity of the dance form and showcasing a new facet of youthful hip-hop creativity.

Toronto’s local artists convene in festivals over the summer as Unity Charity54 and Manifesto55 showcase developments in hip-hop music and dance genres, featuring amateurs and world- renowned performers in a series of mostly free events that introduce the general public to the growth of Toronto hip-hop culture. Both organizations are engaged not only with Toronto’s music and dance industries, but with community artist hubs and educational organizations – another, updated take on the grassroots, neighbourhood vibe from which hip-hop began.

It is against this backdrop of global artistry, steeped in local community affinities, that the narratives of the following three hip-hop artists emerge. These participants defy the popular image of hip-hop culture as Black, African-American and a rapper, yet it is in keeping with hip-hop culture’s tenets of keepin’ it real, no biting, ‘each one, teach one,’ that these artists create works of art, and in the process, sculpt their identities.

53 Toronto has been home to many b-girls, e.g. Shebang Crew (Mae Hem, Ms. Mighty, Jennrock, Blazin’, DJ Dalia), founded in 1999 (Caldwell, 2003; Liss, 2001; Slootsky, 2007); Lady Noyz; Soupy; TBag; Tangerine.

54 Unity Charity was founded by Michael Prosserman, aka B-boy Piecez, in 2008. Its focus is to empower youth to live healthy lives in healthier communities through the hip-hop arts (Unity Charity, n.d.).

55 Manifesto was founded in 2007 by Che Khotari and Ryan Paterson to provide a platform for artist development and performance, rooted in their communities. It now has sister organizations in Jamaica and New York City (Manifesto, n.d.). 59

Chapter 5 Jazzy Jester 5 “I am Jesse Catibog, also known as Jazzy Jester.”

Jazzy Jester has been breaking for about 20 years. He has taught, performed, and competed around the world and has been a member of various crews throughout his career – Intrikit, Supernaturalz, and now, Albino Zebrahs. Though he is a b-boy, he doesn’t entirely see himself with this label and instead, chooses “dancer” or “mover,” pointedly reminding me, “I’m first and foremost, a music- lover.” He was born to Filipino parents, but interestingly, sees himself primarily as part of hip-hop culture, which aligns more faithfully with the way he views the world.

As his name suggests, he’s “always…happy, I’m a…goof, right? I want people to see that. I wanna share it with people. […] That’s what you wanna give as a dancer, as a b-boy. You wanna give through feeling…I want people to feel what I’m feeling.” Comedically, he continues, “I can do the shittiest shit, but if people feel my shit, that’s all that matters to me, man, like, ‘Yeah, I fuckin’ love that shit, man, love that shit…you should feel that shit too, man, feel that shit.’” He recalls the seriousness he encountered when he first started dancing, with everyone looking “grumpy.” In fact, he thinks his smiling face became a signature of his b-boy identity over the course of the years. Jester makes a connection between his movements and jazz music. Particularly inspired by Thelonious Monk’s musical ideas, his movements began to change. He added “Jazzy” to his name to reflect this influence while audiences increasingly came to recognize his improvisational dance style. His affinity for jazz creativity is apparent when he describes an Elizabeth Sheppard song he used for a promotional video, “[I]t’s so sporadic, it’s everywhere and it’s controlled chaos...it was like, all over the place, and I’m all over the place. It’s sometimes big, it’s sometimes small and I’m…kinda the same way.”

5.1 Introduction to hip-hop

Jester was introduced to breaking by his cousin when he was 15 or 16 years old. He was living in Hamilton at the time and wouldn’t move to Toronto until 1998 when he began attending George Brown College for Graphic Design. He also recalls watching VHSes from Germany and being amazed by what he saw. He never pictured himself breaking at the professional level. Dancing was simply fun. He adds,

I was seeing the potential of the culture, the growing of the b-boy culture, and I loved just hanging out with people, […] creating moves, and […] moving your body…And um, I’m 60

not gonna lie, a part of it was getting girls. I’m not gonna lie…But, uh, I just really wholeheartedly enjoyed the movement of it and that’s why I kept doing it.

Dialogic/Performance Analysis (DPA): Jesse seems hesitant to admit that part of his motivation for starting to dance was to get girls. He may be pre-acknowledging the contradictory aspect of his statement that he “just really wholeheartedly enjoyed the movement.” A later conversation I had with him about females breaking revealed that a friend had made him re-think what it means to “to be a girl” in the scene; i.e. that “being a girl” is different for everyone. I take his hesitation and admission to result from an awareness of gender issues in breaking, as well as hip-hop culture in general.

He recounts his first glimpse of Toronto breaking: [W]hen I first saw Toronto breaking, on Much Music, you know, watching Bag of Trix, I’m like, “Woah these guys are crazy.” All of them had a different style, and really, I really appreciate that. And they were breaking to hip-hop music, because they loved the music, because that was around them…That was what was influencing them how to move. Yeah, it came from a specific spot. It came from New York, and New York had a specific way of moving. […] When it started in Toronto, hip-hop was already growing and you had your Melle Mels and your Furious Fives, […]. And they had Maestro Fresh Wes, who was like the first big hip-hop artist coming out of Toronto, or of Canada, and all of a sudden, you’re just, you wanna move to it because he’s got dancers […]. They were dancing to hip-hop music and the hip-hop dancers were hip-hop dancers, they weren’t really breakers. So what happened was, Bag of Trix, because that was their influence […], they mixed it, and all of a sudden you have this “bag of trix,” right? That’s just what defines a Toronto style, because you have this hip-hop element and you also have this breaking element, but we’re dancing to hip-hop.

DPA: Jesse steps into Toronto’s hip-hop scene as an observer who “first saw Toronto breaking” on TV. His narration gains authority as he cites hip-hop’s spatial origins and early artists. As he does this he positions himself amidst layers of history that connect Toronto’s hip-hop culture to origins in New York. Maestro Fresh Wes is highlighted as an influential, legendary Toronto artist, in a parallel role with New York’s legendary figures. Growing up, he, too, was the artist I heard about, making the discovery of Michie Mee’s role as the “Queen,” who put Toronto hip-hop, and rap in particular, in the spotlight, even before Maestro did, even more important for me to highlight as a missing piece of our hip-hop history.

In the ‘90s, when I started being part of the scene here, everyone had their own style and it was crazy. I remember everyone just looking so different…So to me, Toronto is all about style and being yourself. […] Yeah, you can claim your own moves, you can claim a style, but fuck it man, Toronto is about style in general. […] We don’t lock it down for one thing, we lock it down for a whole bunch of different things because we’re all different people. […] [E]ach crew can have their own style, but it won’t define every individual in that crew […]. Bag of Trix all had their own style. They didn’t say, “This style is our style.” No, they were like, “I’m so-and- 61

so, this is my style,” and that’s kind of what I got from them, not even by talking to them, just being like, just taking it in.

DPA: Jesse is absorbing the character of Toronto hip-hop culture through performances by Bag of Trix. I have often heard b-boys and b-girls emphasize the importance of style. Interestingly, emphasis is usually placed on an individual dancer, and not on the crew to which the dancer belongs.

It is interesting to hear Jester’s interpretation of “Bag of Trix,” particularly when juxtaposed with B- boy Benzo’s telling of how the crew came together and got its name:

BENZO: Bag of Trix started in 1990.…we’re coming from a background where […] most of us are from, um, um, low-end neighbourhoods, like, low-property neighbourhoods. Some of us, some of us are from suburban areas that, they don’t have anything urban around them, so they don’t know anything about it. So we built our dance off of basically what we know, and our imagination. […] Bag of Trix got started from...high school. Nah, I wasn’t in high school when it happened. I was in like, junior high...Um, so yeah, I was just like, what, 13? [Laughs] And...my brother, his best friend Magic, Tony, um, we were on one side of the city, the West end. And then Gizmo, Tic Tac, and Denise were on the same side as the West end but further west. [I laugh]. Right? And we were already been dancin,’ we’d been dancin’ for like, some of our friends that were tryina start an emcee career and all this other stuff. And we’d done a few shows here and there. Not as Bag of Trix, just us as friends and siblings, you know. And then all of a sudden we go to this one party. One of Grouch’s,56 probably one of Grouch’s first parties. This basement party in the Weston Road in some old building. And the light [laughs], the light for the jam was this bulb wrapped in like, this red, the like, tin foil almost, that gave off like the ambience of like, club time.

DPA: By referencing DJ Grouch and this early party, Benzo confirms his Weston neighbourhood, high school, and crew as being present at hip-hop’s early development in Toronto. By not having to explain who Grouch is, Benzo acknowledges that I know who Grouch is and/or effectively gestures that everyone should already know who he is. The amateur setup of “club time” mirrors the amateur stage of this group of b- boys who would become broadly cited by future generations of breakers as helping shape a part of Toronto’s hip-hop history. This party reference as well as the description of his “low-end neighbourhood” displays affinity with New York’s struggling neighbourhoods of the 1970s.

And we showed up...And because we know it was like, it was a party, we didn’t show up like, whoops, to really like, dance. We showed up to like, look for girls. [I laugh]. So we, so we’re all like, kinda like dressed up, you know, we got on like, the nice soft shoes, and you know, some nice pants and a button-up shirt and we’re, we’re comin’ down to the party to, to party. We’re not really thinkin’ about we’re goin’ to

56 See Chapter 4, pages 47-50 for a brief segment on DJ Grouch’s role in Toronto’s hip-hop history. 62

dance or anything. And we see these two guys dancing. [Laughs] Like, killin’ it. Two little guys, little Filipino guy, little West Indian guy, and I’m like, we’re lookin’ around like, ‘cause this is our area, we’re like, “Who the hell is this? And why are they at our jam? And why are they breaking? What’s going on?” No word of a lie, me, my brother, Tony, and Magic, we hop back in the car. We drove all the way home. Changed our shoes [We laugh. He laughs so hard]. [I notice as this story went on, his words got clearer and he was more animated and excited]. We didn’t even change our clothes. Change...

MYRTLE: Just the shoes.

DPA: We begin to feel the anticipation of the upcoming battle. The two b-boys on Benzo’s school dance floor are outsiders and they are prepared and confident that they will be able to battle these trespassers. Once again, we hear the party set-up as a place to meet girls. My laughter acknowledges parties as places where youth might check each other out. Reading this text for analysis reveals my role in acknowledging the hip-hop party context as a place where b-boys look to meet girls. My laugh has both an external and internal cause and effect. It is both a result of the unexpected battle, but also validates this situation as okay and normal, while I simultaneously struggle with the knowledge that this context has made it difficult for female artists to be taken seriously. My internal struggle is multi-faceted due to my roles as researcher who wants to acknowledge my participants’ viewpoints, as someone who has spent time learning the dance and can relate to recollections of the battle atmosphere, and as a Filipino woman who feels the effects of heteronormativity.

B: Change our shoes, went back down [more serious tone] to battle those guys. Um, so we got, we get back to the jam, we walk in, we take off our jackets, [said with recalled intensity] we’re like, “Yo.” Right to the circle, right away. We go to the circle, and we’re kinda like in front of them and then we start exchanging dance move, dance move. And we realize, yo, these guys aren’t push-overs. These guys are actually really damn good and they thought the same thing of us. But Gizmo did one move. I think he, I think he ended the entire jam with this one move. And we all jumped on him, like, literally...He thought he was gonna get beat up. A whole lotta big black guys tryina jump...We jumped on him, threw him in the air. We’re like, “OH MY GOD!” And he was like, “What?” We’re like, we were like, “Yo, let’s make a team, like let’s roll together, where you live?” And [unclear] ...he’s like, “I live in the west end, like near Martin Grove.” We’re like, “OHHHH MY GOD! You’re in the, you’re in the neighbourhood!” [I laugh through this]. And that’s how it all started. […]

DPA: Sneakers are a necessary hip-hop accessory, even more important when you have to dance in them. The focus on shoes signals both the role of fashion in hip-hop styling, as well as the importance of good shoes in which to break. Both emphasize this battle moment as being all about b-boying, a focus on skills.

Two expectations are thwarted in this scenario. Benzo acknowledges the stereotyped, racist image of “[a] whole lotta big black guys tryina jump…[Gizmo]” as well as the idea that battles occur between enemies. Instead, this scene resolves in celebration over Gizmo’s move and the formation of a crew. 63

M: How’d the name come about then?

B: So we were going to a high school dance [laughs]. You know, and back then high school dances, were like, was like the club. […] Like, DJX used to play at our, our high school dances. Michie Mee would emcee at our high school dances. […] Cougar and Blass, Maestro’s dancers would come to our school dances, […] our school dances were like reeaaaal big things. It wasn’t like, oh, school dance, here’s a tape deck player. No, we had a DJ [laughing].

M: Where was this high school?

B: Weston Collegiate….It’s famous for school dances back then. Our school dance would outdo clubs. People would come from Mississauga and Brampton to our school [taps table] just to party.

DPA: Benzo situates his school as a hub of early, pioneering activity through his mention of big name Toronto artists. This adds to his crew’s credibility and authority within Toronto’s hip-hop culture.

And, one night, we were at the school dance, and, ah, we had a great night, just a great night of dancing together. We were all walking home. We were all walking in the middle of the street cause it’s like, I dunno, 12:30 in the morning. [A]nd we start, we’re like, “Yo, we need a name” like, “This is ridiculous, we don’t have a name? […] [W]e were like, what about we think of like something with ‘rock’ in it, ‘cause we love Rock Steady.57 How ‘bout Hard to Rock, or something to Rock, whatever. […] I was just like, nah, man, we can’t be callin’ ourselves nuthin’ like that. They already got so many crews with that name. So one of our friends, his name is Adversary, he’s still an emcee, and he’s like, “How ‘bout Bag of Trix?” [Laughs]. […] Out of nowhere. Out of nowhere. It’s like, we went silent for a minute and he’s like, “How ‘bout Bag of Trix?” And we were all like, [I’m laughing], “Yeaahahahahah.” And he broke down his analogy of why he called it Bag of Trix, ‘cause, he’s like, ‘cause you guys are like, like a unit. You guys come together like a bag, like as one, and you guys do tricks. And that’s how it came. […] Bag of Trix. [….] I remember that day vividly, like, walking past which, I remember what house I walked past as he was telling us this. It was crazy.

DPA: The crew is exhilarated by a night of dance and walks in the middle of the street, in a sense, owning the neighbourhood. At this point the need for a hip-hop name by which to be recognized comes up, through a recollection of other crews, Rock Steady, in particular, an important NYC crew who revitalized the breaking scene through battles and performances. Claiming space and recognition create this obviously important memory.

57 Rock Steady Crew was formed in the Bronx in 1977 and became affiliated with Zulu Nation in 1982. They are a very influential, world-renowned crew, having represented hip-hop’s birthplace and arguably bringing popular media attention to break dancing through their appearance in the movie, Flashdance. See also Chang (2005); JohnG (2010); Orange (2017); Schloss (2009). 64

The juxtaposition of these Bag of Trix stories shows how Jesse has absorbed this crew’s character without knowing their formation story, and without talking directly to them. Their narrative was performed as dance and circulated within Toronto’s hip-hop context, influencing Jesse’s philosophy of individuality and style.

Jesse finds himself amidst a segment of Toronto’s hip-hop history that is already a blend of histories from New York, Toronto, and Germany, as well as personal histories influenced by these. As we see from his early recollection of breaking, interpretation is crucial to how Jester comes to internalize the culture. This “piecing” together, akin to sampling, will continue to be explored throughout Jester’s story.

5.2 Acquiring skill (Knowledge)

5.2.1 People Teachers

Jesse’s cousin introduced him to breaking but it seems that observation is the primary means by which he learned the dance. He explains, “My first, my first teacher, my cousin, Beej, was the one who taught me how to like…I started because of him and then my friends uhhh…I don’t know, we all just kinda taught each other, it was, it’s really hard.” Now, he says, younger generations have the benefit of advice from their mistakes as well as strategies for training that strengthen bodies to improve career longevity.

He cites VHS tapes from Germany that amazed him with “crazy” moves, as well as b-boys on TV, as influences, but when asked directly about who he considers his teachers, Jesse lists people who provided ideas, rather than specific technical dance skills.

Nevertheless, he generalizes the process as follows:

[H]ip-hop, […] it teaches you to take things and build your own structure within the structure that’s given to you. And that’s I think, the main basis of what hip-hop is about, is [t]aking whatever it is, and building your own fundamentals out of that […] and … defining yourself through that with… the structure, the loose structure of hip-hop, you know. […] And then um, you take that and then you’re like, okay well this is what those guys is… […] This one works for me, this doesn’t work for me. And then you start taking other things and then you start building your own structure, your own, your own, you build your own formula and then you’d run with that formula. And then you keep altering it and then you 65

keep…you know, switching things around and whatnot. But that’s what hip-hop’s always been. […] [H]ip-hop’s been like, moving and changing and evolving and like, shape, shaping uh…to a certain individual, […] maybe some groups will have that same structure or like, view, but for the most part, individuals look at it all differently.

DPA: “Structure” generally connotes firm boundaries and rigid definition. Nevertheless, Jesse describes hip- hop’s structure as “loose,” completely contradicting this definition. In addition, hip-hop structure is created by the individual through intentional evaluation of structural “samples” taken from others and assessed as they are used. The idea of a “taught” structure provided by hip-hop (i.e. not by a person teaching) results in the culture shaping to the individual.

In keeping with the idea of “taking things,” Jesse’s list of teachers is not limited to breakers. In fact, Jesse thoughtfully pauses before responding:

JAZZY JESTER: …I’m trying to think of it…Um…Obviously, my dad…I don’t know, like… […]

MYRTLE: What did your dad teach you?

J: I don’t know. I just learned a lot of things, growing up, I’m just kinda like, huh, …I actually learned a lot from my dad with like, indirect, like, being taught indirectly just by watching, you know. […] [Y]ou learn a lot from your parents even though, you know, […] you just, you’re around them all the time when you’re growing up, so it’s like, you’re obviously gonna take some of those qualities and some of those like, habits. I don’t know. My dad indirect, well directly and indirectly, is my first teacher. Um…as far as like, I don’t know, that’s a hard one. … Like, you know, I had my senseis in karate, you know, those are like, those are like, very literal teachers….

DPA: Just as he struggled to recall what his cousin taught him, Jesse has trouble describing what his dad taught him, having gathered information, some intangible, over years of relationship with his father. By contrast, he does not hesitate to name his “literal” senseis, who would have taught him specific movements and perhaps a body of philosophies about the martial art.

The b-boys that Jester goes on to mention are not “literal” teachers, by which he means those who teach the how-to of movements. Instead, Jesse speaks gratefully about the guidance and influence of other b-boys. Mariano, a.k.a “Glizzi,” from Bag of Trix modelled a successful career for Jesse. This was particularly important because Jesse had “dropped everything” to become a dancer, full-time: 66

I really looked up to [him] and, I wouldn’t, again, indirectly, not a teacher, but, to me, he was a teacher in a way where, at a time where I was trying to figure out what was gonna happen with my career as a dancer, as a b-boy, he was already doing stuff where he was in studios, he was teaching, he was still dancing, and he was choreographing things and whatever. I’m like, Ohhh. He was working through the summer. [….] He’s doing it smart because he’s a b-boy but he’s not taking, he’s taken it to hip-hop, […] he’s doing it everyday […]. So, I’d always like, call him, and be like, “Hey,” like, like, “I wanna know how you’re doing this, this and that.” Like, I was just trying to take notes as much as I could, you know.

DPA: Pointing out that Mariano is “not taking,” from hip-hop, but has instead, “taken it to” hip-hop signals to me an awareness of the questions of appropriation that surround the use of the culture’s creative output. Not only is Jesse looking for career guidance, he is searching for ways to develop a career that also gives back or offers something to the culture.

Jesse considers his good friend, Marcel (“Frost”), a thought-provoker:

even though he’s...uh…the generation under me, like, I still learned a lot from him. He’s a very insightful guy, […] there are a lot of similarities between him and I and how we look at things, how we think. […] I feel like he’s tapped into his like, deepful, more like, philosophical state more than me. Or maybe I just do it differently, I don’t know, but, I still learn a lot from him, so, even though he’s not a teacher to me, he is, he, I still learned a lot from him, so. You know, it’s a big shout out to Frost. Um… […] The way he looks at things is very interesting to me, and like, I’ve learned a lot through the ways of, through how he looks at things, you know what I mean, so. But yeah…Who else are the teachers? Shoot. I don’t know... [pauses] [says something inaudible]. I don’t know. I’ve done a lot of dance, so, obviously, yeah I don’t know.

DPA: Jesse’s description of Frost as being from a younger generation of dancers is telling of the generally- accepted idea of teachers, i.e. that they are older, perhaps more experienced, and therefore have greater knowledge and expertise than their students. As we have already seen, those who pass on information in hip- hop do not necessarily fit this description.

Jesse seemed to struggle to name break dance teachers, perhaps because breaking was not taught in dance studios during the time Jesse was developing as a dancer. He then recalls his roommate Lenny Len.58

58 I met Lenny in 2003 when he invited me to attend his hip-hop dance class which was occurring around the same time as a break dance class I was taking at the El Mocambo. He is a choreographer, video director, and teacher. For more, see Flavor Shop Dance (2014). 67

Lenny. Lenny’s a good teacher, actually. [….] I’d go to his class whenever I got the chance to, but I was also so busy. But every time I went, I was like, damn. I learned a lot like, through the way he taught and like, you know, the way he heard sounds and music, so it was, it was interesting. […] Anything that has to do with like, the boom-bap or like, anything of that like, hip-hop rhythm like it just, …it just, I gravitate towards it a lot more than I do anything else musically, or aurally, or anything like that, so. Yeah, so it was just natural that I would gravitate towards Lenny’s classes, because of the way he taught. His, his ear for sound, so. Learned about, learned a few things from, from class, for sure, besides routines that are like, super, [I laugh] like, “boom shaka shak,… […] bap shaka shak, boom slide and then up and…hahaha and boom and slide and up and jump and down and slide and chik a chik turn.” I’m like okay, I got it. Sure, I got it, Lenny.

Lenny taught hip-hop dance. In these classes, the teacher shows the students a particular choreography. The students’ task is to remember the moves and perform it by the end of the class. In this sense, Lenny is more like a “literal” teacher, passing on the “how-to” of movements. What Jester picks up most from Lenny, however, is a way to listen to and hear music, rather than the choreography itself.

DPA: Just as Jesse was interested in how Frost “look[ed] at things,” he is interested in how Lenny “hear[s] sounds and music.” Learning in hip-hop seems for Jesse to be about being genuinely interested in how others process what is around them. Given that Jesse does not view those from whom he learned within hip-hop culture as literal teachers, I am beginning to understand the limitations of the word, “teacher,” as we use it colloquially. The definition requires expansion.

As the above descriptions show, Jesse learns primarily by observation and through familial or friendly relationships with those who share ideas or become role models through action, rather than through directly being taught what to do.

DPA: There is, to me, a strong paternal aspect to circumstances around Jesse’s learning, reinforced, perhaps, by the majority male participants in hip-hop. By paternal, I don’t simply mean that his mentors are all men, but rather that there are bonds of relationship with them. In this way, learning in hip-hop parallels the life learning he absorbed from his father.

Teaching Oneself

Jesse’s interviews demonstrate the importance of self-teaching in his learning process. Upon moving to Toronto, he began to immerse himself in its hip-hop community.

[W]hen I first moved here, one of my main things to do was, not to be close to the b-boy community, which obviously was a given, because I was a b-boy, but like, to be close to the hip-hop community. I wanted to know the emcees, I wanted to know the DJs, I wanted to know the graffiti artists [. …] so I could be, you know, I could be part of them and know what it’s like to be part of a hip-hop community, to be part of what I love so much – the music, the fashion, the art, the style, the dancing, like, everything in one.

Immersion in music is crucial to Jester’s development. As he puts is, “without music, you’re not dancing…Above all, the main foundation for breaking is music and the essence of letting go and being free. That’s the essence. That’s the true foundation to me. Because without that, without the music, you’re not breaking.” In keeping with this, he would watch Rap City for an hour after school and learn the Top 5 rap videos of the week. As he started breaking, he started crate digging to understand what breaks were and to figure out what samples artists were using. Next, he would download all the music of the artists sampled:

I would Napster it. […] So I’d type in the name. I’d see […] oh yeah, Bill Withers. Download everything Bill Withers. Like, oh, Eddie Kendricks? Oh, download all of that. Let’s try to listen to all of it. […] And then being at NASA every Tuesday night, before it became […] Andy’s, right. I would […] stand beside Fase at the DJ booth and just, every time he’d play something new, I’d look over, I’d be like, who is this? What is this? I’m like, oh my god, this is amazing. I gotta go home and Napster that shit. […]. I wanted to know what made this culture tick. What, how it started. Why it started. The, the feelings that those songs exuded for people to move a certain way and like, think a certain way at that time. So that was part of why I enjoyed learning, like moving at that time, because I was understanding its history and […] the roots of where people were starting to move and like feel, and sing, and talk, and do all this stuff. But then, you relate it to today, and you relate to like, how I started, [….] you go through it, you, you understand it, and you’re like, okay, you get it. I get it. But then now you relate it to yourself. Is it relatable to yourself? 69

DPA: These episodes of self-learning hinge on learning hip-hop’s history, including forming felt impressions of its early music and spatial/visual setting. Not only does he read about hip-hop’s history, he acts out a kind of ritual learning --- crate digging --- to discover sounds and artists that influenced the mixes of both early DJs and present-day DJs.

Hip-hop began at a neighbourhood party, with music arguably providing a sense of freedom from the oppressive, imprisoning politics affecting the Bronx. Jesse has internalized this and his personal search for an understanding of hip-hop culture begins with immersion in its Toronto community and music. Being free becomes a foundational goal, achieved, perhaps, by asking “Is [the history] relatable to yourself?”

According to B-boy Jazzy Jester, those who claim to be part of hip-hop culture must know the history of its early development. This information is not merely a body of facts, it affects the way Jesse feels music and creates dance movements. He recalls preparing for a major event:

One year, the year before we went to Seattle for our first international flown-out event, I was training hard but then that’s when I was doing a lot of research into the history of it. And I also had a book called Yes, yes, y’all. And they were selling it at Home Outfitters for $5. I remember getting mine for $5 because it went on sale. No one was buying it. […] I read that book three, four times, but I think the second time I read it, I really wanted to understand the culture of what was happening in that era. [….] I studied it, I studied the culture through the internet, through that book and then I was like, I made a CD of songs that I thought that they listened to that was happening in their era and I had it in my CD player, yes, it’s old, my CD player, listening to it, reading that book over and over and over to get a sense of what was happening and the feeling that was coming out of that book and the sounds that were coming out of that book in order for me to understand the feeling of what hip-hop was.

It is important to him that the spatial origins of hip-hop be acknowledged as he reminds me that “these kids came out from the ghetto, you know, the ghetto ghettoes and they wanted the world to see who they were through a way of, through a way of fashion and style and movement and sound. So they were like, ‘This is who we are.’”

DPA: Announcing oneself requires a name. The story regarding the naming of Bag of Trix shows how important one’s name is and reveals something about the sense of opening up that comes when the right name is found. Once again, this act and feeling of, in a sense, naming one’s identity, has historical roots in a desire to be acknowledged.

The feeling of hip-hop, particularly its music, as well as the creative expression of identity become tenets by which Jester later creates his performance identity. 70

Crew

B-boys and b-girls can come together and form crews with whom they practice, battle, and share ideas. Members tend to work together for a long time, such that strong friendships, and familial relationships can form.

B-boy Handlez explains:

Oh man…and that’s why they’re my crew. Because we just, we inspire each other like, on a daily basis, like…Just um, uh, yesterday, we were at practice and like, uh, my boy Troublez, he’s just like, “Yo man!,” [imitates his voice] and it was like a joke, too, “Yo, yo, imagine doing swipe and windmill,” but your one foot has to be on the ground the whole time and that’s like almost impossible [I laugh] ‘cause like your legs have to be up and stuff, right? But we did it. […] [A]nd we were laughing, we’re like, “Yo, mts, yo that’s fucked up, that’s not gonna work,” and then he, we’re like looking at him, we’re like, “Yo, that’s possible.” And then we added like a bellymill to a windmill to a swipe, but one foot would always be on the ground and we’re trying to like make it like, fluid. Oh my…and that’s inspiration, it’s just like [snapping fingers] and that happens all the time with my crew. […] It’s like endless, endless. Endless inspiration.

DPA: I insert B-boy Handlez/DJ Andy B Bad’s short description of a crew practice here to show how interactions with a crew can make the seemingly impossible, possible. This story also serves to give a shout- out to fellow artists who surround Handlez and constantly provide support.

I have personally gained from this kind of friendship. Though we were not officially a crew, I have benefited from being pushed by Maehem, Doogie, Chuie, Rowdy, and King Josh a couple of times a week back in 2013- 2014 at Streetdance Academy sessions. In that short time, I became confident enough to enter a battle in which my partner and I made it to the finals of a 2 vs 2 battle. Something I never thought I would do. These small, casual sessions are the right mix between work and “shit talk” that can keep a dancer on her toes.

Jazzy Jester has formed friendships in three different crews throughout his career. First, with Intrikit:

[W]ith Intrikit it was hard, because you know, […] those guys were already established and uh, you know, when I got down with those guys it was, it was like I’m part of Intrikit, what? Like, uhhh, ok cool! Like, I’m part of this like, at the time, they were like, the elite team, you know, them and Bag of Trix, were like, the teams. You know, they were […] the crew to, to know, you know. They had ties with Rock Steady and all that stuff, so. You know, you wanted to be with one of those crews…It just so happened that one of the […] Inrikit guys found me just dancing one night at like this club in Burlington. And I knew him. I knew who he was ‘cause I saw him on TV. So I was like, oh my gosh like, that’s, that’s Sonic. I’m like, that’s so sick. So, with them, it was like, practice was great, I liked, I liked hanging out with 71

them, but they, they fought a lot [laughs] in practice. And I just couldn’t get it, ‘cause like, they grew up together, like, you know, […] …they were like boys. So they were always fighting. I was like, aahh, I felt awkward there.

DPA: Here, the often-stereotyped behaviour of “boys” fighting creates a bit of an uncomfortable feeling for Jesse. There is also a familial situation that contributes to this atmosphere, and I get the sense of the sort of fighting that siblings might get into, making non-family members uncomfortable.

This snippet of story shows a potential limit to crew experience, as well as the complexities of “belonging” in hip-hop culture. Indeed, DJ Ariel, whose narrative forms Chapter 6, speaks about seeing men interact in a way that makes hip-hop feel unwelcoming.

Jesse describes his next crews as having a more “natural” fit, both through the way he came to join them, and perhaps because each one came at particular points in his development. Jesse became part of Supernaturalz Crew gradually. He was invited by B-boy Dyzee to practice with them in Scarborough after seeing him at a performance with Rock Steady Crew. He recalls, “I don’t even think I was really, like, initiated into the crew. I just started hanging out with […] Karl a lot and like, hanging out with […] the rest of the crew, like Mouse and like Amo and those guys. And it just became a natural thing.” He was about the same age as the Supernatz members and they talked about more than just breaking, which made him more comfortable.

Today, Jesse is part of Albino Zebrahs. He already had a connection with Zebrahs, Lance and Donny, and knew that they shared “the same mindset.” Additionally, he thought Lance was the best b-boy in the world, whose style he describes as “sporadic, […] spur-of-the-moment, […] all over the place, [with a] flow [that] spoke in a different way to [him] […] a Thelonious Monk style.” Again, he describes becoming part of this crew as a “natural progression” from just hanging out to discovering a shared view of life and of the artistic and creative aspects of hip-hop as a culture, and not just of breaking. He explains,

It was all about the art side. The artistic side and the creative side of hip-hop. And to me I LOOOOOVE that shit. That, that’s my shit […]. Not to say like, you know, my previous crews weren’t like that, because they definitely were. It just, it got to a point where it just wasn’t speaking the same to me anymore, so it’s like, I, you know, you just […] transition to another thing.

DPA: Jester uses the word “natural” to describe situations or interactions that resonate with him and feel like a good fit. Once an artistic context no longer felt this way, he made a transition to another that coincides with his career or development stage. 72

Jester felt connections with different dancers throughout his development as a b-boy. His membership in crews are, nevertheless, a result of a mutual admiration of each member’s skills, ideas, and histories.

5.2.2 Spaces and places Cyphers

Cyphers are described by MC Abdominal as “the most basic, fundamental hip-hop, even with […] the internet, and the multimillion dollar industry, you’re always gonna have 15 dudes in the circle, one guy beatboxing, or clapping their hand, or pounding on a table and someone freestyling, right?” Not surprisingly, cypher spaces emerge as an important site of self-learning. Jazzy Jester explains:

[I]t’s hard for you to have your own natural feeling…if you don’t cypher all the time. You need to…, cause that’s where you’re gonna get the true feeling of wanting to go in, and wanting to dance cause that’s where it was born from, bred from, right? The dancers, the b- boys, when it all started were just having a good time at a party and when that one specific…I would say, ‘break,’ but whenever that sound, a sound, came on, that’s when they would be like, ‘Oh, I love this sound.’ Boom! The circle opened, they were dancing.

This is a space that recalls hip-hop history even as self-discovery takes place through attention to one’s responses to music. The urgency of his response to music in the cypher is illustrated in the following recollection:

I remember one time, we were, we were, me, Dyzee, and Puzzles were judging a competition in Halifax,... […] then during our judges’ break, you know, it was at a club, so you know, people were dancing or whatever. And then, Slum Village’s “Raise it up” came on, I was like, ohhh, this is my song. And Dyzee went in, I was like, “Noooo! You’re butchering the song!” [I’m laughing] I just, I literally pushed him out of the way and I, I was so tired, I was out of breath because I was so excited, I was like, “Moove!” and how I didn’t care what I was doing. I just needed to dance to that…song, [….] [I]t’s just, it’s a want, it’s a need, like, you know. Some people react to certain sounds…differently, right?

To cypher is to publicly enact identity negotiation amidst the dynamics created by the members of the cypher, audience and performer alike. Cultural influences and pressures are felt in this space while music is used to access personal histories replete with memory, emotion, and feeling that Jesse hopes to communicate to others. 73

I like connecting with people and it doesn’t matter how it’s done, or how it’s perceived as long as there’s a connection. […] I freestyle everything I do. I do. But, the more and more I think about it, the more and more I, I, it plays in my head. I, I really don’t, I, as much as I freestyle, right? I feelstyle it. Like, I feel it, and I’m very situational and I have to feel that situation in order to move that certain way, right? So, I feel like that’s […] the way I contribute to my community, is by giving people a feeling of something, you know [….] you’re a performer, […] regardless if you like it or not. Once you’re in that circle, you’re performing and you have an audience, so you gotta, you gotta be conscious of that, right? [….] [T]here is a consciousness that’s still there, that’s still relevant while you’re still dancing for yourself. So because of that consciousness, you, you’re now exuding this, this energy, and you want, for me, I always want to give that energy out in a way where it’s not just like, “Yeah, that was really cool, that like, what I saw,” but I want people to feel what I, what they’re watching. […] [T]here’s new sounds now that’s just, just like, “Oh,” and then you get that stank face [makes face and I laugh] and then you’re just like, “Oh shiiit. That’s so good,” right? That’s, that’s the feeling […] I wanna try to exude […] when I’m dancing…or when I’m moving, for people to have that, that same reaction.

DPA: The performative aspects of performance can be observed in the cypher context. This performance occurs amidst the normative b-boy environment alluded to in MC Abdominal’s statement about “dudes” in the cypher, and the seeming absence of b-girls in the circle (“The dancers, the b-boys, when it all started…”). Yet, the purpose of the cypher is to try to “break” out, using the music as impetus for the emergence of individuality; this is the moment of potential agency. As a result, there is a tension between dancing for oneself, i.e. in accordance with one’s feelings about the music, and dancing for the ever-present audience.

Performing in a cypher can also be complicated by personal histories, audience-performer dynamics, and an awareness of issues of gender representation. The following segment from my conversation with B-girl JuLo, founder of KeepRockinYou,59 highlights these.

JULO: I think too much, that’s my problem [laughs]. […]

MYRTLE: The more you think about it, you’re not gonna go. I know, that happens so many times.

JL: And I have to feel the vibe and the energy. The music has to be good. I gotta be like, just be able to like not care about what anybody else thinks and just go in there.

M: Yeah. It’s so hard […]

59 For more information on KeepRockinYou, see pages 40, 67, 87 (and footnote 60). 74

JL: Yeah, because when you’re a girl, you have this in your mind that people are expecting you to be at least decent, right? You’re doing a dance that’s male-dominated. So it’s like, I’m a female entering into a scene with a whole bunch of guys, I better represent for the females. You know, I better represent, […]. So, I feel there’s a lot of pressure at times, but really, at the end of the day, nobody really cares.

M: That’s true [we laugh].

JL: Nobody cares. As long as you get down, and dance, and have fun, no one cares what you do. […] You’ll get to hear, you get the props here and there about entering the circle, or even if you did something good, you’ll get respect, but […] no one cares unless you’re like, international, big, top-level, right? […] But if you’re just a beginner […] you’re a beginner.

DPA: Here, JuLo and I acknowledge shared experiences through our laughter. Saying “nobody cares” highlights the kind of self-talk that helps us focus on our dancing. Having to dispel the audience view, however, suggests a presence that is always there and does care in varying degrees. We are also an audience for ourselves, judging our performances against cultural norms that we have internalized.

Representing for others (here, females) is a great responsibility, frequently placed on the shoulders of marginalized or underrepresented individuals whose acts are, rather unfairly, attributed to a group who is then evaluated on these bases.

Dancers in the cypher aim to connect with their audiences through musical responses. This is done amidst circulating histories that individuals draw on in the moment of movement. Jester recalls hip- hop’s “b-boy” history in order communicate musical feeling. JuLo recalls this “b-boy” history, but is also aware that she is entering the cypher as a “girl.” Her musical responses then, also serve to quiet the pressures of gender representation, adding another layer of commentary to whatever she communicates to her audiences.

Battles

Battles, as previous stories have mentioned, can also break out in cyphers. Jester recalls, “I remember the first time I heard that I had to battle somebody. I’m like, I almost cried, ‘cause I was like, ‘Waaah, I don’t like confrontation. I don’t wanna...’ But, it was really cool.” He goes on to tell the story: 75

We were at the Filipino Community Centre in Hamilton, where there’s jams there all the time. And my crew at the time, um, were a bunch of Filipino guys and our DJs used to throw jams here and there. So I threw a jam and there was a local b-boy group that we knew, […] they’re a few years older […] as in they started breaking a lot longer than we had. […] And then, um, they started to battle. […] They came by to battle us, and I was like, “No, no, no, no, no.” I was so scared, and my boys, all like, they all threw down, but then slowly started fading out and it was just me ‘cause I guess I was like the strongest guy. But I, I remember I had to go against Tricks, his brother Jake, um, who else...like, I had to go up against most of them and that’s when I also first met Troy, Whiplash. I first met Troy there because, or like, and I remember like, “Who is this guy?” I’m like, oh...and we’re roughly around the same age. Not knowing, almost 20 years later, that we’re still best friends after that. But, I remember that. I remember the fear. Me, like, having to be in front of somebody else and like, “Waaaaah,” being nervous, and all my friends going like, “Go, go, go!” But yeah, yeah.

DPA: Here we have another battle-to-friendship story (cf: Benzo’s story). This time, however, we have a protagonist that hesitates to battle, differentiating Jesse from the stereotype of a fighting masculinity. His crew, whom he refers to as “my boys,” provide familial support and help him recognize his strengths.

This battle story and the battle-to-friendship phenomenon index gang initiation rites (e.g. “Apache line” discussed in Chang (2005) and Schloss (2009)) that were supplanted by symbolic break battle movements as the dance developed. Referencing other dancers as “my boy” or “my girl” shows close bonds between artists, paralleling gang ties.

In this story of an early battle experience, Jester discovers his strengths amid encouragement from his crew. In this recalled musical space, he publicly discovers himself as a developing artist. For Jazzy Jester, this is done amidst a recollection of hip-hop culture’s history, thereby positioning himself as a part of a local and global cultural context. The individual is implicated within and against the hip-hop community. Cypher contributions are not simply performances; they are public displays of artistic identity negotiations between self and community.

According to Jester, however, increased focus on competition or battle can detract from the spirit of hip-hop. B-boys and b-girls seem to lose a connection with the music and the cypher vibe: 76

It’s […] what their moves are worth at the end of the competition, you know what I mean. And I think with that, the whole term b-boying is loosely starting to like, fade into this other thing that isn’t really b-boying/b-girling anymore. It’s now become to me, just breaking again, where, you know, you could say, yeah, I’m a b-boy, I’m a b-girl, but, if you’re not cyphering, if you’re not down with the actual culture and do, knowing, what’s happening in that culture, then you’re not part of that culture. [….] Competition is one aspect and it’s a part of our community now. […] …Much like 50 Cent being in our community, like, […] regardless if you like him or not, […] and…you can’t say he’s not hip-hop, you know. It is in some way, shape, or form, hip-hop, much like competition is. Do I like it? Not really.

DPA: Jesse gives a rough delineation of the boundaries of hip-hop culture and that of breaking, which is, interestingly, what many call the dance in order to avoid gender exclusions. There is a sense of blurring at these limits where the cypher loses importance and a sense of cultural participation is lost. This blurring occurs alongside erosion of clear labels, i.e. “b-boy” and “b-girl,” which bear the cultural meanings of the cypher as well as the inclusion of competition, which he likens to 50 Cent’s popularity. Jesse “can’t say [these are] not hip-hop,” but he also doesn’t say that they are.

Arguably, these blurred boundaries are where cultural expansions are possible as individuals assert their positions through creative acts.

With corporate-sponsored national and international competitions helping spotlight and propel dance careers, it is not surprising that focus shifts toward impressing judges. In Jesse’s view:

[B]-boying was about you, b-girling was about you, right? It was about you breaking the mold of society, and like, the, um…breaking, just taking a break, you know. It’s just all those whatever you can think of with the word “break,” no matter how, which direction you look at “break,” that’s what it was back in the day. Now, it’s just, b-boying is competition. It’s a b-boy competition, you know. So, it, it’s like, what is b-boying anymore?

5.3 B-boy identity

I have often heard breaking called “b-boying,” emphasizing the predominance of male dancers. As we have seen above, Jester has referred to the “b-boy community” and has used the word b-boy to refer to breakers in general. A segment of conversation with B-girl JuLo, illustrates the way that breaking is, conversationally, equated with “b-boying:”

[S]o I was like, “Yeah, I’m gonna come out to this jam and see you,” right? And just kinda get a feel again of the b-boy scene in England. So he was like, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, come. I have a girl also from Canada, from Toronto, who lives in London and she’s coming as well so you guys can connect. And I was like, “Oh 77

that’s dope!” And so I ended up meeting Mary and really having a great connection with Mary and having a good discussion about Toronto, even though I was completely, at this time, even being in England, I had no education on Toronto b-boy scene, ‘coz I started in Korea, right? And then I came back, to Toronto, and I was here for maybe three months and during that three months, I trained with Supernaturalz Crew, but I still didn’t experience the b-boy community while I was here, so I had no knowledge of anything about Toronto, except for Supernaturalz crew, and then, um...that was about it.

DPA: The breaking community in Toronto is called the “b-boy community,” and indeed, JuLo described to me how there were no girls in the cyphers she saw whenever she visited Toronto. Her statement that she did not “experience the b-boy community” can be interpreted in two ways: a) She did not have enough time to immerse herself in the community, and b) She cannot truly experience a “b-boy” community as she is an aspiring b-girl. To put this in perspective, I have never heard b-boys talk about immersion in the “b-girl” community. I think there are a couple of reasons for this. Comparatively, there are fewer females who break. And because males predominantly practice the art form, females have to make an entry into a traditionally male, b-boy space.

With the increasing number of females participating and contributing to the dance’s progress, the term “b-boy” is strongly being contested. Jester explains, “I guess you’re just so used to it, calling something what it is… […. but] we are living in a time of like, it’s, everything is always changing and always evolving.” Nevertheless, given the meanings attached to the term “b-boy,” I asked Jester what the term means to him.

JAZZY JESTER: B-boying is, like, I’ve, I’ve been saying it for a long time. Maybe even like, more than 10 years, I’ve been saying that like, I’m not a b-boy, you know. […] [W]hen you label something, it’s hard to get straight away from it, but when you don’t label something, it’s open to ideas far beyond what people think it is. So, theoretically, I am a b-boy, in theory, but I’m also not, because I’m, I’m me [….] I’m, I’m Jesse. I’m, I’m a d, a, a, I’m a dancer, I guess? You know. I’m a mover, but I’m, I’m more of a…I’m first and foremost, a music-lover […]. So, if you’re not connected to the music or sound, then it’s hard for me to see or relate to what you’re doing if you’re not connected to something that’s making you do something, uh, musically.

[from slightly earlier in the conversation…]

[re: term b-boy] [B]ut yeah, I feel, I feel like it’s a strong word, and it’s, it’s something that can be intimidating especially to, like, the opposite sex, so when they hear b-boying, they think the specifically gender-biased, towards, you know, obviously, the boys. But um, I think nowadays, we all know what that term usually is about. Even though it’s more comforting to 78

know that it’s breaking than it is b-boying, but the thing is, with that, the, that word is being used so loosely […] nowadays that that term is now almost thrown out the window in my, in my, you know, in my opinion.

MYRTLE: Breaking… […]

J: B-boying.

M: Oh, b-boying. Okay.

J: You know, people use it all the time, be like, “Yeah, I’m a b-boy, I’m a b-boy, I’m a b-girl, I’m a b-girl.” But, nowadays, it’s so hard to call yourself that, because everything is based around the competition now. And to me if you’re a b-boy or b-girl, I mean, like, you can still be that, but, the competition has shaped that word into something completely different now. [….] ….So, I don’t know, it’s just…to me, as intimidating as the word is, I feel like females are strong enough to know what it is now, and I think the females…uh, are starting to…there’s a resurgence in, in like, the b-girl movement, in general, all over the world that, uh, is…making the, females see it in a different way and empowering in like, independent, you know, than, than what it used to be like, for just b-girls and stuff.

We begin to see the challenges surrounding the acceptance or rejection of the term “b-boying.” There is a sense that “everyone” knows what the word means and that the issues of inclusion and exclusion against the learned history of the dance pose questions of identity and cultural belonging.

But B-girl JuLo, is far from discouraged. In fact, the unrealized potential of women in this dance scene becomes the impetus for the creation of her now well-known organization, KeepRockinYou, which sponsors the Toronto B-girl Movement.60 She recalls that what excited her about breaking was, in part, seeing the number of Korean b-girls training in the dance while she was a teacher in Korea. She wanted the same community that she found there, as well as in the UK, to form in Toronto and so, started KeepRockinYou

…to make it something that’s common. It’s not a strange thing, it’s not abnormal. You have girls who break….there are plenty of girls who do this. And so we’re trying to make it something that’s more mainstream, more like it’s nothing, like, “Oh she breaks, oh ok, that’s cool.” When a guy breaks, they don’t get that reaction. May...maybe they do, I don’t know...but it’s not as, like, shocking, [as] when a female says it.

60 As a project of KeepRockinYou, Toronto B-Girl Movement is a collective founded by Judi Lopez, Dr. Mary Fogarty Woehrel, Souphaphone "Soupy" Souphammanychanh, and Victoria "VicVersa" Mackenzie. It forwards KeepRockinYou’s mission to encourage and support b-girls in Toronto. 79

Through breaking, JuLo’s particular experience of hip-hop history directly confronts its past history and calls it into question. JuLo’s description of her time in the UK shows her acceptance of the term “b- boying.” As she embeds herself in the culture, it also becomes a source of inspiration that encourages empowerment, as the tensions of gender (re)definition are performed and negotiated through dance.

DPA: Girls who break, rap, and DJ are still not “normal,” in the sense that saying this is what one does as a female elicits surprise or awe. It is therefore fitting that JuLo’s aim is to making breaking “not abnormal,” embedding in this unconscious choice of words, the lived experience of not adhering to the norm while still not being quite “normal.”

5.3.1 Hip-hop state of mind Jazz, Thelonious, Bruce Lee

Jester’s study of hip-hop’s history led him to want to find out more about jazz history, eventually adding “Jazzy” to his name as he made a personal connection to particular music and musicians. As he explained his connection to jazz music, Thelonious Monk, and Bruce Lee, I began to understand what Jesse has taken from his years of involvement with hip-hop communities – that one can take concepts that are taken for granted and transform them through one’s personal responses into something that becomes associated with one’s identity.

JAZZY JESTER: […] jazz has been around for so long, but, like the sound has been around, but I think it was when I did a little bit of digging and research with Thelonious Monk, is when I started realizing that there’s more to it than, than just what it is, and what it was. Because a lot of, a lot of the roots of hip-hop stemmed from jazz music […]. So I did a little bit of research on that, and I was like man, this is, this, this is crazy! […] You know, not to be like, corny or anything like that, it was just that’s what fed my soul and, you know, it’s just, it was the complete, not opposite, but it was just relating it back to like, what the times were like back in the day with jazz, and like, the whole meaning of, like, rebellion, rebelliousness of like, the freedom of expression […] and how it like, transformed into like this thing called hip-hop. […] [U]sing the sounds of jazz and how close it is to like, hip-hop, made me appreciate what I was doing more, and made me appreciate the culture more and […] how jazz has influenced the culture so much, so. I don’t know, it just fit so well, I liked Jesse Jester, but then Jazzy Jester… […]

MYRTLE: Why Thelonious Monk? 80

J: Uhhh…I liked his philosophy and his take on, on, on jazz and like music. Um…he would hear a note and say that that note is traditionally, classically, what it is, but he heard a different sound of the same note, so he would play…it was always like […] that’s your A, that’s your C, that’s your D; this is my A, this is my C, this is my D, right? And when you hear it, when you hear him play, back in the day, what he was doing was…sooo, out, out of the, the box, that people were like, what is he playing? What is he doing? […] [H]e was adding new sounds where people weren’t, like, used to it. They were used to the classical sounds of like, chords, and keys, and all that stuff. And he went with a different sound, but you couldn’t deny that what he was doing was still jazz, so, to me that spoke a lot […]. I wanted to be somebody that, if you saw me, […] you’d be like, oh he’s a b-boy, but he doesn’t have that typical, b-boy, like, structure, […]. So I was always in that, like, I don’t care, this is how I perceive it to be and this is my interpretation of it […] because it’s just my interpretation and, hip-hop is so […], subjective, […] there’s no right or no wrong, right? You have your base, you have your structure, you build from that, and then, you create and you add your own personality, […] every jazz musician had their own personality, you know. […] And it just feels natural to me to have jazz in front of my, my name […] Thelonious Monk really helped me realize the, the importance of standing out, and through the same structure that, uh, of the culture that you’re a part of, you know. You’re using the same structure and the same traditions, but your approach of it is different.

DPA: Jesse constructs his identity and ways of creating dance moves through ways of thinking about structure. The idea that one note can be changed such that it sounds different is profound. In parallel, Jesse obviously ascribes to the identity “b-boy,” but as we heard earlier, he also distances himself from it at times, particularly when it comes to issues of gender. One could contextualize this according to his internalization of Thelonious Monk’s structural play --- Is b-boying the dance? The act of being a boy in the dance? Is it breaking from the masculine image of the dance and from the b-boy stance?

Jester always seems acutely aware of his responses to music. The attention he gives to the feelings that arise with these responses not only informs his “feelstyle,” but also become part of his identity, signified by the addition of “Jazzy” to this name.

Though seemingly a distant source of knowledge, I have often heard b-boys mention martial artists as inspirations. Jesses explains:

Bruce Lee was […] like, he’s super hip-hop [….] Jeet Kune Do could not be any more hip- hop than that. Like, he took, he’s like, I’m gonna take this, I’m gonna take this, I’m gonna take this, I’m gonna take this, I’m gonna make my own shit out of that. I’m like, oh shit! 81

That’s Jeet Kune Do, that’s fuckin’ hip-hop, man. [I’m still laughing]. […]. That’s so blatantly hip-hop, you know what I mean? [….] [G]rowing up, Bruce Lee was such a big, big iconic, like, figure for me to be looking up to, ‘cause, (a) he was ahead of the game out of everyone in […] action movies, whatever. But he was this Asian-American that was pushing boundaries and trying new things. Aaaand, he was built as shit, he was cut as shit. So like, “I wanna be like Bruce Lee.”

Bruce Lee’s seeming ability to learn different martial arts styles and build on them to create something “that can become more than what his traditional training was from,” became a powerful guiding principle. Combining this with what Jester sees as Thelonious Monk’s ability to change the perception of a note, Jesse has been able to conceptualize his creative impulses, as well as present these in his daily life as a “lifestyle.”

Through these story segments, I noticed a recurring theme of taking what is around, breaking them apart or transforming them, and using these building-blocks to create something new. In other words, sampling from cultural influences is allowing Jesse to craft an idea of himself as an artist and opens him up to possibilities of expression.

Music: Role and changes

Music is, perhaps quite obviously, an important part of the creative movement process. For Jazzy Jester, music is instrumental to the way he processes the world around him. A lyric can make him see his environment in a more detailed way. He explains, “You don’t need a recording or anything to tell you how to feel or think, but it influences how you think. It influences how you move and how you live your life through the course of everyday things around you…everyday surroundings.” Music is therefore “the most powerful thing in the world” to him, to the extent that “whatever is happening in music is happening to [him] too, ‘cause it affects our moods and changes our […] being.”

Music generates a feeling in him that makes him want to move a certain way. “Jazz influences my movement a lot […] …I move according to how I feel…Different music will make you move differently. Not all music’s gonna make you move the same. That’s when you don’t have your own sense of…what’s going on in your surroundings.” He further explains that new music helps him discover new ways that his changing, aging, body wants to move. Interestingly, he ties memory to breaking, “[E]very time I move my body, every time I break is a new memory that I’m fond of, because it’s a feeling and you go off your feeling, you know what I mean?” Music then helps detail Jester’s visual field, which informs his movement as music is once again used to create and to recall 82 dance gestures. All this creates a memory that once again informs and builds on his identity. Progression in the music he listens to creates progress in his movement, “change[s] it, alter[s], and adapt[s],” which makes him “into a different b-boy, a different dancer, a different hip-hop person, a different hip-hop guy.” In this way, Jester can see himself as the same person, in and out of hip-hop culture as he adds himself to breaking, to the culture, and helps it grow.

Self-discovery

For Jesse, it seems the salient skills learned have to do with how to research the culture and its history, and how to create within its artistic parameters. In the process of creating moves, he begins to understand himself and how he wants to represent his performance identity to others.

Jesse recalls that despite some people making fun of him because his style is so different, he “lived off of” it. In fact, he got more recognition once he was able to allow this difference to show.

I wanted people to see how much I love doing it and I wanted to show them my personality through my dance. […] And at one point I was just like, fuck it! Like, I don’t care what people think or say about me. I was practicing how to fall. I was practicing like, just myself. And then when Intrikit called me, they were like we haven’t seen you all summer, it’s been two months, we were doing a show. [….] [T]hey saw me, they were like, “What the fuck happened to you? Like, you totally changed. Your style is just totally different now, like…” I’m like, “I don’t know.” Like, I just, I just got comfortable in my own, my skin, and then I had somebody come up to me at the end of like our performance, it was like, she’s like, “That thing you do with the smiling and your face,” she’s like, “that’s really good, you should keep that.” And I’m like, you’re a dude, you should keep that. You know, you’re a dude and a girl’s saying that to you, you’re like f yeah, I’m gonna keep that smile [I laugh], a girl liked it. Like, hell ya. So, you know, […] they, all of them were sitting in front, all the Supernatz guys, and then uh, at the end, uhh, everyone was outside, and then I went to go say what’s up to Dyzee [. …] he’s like, “Oh I thought you were Rock Steady, man. I was like, ‘Yo, I know that guy, I don’t think he’s Rock Steady.’ But you look so different now.” You know I was just like, I got into his whole like, being me is…and that’s what hip-hop is all about is being yourself, right? [….] That’s the thing I’ve learned from this culture. […] ’[C]ause that’s all, that’s all you can be at the end of the day, I don’t know.

DPA: Falling is an important skill to learn. Knowing how to land one’s body ensures less risk of injury, but it is also important because getting out of the fall requires creativity. I also read a deeper meaning in Jesse’s statement, “I was practicing how to fall. I was practicing like, just myself.” The fall is expected and acknowledged as an opportunity for further creativity, rather than an end that necessitates starting over. The practice of this occurs in a solitary moment, when he is by himself, so that “practicing…myself” is both a statement of practicing alone but also a practicing of “self,” so that he is “comfortable in [his] own…skin.” The result is a performance of his new style, recognized by other b-boys as well as a female in the audience, affirming his b-boy identity. His link to history is further strengthened by a similarity to Rock Steady Crew movements --- Jazzy Jester has become a recognizable b-boy within hip-hop culture’s framework, which includes the requirement and expectation of creativity and innovation.

Growing up hip-hop

For many people, being asked about their socio-cultural background usually includes information about their family’s country of origin, ethnicity, or broadly, cultural heritage. Jesse highlights another part of his background.

JAZZY JESTER: Um…by blood I’m Filipino, I don’t know.

MYRTLE: [I kind of laugh] I know.

J: Umm…Canadian. Cultural, culturally like, …I’m not Filipino. Am I Canadian? Yeah, yeah, I have the attributes of being Canadian, but like, everything about me stemmed from…like, what I’ve learned from hip-hop. Like, through the way I dance, the way I talk, the way…the way I, I look at things and how they are perceived. Um, everything came through, came out through…the culture of hip-hop. […] So like, when […] people ask me what my culture is, I’m like, hip-hop is my culture, ‘cause that’s what kinda raised me. […] I was raised in a […] Filipino house…so I have a little bit of that culture in me. You know, through foods and through, through mannerisms and stuff like that, but it didn’t really click to me until hip-hop, I started taking hip-hop more as where I fit in, you know.

DPA: Echoing statements about a multicultural Toronto by other hip-hop artists in Chapter 4, Jesse acknowledges his mixed cultural upbringing. His statement that “everything came through, came out through” hip-hop is significant. With his body acting as agent, hip-hop culture is a kind of filter that allows sensory experiences in. His story-telling suggests that he asks himself what feels right, what fits, and this comes out through hip-hop expressions. In this way, he is able to say that hip-hop is a lifestyle and that it is part of his identity.

He also spoke about his love of various art forms – visual arts, music, dance, fashion – hip-hop encapsulated all of this. 84

You know, I went through all those moments where I was like, am I this? Am I that? Am I Filipino? Am I Canadian? What am I? Like, I’m everything, but the one thing that puts it all together is hip-hop. […] Because hip-hop is showing me…I’ve learned to put everything together because hip-hop is a, a mosh pit of just, different things put together…to define yourself.

Immersion in hip-hop culture has taught Jesse to acknowledge histories and influences, take what resonates with him and use these pieces to create what he sees as his identity, no longer artificially divided between his b-boy identity and his non-b-boy self.

Chapter 6 DJ Ariel 6 From the West Coast to the East Coast

DJ Ariel and I met for the first time on April 4, 2014 at 1:30 p.m. at a Tim Horton’s at Bloor and Bedford Streets. Andy B Bad, a b-boy and DJ, passed on my e-mail address and let her know about my research.

Originally from Vancouver, British Columbia, she moved to Toronto about five years before I met her to pursue dance, but eventually connected with Manifesto Festival (one of Toronto’s biggest hip- hop festivals) and other organizations throughout the city. She also began working for the Equity Department at the Toronto District School Board, continuing her history of working with youth. Since my last interview with her on December 18, 2015, she has continued to DJ for a variety of community events, such as Toronto’s first Indigenous Fashion Week.

6.1 Intro to DJing

My first impression of Ariel is one of serious thoughtfulness, which I would come to understand better as we conversed.

I kind of started DJing after b-girling a little bit in high school. A friend of mine, Prev One from Swollen Members linked me with one of his boys named Casper and we used to break all the time. And um, it kind of got to the point where I was buying vinyl to find the music that I wanted to dance to, and uh, yeah, so that’s how I became a DJ.

Two years after b-girling, she began DJing.

Yeah, it didn’t take long at all. But I was going to, you know, like, Rock Steady Anniversary, and um, B-boy Summit, and those kinds of places, and my boyfriend at the time was a DJ/producer and we’d just go digging everywhere. And, um, in the early days, I was really, really interested in female hip-hop. Still am...Um…so back in those early days, I just kept finding all this female hip-hop that nobody knew. And so it was easy shopping with all my boys, you know, like, they were out for grails and I’m out for female hip-hop; nobody wanted that stuff. So, you know, I really got to learn how to dig back then. I got to learn how to feel my records and have that little bit of a spidey sense as to what might be good […] And those were the days where, you know, whosampled.com wasn’t around. You know, Ultimate Breaks and Beats was around, but it was kind of a thing that you had to learn on your own 86

before...You couldn’t learn, you know, all of the old stuff just by inheriting the knowledge. You had to find it. It was back when DJs would actually not show what they were playing because they worked hard to find those crates, worked really hard, so they don’t want people to just look over their shoulder and be like, now I’m gonna go find that. So I think I kind of learned a lot of those kinds of foundational ways of looking at being a part of the culture, which is different than now. […]

So I was lucky to have that, I think. I was lucky to have landed myself in a group of people that...who were really...they were about the culture, you know. Some of them were, you know, Zulu Nation, some of them were Rock Steady, um…there was that connection even though I lived in Vancouver, you know. I was far from New York. But, you know, Madchild was a part of, I believe he was a part of Rock Steady. Same with Dedos from Rascalz. One of my friends has a family with him. So like, these people were people who I looked up to, ‘cause they were a really big part of this early scene, and they taught me some stuff. They taught me so many things.

Ariel tells of learning about the culture from significant figures in Canadian hip-hop. Interestingly, no one taught her how to DJ. She says that she learned by watching and practicing, saying “it wasn’t really anything that was...like it wasn’t a process. It was just something you did, something I did.”

Dialogic/Performance Analysis (DPA): Ariel speaks about a “foundational” way of getting into hip-hop culture. In her story, this involves being surrounded by people who would go on to become influential figures in Vancouver’s hip-hop context and participating in the act of digging. This places her at an integral time in hip-hop’s development and this piece of her story could be seen as an acknowledgement and respect for this part of Vancouver hip-hop history. We also hear mention of Rock Steady, indexing hip-hop’s roots while tracing a route from the Bronx to Vancouver.

The male presence in hip-hop is once again highlighted in this introduction, as Ariel’s immersion in DJing begins with many male peers. She learns to dig for records in this setting, but already seeks different sounds, “female hip-hop,” that others didn’t want. The marginality of her musical tastes, and the early trajectory of her learning provide important background information for the rest of her story.

Immersion in hip-hop art forms through interaction with its practitioners has been her most formative learning experience. It is also the environment in which she got the name “Ariel”: 87

Prev61 gave that name to me. Just one day, he was like, you need a name. I was like, I have one thanks. [We laugh.] But he was like my big brother so I was just like whatever, whatever, not even paying attention to you right now and then by the end of the day, he was like, I got it. It’s Ariel. He’s like, “It’s dope because it’s like a gymnastics move.” I wasn’t DJing back then right? Um, “It’s a girl’s name, it’s just, it’s dope. It’s good. It’s great.” So he just started introducing me to people as “Ariel” and I was like, this is weird, it’s really weird. And then a couple who I really looked up to, like Kilocee, he used to do a radio show called the Krispy Bisket,62 he still does, actually, but he was one of the first DJs to break a lotta that New York ‘90s era music, right, and um, so I would listen to it every week. Or like, if I couldn’t listen to it, I would record it and listen to it on the way to school in the morning. And then […], he was like, “Can I call you Ariel?” And I was like, yeah, okay, I guess, if you really want to. It just stuck. And then my mother started calling me it. Now I just, I don’t even know who knows me by...my name […] Soon as anybody starts saying one or the other...natural to answer.

DPA: Performance identity is signified by an artist’s name. The naming process, whether a would-be artist chooses it, or someone else confers it, begins with some observed aspect of the person being named while adding an element of future possibility – a self not yet completely realized. In this case, though Ariel is not a gymnast, she did take an interest in b-girling which can incorporate gymnastic moves. “Arials” also suggest taking flight and the creation of impossible feats in the air --- the projection of artistic potential. Ariel’s circles of community increasingly accept and use this new identity label as artistic possibilities come to fruition. For hip-hop recognition, the name’s use by established media personalities, like Kilocee, would be significant.

I also note, once again, the way that hip-hop peers can begin to feel like family as Ariel describes Prev One as being like a big brother.

Through a network of like-minded peers, Ariel made connections to hip-hop’s developmental roots in New York and California. She explains how cross-connections were formed:

61 Short for Prevail, who, with Madchild, make up another of Canada’s legendary rap groups, Swollen Members. For a recent interview with Prevail, including a short history of the Vancouver hip-hop context, see Shemesh (2018).

62 The Krispy Bisket radio show, hosted by DJ Kilocee was an early influential show in Vancouver. Descriptions of the show’s popularity are similar to reminiscences about Toronto’s early college and university radio shows. See Spits and Giggles Crew (2018) for an impression of Kilocee’s influence and Krispy Bisket Show Podcast for recordings of broadcasts. 88

Um, I think a huge piece of it was growing up with a few really innovative freestylers, um...I know that it’s very different now, but back then…Moka Only63 and Prev One, they were constant, like, I’d hang out with them after school or whatever...It would just be a constant freestyle. You talk to them, their answer back to you is, like, in rhyme. Just everything was always like that. And they got so good at it that they were able to create a name for themselves that infiltrated in ways where, you know, they were able to connect with people in California, Freestyle Fellowship, a lot of, like, the older, foundational hip-hop groups that...I mean they even still get recognized today by, you know, like, young labels out in LA. […] They were connected to, you know, like, Dilated Pupils, they were connected to Aceyalone,64 they were connected to some people in New York, […] for me, the only travelling I really did were to like, conventions. I didn’t have a lot of money, right, so I would just go whenever I could, and um, just meet people that were in the scene from all over the world. That was […] the amazing thing about those b-boy events, is that literally, people from all over the world would attend them, and yeah, it, it’s crazy how small that world gets when you really look at it. So, yeah, those were my early days.

DPA: After New York, California became another important site for hip-hop’s development, particularly as anti-establishment rap acts such as NWA gained media attention and popularity. Ariel’s connections to Vancouver’s hip-hop figures who also have connections to California’s important hip-hop personalities confirms Vancouver’s location as a hub of hip-hop creativity, in a sense, validating its scene as part of the growth of the culture.

Ariel’s immersion in hip-hop culture continues through the rhyme flow of Moka Only and Prev One. Their creative banter becomes part of her daily life.

Ariel grew up around music. Many family members played instruments while she gravitated toward choral music, an interest fostered by religious influences from her father’s side of the family. Eventually, she trained with Ray Carroll from the Platters and Riley Inge from The Temptations. She has also worked with Broadway-style singing and more recently has been offered an opportunity

63 Moka Only is an award-winning member of Swollen Members (see Note 56 above) who continues to release solo albums (URBNET, 2019).

64 Aceyalone (Ducker, 2018; Kangas, 2015) is a member of hip-hop group Dilated Pupils and founder of Project Blowed, an L.A.-based freestyle session that has become the launching pad for new artists. For a study on the learning and social environments of Project Blowed, see Lee (2016). 89 to learn song-catching,65 which she likens to DJing in that she “take[s] the space and, and run[s] with it, as opposed to coming with something prepared.”

She was also “largely influenced” by her parents’ record collection:

You know, when I was a kid, I used to always play with their 45s and get them all mucky, and they would be like, okay, you gotta wash them, so I’d have to wash them like dishes in the sink...on the drying rack. And they were always, you know, listening to the radio.

Despite her dance and vocal training, Ariel prefers to be in the background, providing the “heartbeat […the] fuel.” DJing has been the right fit.

6.2 Finding hip-hop

I think a big part of me being attracted to hip-hop when I was younger is because I had this mixed heritage and you know, I was always looked at differently, even though I carry, you know, lighter features. It...still, people look at me differently because they can see there’s something a little bit different, and, not that I’ve really experienced a lot of racism, although I have...um, it...it just, […] It’s, it’s just something that brought me to hip-hop culture, to hip- hop music, because it was the only thing when I was growing up that was kind of really about everyone, you know, like, it came from a serious place of oppression. Well, you know, I may not have experienced that directly, but my mother did, my grandmother did, um, my grandfather on my dad’s side, he’s a farmer... […] we didn’t come from money or anything like that, but I think that because neither of those sides spoke about culture at all, and then being in the real world, people would impose their idea of culture onto me because they would always be like, oh what are you? Are you Japanese? Are you like, Chinese, right, like, they would always try to guess what I was […] depending on how I wore my hair, people would think I’m Black. I got everything. My ex’s mother, she was Chinese, and she was convinced that I was Black. She wouldn’t take no for an answer. It’s like, sometimes when I wear my hair curly, it’s really curly, so like, it...I’m not...I don’t say...like, it could be, you know what I mean? I just don’t know. And so you have all of that outside perspective of who they think you are when you’re family doesn’t even talk about it. And I’ve literally gotten everything under the sun. You know, like when I’m in New York, I’m Puerto Rican. It’s just crazy to me. [We laugh.] And so I think because I was so much more interested than anyone

65 I understand song-catching to be a way of composing in which one opens oneself up to a space or situation in order to observe whatever musical ideas come one’s way. 90

in my family about culture, and about where we come from, that was the thing that I could identify with.

The instance of hip-hop culture in which Ariel found herself allowed her to explore her multi-layered histories.

DPA: Here, we see the draw of hip-hop, particularly for those enmeshed in the influences of multiple cultures. Visually, Ariel does not fit a single ethnic/racial category, causing confusion and varying attributions, depending on context (Gilroy, 1993; Helbig, 2011).

The performative aspects of race are quite clear in this narrative, particularly those that arise from a demand to account for oneself (Butler, 2005; Ehlers, 2012). The people Ariel meets become curious about her ethnicity, particularly, it seems, because she presents unclear identity markers. The frames of understanding that might be applied to her are multiple. Interestingly, the confusion or curiosity leads to an imposition of particular frames of reference, rather than conversation or inquiry.

SNAPSHOT:66

I grew up in downtown Vancouver, where we have like, by-products of Crips coming up from California, tryina get away from whatever trouble they were in over there and tryina lay down some other garbage, you know. I come to school wearing red and I have someone being like, “You know you need to go home and change.” And I’d look at them and be like, “You know I’m native, right? That’s never gonna happen.” Like, I am red.

Ariel became increasingly involved with Indigenous communities when a Vancouver group called the Native Youth Movement began hiring her to DJ. She doesn’t seem to quite know how they heard about her Indigenous history saying, “I wasn’t really ever, you know, out front, I didn’t really tell anybody where I was from, but I also didn’t hold it back.” Eventually, Skeena Reece, a well- known multidisciplinary artist and a good friend nominated her for a position on a youth council for a joint initiative between the National Association of Aboriginal Friendship Centres and Canadian Heritage. She was hesitant:

I was like, no I don’t...I’m like, I didn’t grow up traditionally, I can’t...I don’t have anything to say about this, and she’s like, yeah you do, just, just rep. And I was like, ohhh [uncertain sound] ...she put my name forward. And I guess because I had the cool factor, you know, I was the DJ at the party, they...I got elected. So, that turned into like a 7-year stint of being

66 A “snapshot” features a life story that did not fit into the trajectory of my research questions, but was nevertheless of obvious importance to the artist. 91

on this Council […] So I started to know about all of these youth projects and youth organizations, wound up being on a couple of different boards.

Her musical and youth council experience led to opportunities to run music workshops for youth, e.g. Gathering Our Voice, where she and a friend worked with participants to help them “figure out how to record and how to flow, and like, using your cadence.” She was able to help because of what she learned by growing up “with people like Prev and Moka and, I don’t know, like, Bird of Prey, like there was a bunch of people…, they’re all really, really ill freestylers…like, I’m not an emcee but I know how to rhyme, so like, I can just teach people how to do it.” She recounts what seems like a particularly rewarding experience with a nervous young woman:

[T]here was this young lady, her name is JerBear, she’s really, she’s really big now, she’s like one of the top five indigenous emcees to check for last year. There was a point when we were in the studio together and she was just so nervous and […] I was like, look, okay, I’m gonna record it, I’m gonna record your lyric on my beat. I’m gonna have it in your headphones so that you can hear it while you’re recording so that you know how to make it […] seamlessly flow onto the track...So like things like that, you know, really simple small little things that helped people kind of get their footing and she’s like, she’s just all over the place. People love her, and I’m really proud of her, like, she really found her voice and she’s using it in a major way.67

DPA: Ariel’s work as a DJ has become connected to part of her personal heritage. The idea that hip-hop arts can allow individuals and communities to be recognized is realized in this narrative segment (see Recollet (2014) for a discussion of similar uses by Indigenous hip-hop artists within Canada). As her youth work continues, Ariel is also able to participate in the “Each one, teach one” tradition of the culture as she passes on what she knows to eager youth.

6.3 Where the ladies at?

SNAPSHOT

I was doing this event out on the West Coast called Hip-hop for Hunger. I didn’t know anybody at the event, and there’s, you know, there are a lot of different communities in Vancouver, but this event happened to be a largely Caribbean-based event. So they had a sound that were playing with me and I was using their setup and

67 JerBear is now known as JB the First Lady, nominated for Aboriginal Female Entertainer of the Year and Best Rap/Hip Hop album for the Aboriginal People’s Choice Awards in 2011. She is part of the First Ladyz Crew that aims to tell their personal experiences through hip-hop. For more background information and to see a music video, see Hong (2011). 92 they were having so many technical difficulties, and like, I wanted to help. I wanted to help them figure it out ‘cause I felt like I could. I kind of had an idea what was going on. They were really hesitant, so after about a half an hour of them mucking around I was like, “Look, let me just try something.” And I fixed it, and it, all of a sudden, went from these people completely like, standoffish, not knowing really who I am, being from the city and a different community, to them being like, [mimicking a more distant voice] “Oh she knows what she’s do...what’s up? What’s your name,” dadada…. Just totally flipped it because I knew what I was doing. And that kind of stuff happens a lot. It’s kind of interesting where, you know, people will have a certain perspective and they think they kind of have an idea of what you’re about or where you’re from and all of that, but as you’ve heard part of my story, there’s no way anybody’s ever gonna be able to guess it. So like, I always have a trick up my sleeve and it kind of winds up being to my advantage a lot of the time ‘cause it throws people off and they’re like, oh wait, oh yeah, you’re kinda cool, I kinda like you. So I get ins in different ways.

DPA: Once again, a normative framework is applied to Ariel here, illustrated by the surprise and camaraderie shown after she is able to help with the sound’s technical issues. Rather than take offense, Ariel sees this as “a trick up [her] sleeve,” that affords a special meaning to the connections she is able to make in this manner.

Ariel and I mused about women in hip-hop and what makes it so difficult at times for female artists to keep working in the industry despite their love for the culture and its art forms.

I’ve seen grown ass men cut out young boys, young men, for being toys, because they think that they’re not doing it right. You know, if they’re not DJing right, if they’re not breaking right, or […] if they’re so-called biting or whatever. And, I understand the competitive nature of hip-hop and I understand that that’s important to have, you know, an ability to call someone out, but when a 30-something-year-old man is calling out a […] young, early 20- something kid, and trying to shame them for doing something that they think is wrong, […] that’s like analog to digital, that’s like, there’s so much difference in between those two people. I would honestly, would really like to see some kindness being shown every once in a while through that. […] I personally think that’s part of the reason why a lot of women don’t stick around for long in the scene, because it, it can get really childish, and it gets to the point where you’re like, “Wow, these are my so-called peers. I feel like I’m 20 years older than them right now.” It doesn’t feel like a community anymore. […] So it’s an oxymoron, right? It’s like hip-hop’s supposed to be this like thing that brings people together, a way to 93

like, deal with beef and squash it in ways that’s non-violent and all this kind of thing, but it’s still really violent. I don’t know, that’s my opinion.

DPA: One of the pedagogical features that come out of hip-hop’s artistic practices is the potential for those in different age groups to compete, doing away with the hierarchy of levels based on age. In this narrative segment, we see a possible downside, which, nevertheless, is not unique to hip-hop as older adults in authority (even music teachers) have belittled or even punished students.

A possible explanation is also given here, for the relatively small number of females who continue to work as artists in hip-hop. “Kinder” ways of dealing with creative differences may result in increased female presence.

She also recognizes that there are efforts being made to showcase female artists:

I played Manifesto Festival quite a few times since I’ve moved here, probably 3 or 4. And um, they’ve all been really great. The first year, we did like a all-female set, which I was like, c’mon guys. You’re trying to be inclusive and you wanna bring more women into the fold and then you just stick us all in one night? […] [Laughing]. I was like, okay, okay, you know, kudos for trying, but you gotta do better next time. And then they started spreading the female artists out a little bit more. I mean, they listened at least, right?

DPA: It is of note that I became connected with Ariel through B-boy Handlez/DJ Andy B Bad, who passed on my e-mail address and informed her about my research. At the time, Ariel was spinning at a break night at Andy Poolhall, celebrating music by female artists. Non-male artists must work with existing structures in order to gain recognition that might eventually change the usual formats for performance.

Like many of the other artists I spoke with, Ariel sees the dearth of females in the field as “more societal than something that’s part of that music culture.” The way she sees it:

[I]t’s phenomenon from time. Ever since the whole thing started, you know, like women don’t have the same longevity as men do. I think they just have different responsibilities, I think. You know, […] like DJ L’Oqenz,68 she’s managed to do really well for herself and she’s, you know, she has a son. She raised, this young man on her own and continued to stay in her craft, which I, I find that phenomenal. […] Raising kids is a big deal. So you know, there’s that element. […] Worldwide, there’s not very many female DJs that get the same type of response. You know, like, a friend of mine and I a few, couple months ago,

68 DJ L’Oqenz gained much experience from being on-air on CIUT’s Masterplan show. I had the opportunity to hear her speak as part of a panel of DJs at “Ain’t No Joke: Hip Hop DJs and the Evolution of Toronto Hip Hop Culture” on April 1, 2019, part of Dr. Mark V. Campbell’s series An Idea of the North at the Toronto Reference Library. I observed that she did not seem very fazed by being female in a male-dominated scene. 94

were just looking up all the DJs that we could think of that were huge. Some of them have like, couple million followers here and there whatever. And then we’re looking up some of the bigger name female DJs, can’t even push 500,000. Like the following is just not the same. It’s like, I think actually the largest number that we could find in a following was about a hundred thousand. That’s like 10% of like, the biggest male DJ.

I asked DJ Dopey, a DMC World Champion turntablist, why there don’t seem to be very many female hip-hop DJs in Toronto:

I feel like the, the Toronto women DJs that were actually like, somewhat starting to make some noise have either like, moved on to like, another genre, or have started kinda like doin’ [something] really different from hip-hop, like Sarah Sims, I don’t know if you’re familiar with her. She was kinda like someone that was comin’ up in our scene that was kinda a girl DJ that was considered like, a turntablist I guess, but she started doin’ some other stuff [….] I don’t know [pauses] I mean, just like in anything that’s kinda like, male-dominated, it’s like, it’s very tough to break through without like, you know, any, anybody, like tryina hit on you or like, tryina…Like if you, if girls are tryina learn, like, it’s very weird to, not that it’s weird, but like, I feel like girls are intimidated because it’s such a…maybe ‘cause it’s such a male- dominated, like […] art form. And like, there’s been a few people that have like, rose through, and like, Killa-Jewel69 was one girl that […] immediately came to mind [….] she was […] really big back in those days, like she was doin’ big shows, workin’ with big artists from Montreal, ‘cause she was a French girl, […] but I don’t know where she is now, so. […] But I don’t know. I, I… […] It does suck, because I feel like, I feel like there need to be, like, more girls in it. But I don’t know why it’s so hard for them to. Like, understand why it’s so hard for them to do it. But, I don’t know…

DPA: Dopey’s statement, “just like in anything that’s kinda like, male-dominated […] it’s very tough to break through without like, you know, any, anybody, like tryina hit on you” corroborates Ariel’s observation that relative lack of recognition of females in hip-hop is a reflection of society in general. Dopey’s theory recalls the party scenes in Chapter 5 as well in which a hip-hop context was accompanied by a desire for young men to meet young women. In conversations I have had with female artists, this sort of atmosphere creates discomfort and another level of challenge or obstacle to being recognized as an artist, rather than a sense of intimidation.

The use of the word “girl” to refer to young women, or women generally, is indicative of a broader societal tendency that, arguably, whether consciously or unconsciously, perpetuates a diminutive image of females. That male and female breakers are called b-boys and b-girls then, creates opportunity for further inquiry, beyond the scope of the current study; but as a cursory observation, it signals the youthful aspects of the art forms and its history while having the (perhaps) unintended effect of obscuring the reality that hip-hop art forms are practiced by people of different age groups and gender identities.

69 Killa-Jewel continues to broaden the context of her music-making, establishing herself as an artist through turntable championships, and composing for theatre and television (Killa-Jewel, 2019). For Killa-Jewel’s perspective on gender and the DJ battle, see Katz (2006). 95

DJ Ariel continues her reflection on the current status of women:

[I]t makes me sick still how women are treated in this day and age. Like we still live in primitive times when it comes to that you know. We have so-called equal rights, but it’s bullshit, you know. […] I think it’s easier for guys to get bookings in bars and clubs because they’re taken more seriously. I’m like, I’m currently looking for a manager. […] I personally feel like I need to have someone that is very masculine in their way of dealing with this kind of thing because I’m too nice. And I don’t wanna change my demeanour just so I can get more work. I don’t wanna change the way I deal with people just so I can handle my business. And I know that some people would listen to that statement and be like, well then you’re a fool. It’s like, well, maybe you’re good at dealing with your business on that level, but you know, there’s something to be said about having a professional level and not ever having to talk to your client about money, you know. […] [H]aving your people talk to my people is a real thing. Like, it gives a different type of legitimacy, right? And representing myself after all of these years, you know, I’ve done well for myself, but I know I would be able to get further if I have someone else representing me.

DPA: I find Ariel’s response to the business challenge of getting work intriguing, because it shows a different facet of “Keeping it real.” She knows who she is and how she likes to deal with people and does not want to change this, but recognizing the current reality of the DJ industry, she needs the help of someone “very masculine.” I note that she doesn’t say it needs to be a man, but rather someone who can better deal with personality types that do not respond well to her. In this way, she can focus on making music her way.

SNAPSHOT

ARIEL: I’m really dealing with some heavy stuff like I have post-traumatic stress syndrome…

MYRTLE: Oh.

A: …because my roommate…I think just before we met, passed away.

M: Oh my gosh.

A: She’s, um, one of the murdered and missing indigenous women. So it’s been, I don’t have a timeline in my mind anymore. I’ve lost a lot of information. And um…just like, the process of seeing what the public and the government and all of, like, that awareness that’s coming about through all of the pushing that’s going on in communities and my friends and…and just, yeah, it’s been a really intense couple of years. 96

M: Woah. Yeah.

A: Um…in good ways and in bad, you know. You know, Bella’s case is still unsolved. We don’t know. Um...and that was just over two years ago. So we’ve been in the dark for a while on that. Umm…And sure, it’s positive that Trudeau’s government is looking into an inquiry, but what’s an inquiry gonna do for us?70 I don’t know. Yeah, so like just being in this time and space after, you know, having, you know, worked front-line for so long, not really realizing that, you know, like, I, I am that front line. Like, this is affecting me directly and immensely and so personally that it’s sometimes hard to live and just like keep pushing day to day knowing that things aren’t going to be okay somehow. Somehow. […] But the one thing that kept me going through at least through DJing was that, you know, Bella was one of my biggest supporters. […] I met her when she was 19. She came to live with me when she was 25 […] She took to me as like I was her big sister. Um, and you know, being stuck in the big city without a lot of family, you know, we would be missing out holidays or whatever, just saying you know, like, oh too bad we can’t be with…you know, she would say like, I wish you could come back home with me, like we have a big family thing going on right now, just, you know, like those kinds of things. Um…yeah, when you don’t have people to help you through that it just takes a lot longer.

M: Yeah, for sure.

A: Um, the one thing that I just kept pushing is knowing that she would want me to continue the DJing. And I probably would have quit otherwise. […] I think the difference between meeting you before and seeing you now, is that previous, I had a more of diverse group of friends. Um…and unfortunately a lot of them didn’t know how to deal with this. ‘Cause then it becomes like a little bit of a political viewpoint for people because it’s like, oh wow, you actually are tied to the stuff that I see in the news, and it’s too real for me, so I have to keep my distance or whatever they decide in their mind. They just don’t know how to deal with it. And so, prior, I feel like I was maybe walking in a couple of worlds. Not that I was splitting my personality or the way that I was being. It’s just that I had access and I was able to be in those spaces. But now I’m not comfortable in those other spaces because they see me as that other. And they’ve known now that I’ve faced different traumas due to who I am and how things have gone. And, and, I don’t like being seen in that different light. It’s racist. It’s…selfish. It’s hurtful. And...so I’m keeping my core group really, really small. And it happens to be mostly community people of my, my own likeness because I don’t need to be retraumatized every time I’m in a different space to be able to say, “Hey, that’s not…right” or “That’s not cool” or “This is the way it is” or, you know, I don’t need to explain that when I’m with my people. I don’t need to tell them how it is, or the way it is, because of how it was

70 The number of missing and murdered Indigenous women in Canada is reported to be in the thousands, but the exact number is unknown. The inquiry on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) has concluded with a report released in June 2019. It found the Canadian state complicit in the sustained genocide of Indigenous peoples (National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, 2019; The Canadian Press, 2019). 97 and…that decolonizing work is still really, you know, like, prevalent. We need to do so much more, but…more so of people who are not from these communities. They’re just, a lot of them are just really oblivious, and I don’t…don’t have time for that right now. I don’t have time for it, but I also just, it’s too, it’s too painful. I can’t tell other people how to do their work. Whereas before, maybe I had more patience for it.

6.4 Hip-hop state of mind

Given the recent tragedy Ariel experienced, she has come to reflect on the role of hip-hop music in her life:

[I]n this journey of the past couple of years, I’ve seen how some of the music I grew up with was integral [to] building the way I see things. Uhh…my self-esteem went right through the floor, like…I couldn’t hold myself up anymore. And, I think, to be honest with you, part of it is just hearing how women have been so disrespected in hip-hop music for so many years. I thought I was invincible to it. It’s like, “Oh, it doesn’t matter. It’s just them saying whatever they’re saying. I’m not really paying attention.” But then when you have something so crazy of like, what had happened, you get to see how your people aren’t looked upon as human beings. And then when you carry that type of sadness, your, your energy is being, you know, put out there into the world where even just walking down the street, people can pick up on it. […] [E]ven in not saying anything, there’s a relation with people and it got so bad that I couldn’t, I couldn’t, I didn’t know how to deal with that. ‘Cause I couldn’t even sit in my own way of being in order to heal…to…come to the point where I am now, which is I’m sort of balanced, […] at least I feel like a human being again. And um, my mama had a lot to say about that, though, ‘cause she felt that, that the music that I was listening to, compiled with the immense disrespect of my family being attacked and just feeling like the bottom of the rung, the bottom of the barrel, just threw me. So I think that there’s more to it than…than I was willing to admit prior […] And uh…and I’m more sensitive to how people say things and do things now. Um...I was sensitive when I was younger absolutely, but I was able to separate, because I, you grow up in so many ways, in this country at least, of being an individual. And, I guess that’s part of like, the way I was able to maybe walk in two worlds maybe a little bit easier, is because I had that understanding. But now that I’m…understanding maybe more of who I am, and understanding that it’s more of a collective effort and more of a community that we need to get through all of this garbage that we’re dealing with in the world, I can’t go back to that individualistic way of dealing with things [….] And…especially in the rap world. Like it’s so…I have no tolerance for garbage. 98

Ariel couldn’t quite explain how she processes these two worlds, because she doesn’t “even just have two worlds.” She adds, “My background is just so multiracial [….] I can only really deal with what I understand of the land that I’m on. So that’s where the basis of my thought process comes in.” Understanding herself now is bound with how she sees her friends and their communities dealing “with oil battles and trying to move to renewable energy resources and those kinds of things, it’s like, that’s what gets me through, is that, the work is being done, whether the state likes it or not. […] [There’s also] the immense and difficult racism that we have to deal with. People that are so ignorant that they think that we’re just dogs and that we should just die anyways.”

DPA: Ariel lays bare the ways that growing up in hip-hop culture accompanies her individual growth within her personal family cultures. There are two aspects of her personal identity that conflict and converge at different points in her life, hinging on relations between individual and community.

Rap’s hurtful lyrics could be ignored so long as she walks with an understanding of a Canadian idea of being an individual. She could pretend that the words are not about her. However, as she began to understand the “collective effort” of community in overcoming adversity, those same lyrics became part of a collective rendering of misogyny, intersected and complicated by racism in her lived experiences.

Hip-hop culture is rife with this tension between individuality and solidarity with community, exposing the fissures at the culture’s boundaries that were, perhaps, never fully secured.

It is not surprising that Ariel is no longer sure that hip-hop has any role to play in her current context. She doesn’t see how anyone can broadly convey important messages through hip-hop music when such music is no longer very marketable. Sounding disillusioned, she adds, “Yeah, hip-hop has that ability, but [….] I don’t necessarily see it.”

SNAPSHOT

ARIEL: Yeah, there was another event…not the only other one that I did with Manifesto, but the only one I’ll keep talking about was [unclear]...a little bit attached to the Idle No More Movement. Like, the Yinka Dene Alliance was doing a cross-Canada tour in support of water, First Nations rights and issues, treaty rights, and um, ‘cause I’m part mixed from a First Nations heritage […] We’re from um, the Blackfeet Nation from Kainai, which is “blood’ in Piegan as well as, um, Ojibway or Anishinaabe and Cree, um, it’s just a snippet...But...just like a little sliver of who I am. I’d need, like, a dozen fingers to name them all probably, but anyway…So, because some people in the scene knew that was part of my background, they wanted me to be a part of that event. So I DJed and I hosted and it was really amazing, ‘cause it was like traditional west coast dancers and singers at the Great Hall, with like, my friends that are DJing and me and like […], it just, it reminded me of home so much because I was also one of the people back in Vancouver who kind of bridged that gap between like Indigenous rap and like, like the worldly rap, whatever, like that kind of mainstream rap scene, the Indigenous 99 rap scene like, kind of like, merged together with a few integral artists and I was one of them. And it just kinda felt like that all over again, almost like, you know, bridging these kind[s] of, you know, they’re not different genres, but you know, like, it’s a different perspective for sure, I think. And, I don’t know, it was, it was cool. It was nice just having these people that I grew up so closely to, closely-ish people, and being able to support that issue, having something actually really important being supported in a club, in a mainstream club where it was packed and people were having a really great time for a good cause. Like, I love that, I just love that.

DPA: DJing continues to provide Ariel ways to be on her own terms, in the community settings most important to her. Making music and social justice action combine in her creative expressions, producing an overlap between hip-hop cultural knowledge that she has gathered and the knowledge she obtains from connecting within Indigenous spaces. As Ariel shared the above snapshot, I got a sense of calm and joy from her that was not evident to me in any other parts of her narrative.

6.5 Style and place

When I first asked DJ Ariel to describe her style, she didn’t quite know how to describe it:

I don’t know how to characterize my style. It’s definitely one of my...it’s my own. I’ve developed my own style. I mean, I’m not afraid to play what I wanna play if I feel like the room will be receptive to it. I play a lot of music that people don’t know. Or that’s too old, it’s not current, right? But it’s still good music. Um...so I guess if anything, I would say that I, I introduce people to new things, whether it’s old or new. Um, I probably really need to actually work on that. I probably need to figure out a way to describe my style.

DPA: My question about Ariel’s style amounts to a kind of injunction for her to give an account of herself as Butler (2005) describes, i.e. it assumes a person’s ability to give a history that can be or is known.

I assumed that someone who has been working as a hip-hop artist for years would be able to describe their style. What I discover here instead is an important parallel between understanding one’s identity and understanding one’s style. There are many parts of Ariel’s heritage story that she is uncovering and exploring. The musical corollary is the way she is still digging and discovering what resonates with her. She is who she is and the music she plays is what she wants to play. Just as she cannot summarize her personal story, she cannot summarize her style. In a way, the form of my questions is similar to the form of curiosity about Ariel’s ethnicity that we heard earlier, as people tried to guess her family background.

In coming to Toronto, she says her music has been evolving, “I kinda had to switch my gears a little bit when I got here. I got a job at the school board, working with youth and that took all my time. I kind of stopped DJing a little bit. But this past year, I’ve kind of been rebranding and reworking a bit of my angles and...just because I’m in a new place, I kind of wanted to start it all over a little bit 100 more fresh,” working on music by newer artists while continuing to introduce crowds to sounds from the ‘60s and ‘70s.

Ariel gravitates toward festival and neighbourhood venues, rather than clubs, because, she explains, “I just don’t really feel like I wanna play to have people get smash-faced and party it down all night. Like, I like to play jams, I want people to have fun. I want people to dance and not feel like they have to drink to feel comfortable or they have to know all the latest hits or new music or whatever.” She provides the sonic backdrop to events that are meaningful to her and that provide spaces for communities that are not always seen as mainstream music market targets: family events, movement collective sessions, and those that promote Indigenous causes.

I think even just the diversity that I play shows [originality and where I’m from]. I don’t really have to stretch very far. I have a different look. I have a different vibe. I have a different way of presenting myself. Um…I don’t have to think about that. The way that I play my music. It’s like I’ll play…an R&B trap song. I’ll mix it in with like, a disco track and then I’ll play some break music that turns into jazz that then comes back to hip-hop, like, you know, that’s my diversity. That’s where I find that I’m able to express it.

During the course of our conversations, I notice that Ariel speaks of life and music as entwined and with political underpinnings. I asked her to comment on this:

I mean, even just the fact that I am here as a body in this life is political. My family consists of so many different nations. So many different people that, how we even got here…to say that I’m Indigenous and that I’m still here is a miracle. To say that part of my family survived the Holocaust and we’re still here. That’s a miracle. To say that, like, you know, that all the other pieces in between that I don’t even really know much about, you know like…heaven itself is political. I’m supposed to not be here, like […] I mean, technically, on paper, the Canadian states got me, ‘cause I’m not status. So technically I’m not here, right? You can’t take that away from me, so that’s their problem, not mine. But, but it is. I don’t see it as being different. I don’t see it as being a thing either. It’s just what I was born into; that’s who I am. I’ve always just seen it that way because that’s my complexity. Which thankfully it’s, I’m not alone in that. Otherwise I’d go insane.

6.5.1 On the margins

The idea that hip-hop is a culture with many dynamic contexts around the world provides the impression that artists form an immersive community. Ariel’s hip-hop community experience is 101 different from that experienced by the others I interviewed. She doesn’t really hang out with DJs, though there is a mutual acknowledgement between them. She explains:

I think I’m more in line with people who are curators. Who…have their own websites that are music-based, or they do events that are music-based, you know. They’re actively involved from another prong. And they’re facilitating what I do, and how I come to be able to do what I do by promoting music. I’m not in the realm of DJs. I’m not interested in working for Red Bull and being a corporate DJ. I would love to travel the world, but I don’t want it on those terms. I don’t wanna have to play the same set in 30 different cites while I’m on tour, because, because I’m a guaranteed, you know, crowd pleaser. I can’t live that life. I have a few DJs who do scratch sessions and do different events like that, where it’s just like a bunch of DJs coming together and practicing their skills. But they’re all guys. And I just don’t feel comfortable, to be honest with you. So I choose to stand out of that. My intention is to, to join every once in a while, but it just never happens. Um…I don’t know, I think I’m alone on that one. I don’t like that though.

Part of the reason she moved to Toronto from Vancouver was to see if there would be more opportunity to find a bigger group of female DJs. What she found in Toronto instead was an eclectic group of music-lovers – b-girls, graffiti artists, podcasters, etc. She calls it a “curated […] journey. It’s cool, it’s fine. Um, no DJs that I connect with […] I’m not a part of the group that is the…the scene.” This was not an answer I anticipated, so she added:

[T]hey [the ‘scene’] see me as the other, right? […] I’m female. […] I’m clearly now Indigenous. [….] [T]his has been my life for the past couple of years and then it’s like the oh, arm’s length. Your life is too real for me, so…I can’t be in my Red Bull bubble if you’re around. […] I don’t want that life. I don’t wanna have to fake who I am just be a part of something. [She pretends to be at a club] From across the room [I laugh as she mimicks seeing a fellow DJ] …I see you, I see you. You see me? Okay, we’re good [we laugh]. […] It’s a boy’s club. I don’t wanna fight to get in it.

102

DPA: As Ariel explained the above, I let her know that I was a bit surprised that she isn’t immersed in the hip-hop DJ community in Toronto. This prompts her to draw clear connections between her history (in particular, her ties to Indigenous communities), her desire to practice her art form in a smaller, local context (i.e. not big Red Bull competitions), and the reality of dominantly male presence in hip-hop. She accepts these realities, saying, “we’re good,” not as placid acknowledgement, but the ground she stands on at the moment. Rather than fight, she simply asserts who she is and her sense of place.

6.6 Cultural limits

As in my interviews with other artists, discussion about the contradictions in hip-hop and the oppressions within the culture led to feelings of disillusionment about the current state of artistic output (as popularly represented) given recollections of hip-hop’s early purpose and ethos.

The way I see hip-hop really still is like the way the culture began, right? A way of dealing with an oppressed, you know, either group of people or state or situations where people can actually deal with them in a way that gets a message across. For a while I believed that there was enough there to create a whole culture. I don’t believe that. I don’t believe that a lot of […] Western cultures that have emerged from like, industrial evolution really [inaudible] actually have an intact culture. Like, yeah we have our own language I guess, yeah we have our own ways of doing things, but it’s disconnected form spirit. So I really honestly can’t say that it’s a culture if it’s disconnected from spirit. That can be interpreted in so many different ways, but I see [hip-hop] as a way to tell stories and that to me, that’s really inherent to some of my traditional background, because a lot of us are storytellers. […] [W]e all have a story to tell and the more that we listen to each other, the more that we’ll be able to see the common truth in everything, to be able to find that commonality, to actually form a brotherhood or sisterhood. That’s where I see hip-hop at its strongest. But then we have the modern slavery of, you know, corporations that are trying to turn it into something else. [….] And we see that even today with our government trying to destroy Indigenous communities because they want resources. So like, the struggle is real, it’s there, it’s just, it’s been perverted by people who are getting paid. To see huge acts come out and what sells these days is just money, bitches, and I don’t know what, drugs, and doesn’t make any sense to me. Like, don’t get me wrong, […] I do like some ignorant music, I grew up on some of it, right? But it got too far and it’s almost out of hand in some ways because it’s become too mainstream. […] [hip-hop]’s gonna have to die a little bit before the underground can take it 103

back and represent it in the light that it really came from. And there’s a lot of people in that world that identify with the original, like, ways of why hip-hop even came to be.

DPA: This a different angle on the definition of “real” hip-hop. She doesn’t say that hip-hop music that touts money, bitches, and drugs is not real, she simply does not think it should be the norm. The “underground” in the sense of non-mainstream hip-hop still exists, and this is the part of the culture that continues to resonate with her.

I had to wonder what keeps DJ Ariel motivated to continue working with this genre of music, and within the culture that inscribes it. So I asked, “How important is hip-hop culture to you? [pause and laughingly] And would you have answered it differently at different points in your life? [We laugh.]”

ARIEL: […] [still laughing]. I never cared for it less in my life than I have now. […] [L]ike even say, watching the Straight Outta Compton movie, for example. […] [B]eing as old as I am now and seeing what that looks like to people who don’t know NWA [….,] it’s really polished nicely now. […] There’s like, not so much grit to it anymore. And people forget that Dre actually punched a woman out, you know, at the Grammy’s, you know what I mean? Like, all of those crazy things that happened like, get like, kind of washed under the rug […] Again, like I’m gonna go back to hip-hop being like, modern slavery, ‘cause that’s really what it’s being used as. […] You know, like, I called to change my Fido plan on a so-called Black Friday, whatever that was. And the Weeknd [….] the whole time I’m on hold, “I can’t feel my face when I’m with you, but I like it.” And I’m like, you all know that you’re listening to coke music, right? This is so corporate and you’re listening to drug music. This is mainstream, acceptable behaviour now, to do cocaine. Who the heck are you? […] Where do we live? I’m so confused. This is corporate America. It’s totally okay in their eyes. To me that’s slavery, because they’re pushing it down throats. They are…again, like, when you have a group of people that is so […] impoverished, and all they wanna do is be able to like, eat food, have a roof over their head, be able to pay their bills. Then they’re getting inundated with the media, the media, the media, because that’s their escape. They can’t really afford much, so like, they’ll, they’ll delve into music, they’ll move into the radio, they’ll delve into TV, whatever they can get their hands on, to have that immediate break of life, then they’re being brainwashed into thinking like all of these things are okay. [….] It hurts my brain. But that’s intentional. And that’s what hurts the most, right? [….] It hurts because it’s like, “Oh god, like…” we’re really that broken in North America specifically, because this is the new, so-called new world, that…we are the nation that is upholding the world’s vision of…the future, of everyone being prosperous and wealthy and…and yet we’ve 104

done it in such a way that is horribly twisted and backwards and…unsustainable. [….] It’s the delusion of the haves, ‘cause most of us are the have-nots. I can’t get with it. I don’t know what to do about changing it. Did I answer your question?

MYRTLE: Yes. No, it’s not that important to you. [I laugh]. Um…but there’s still a continued interest in the musical aspect of it, right? Of the culture?

A: ‘Cause every once in a while there’s the gems. Like Freddie Gibbs just put out a new record and he has a track with Black Thought called “Extradite.” [….] [I]t’s those ones that I’m like, “Oh you sampled Bob James. Oh you didn’t even need to, like, you just looped it.” And I love Bob James,71 and…you know like he’s like that jazz/funk era that inspired so much hip-hop. And he brought it back to that era, he brought it back to that time. And then he brought the message back to a way that I can relate. Where it’s like, Ohhh! You’re talking about something real now. […] Um, because that’s obviously where my heart is. I love, I love that sound. [….] Gonna love the stuff that I love, I can’t help it. It’s not…I’m never ever gonna put it off the table, but maybe I need to start making it. That’s probably part of it.

DPA: Sound as memory is important for Ariel. And as far as memory plays a role in identity delineation, sound is so much a part of Ariel’s personal identity that the feeling this sound-memory conjures inspires the possibility of making new music.

At our last conversation, DJ Ariel mentioned that she is retraining her voice to perhaps use it to move her music-making in a new direction. Since then, she has also begun working for Indigenous Climate Action an organization that helps Indigenous communities assert their rights and put into effect projects that advance climate change solutions while respecting Indigenous knowledge and identities. In this context, the singular assertion of being and place that Ariel demonstrated through her musical work is expanded through multiple individual assertions in a collective movement of self-determination.

71 Bob James’s “Nautilus” has been sampled many times by hip-hop artists. For a discussion of its influence, see lil’dave (2016). 105

Chapter 7 LolaBunz 7 Female in the cypher

I heard LolaBunz mentioned in an earlier interview I conducted with a b-girl. Much later, I was listening to female emcees from Toronto online and the Jane and Finch Female Cypher72 caught my attention. These rappers are hard-hitting, with a boldly-styled image, and unflinching flow. LolaBunz, who opened the cypher, commanded attention.

I first met her at Michel’s Bakery Café in Yorkdale Mall on November 20, 2015. In person, the confidence LolaBunz exudes in performance is accompanied by the apparent joy of discussing hip- hop and her music.

7.1 It’s just begun73

“I was kinda born into the hip-hop scene […] I was born with hip-hop around me.” LolaBunz received her first radio and cassette player from her sister when she was seven years old, sparking her love for music. As a kid, she got into fights frequently enough to concern her parents so she began writing as a way to express herself:

I would say it really saved me, because before I was […] doing music, I kind of felt lost, like how do I express myself other than physically? Or,...you know what I’m saying, or putting myself in a hole that I’m not talking to anybody and things like that. And how do I express myself about things that are going on around the world, people, things that are going on in my life? And it was music.

One day, her brother, Femi Lawson, now a YouTube and VICE media personality, came home talking about freestyling. He made her listen to some songs and soon Lola could see herself using her writing as the basis for her own rap lyrics. She was about 16 years old when she began seriously considering rapping as a career. She was 25 at the time of our first interview.

Throughout our conversation, Lola refers to the beginning of her career in hip-hop as the time “I fell in love with music.” She accompanies many of these reminiscences with the idea of freedom:

72 To watch the video, visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHEt_bzglII.

73 A frequently sampled song by the Jimmy Castor bunch that has become part of the breaking canon of beats to dance to. 106

Music […] makes me so free, like, I always say, there’s one thing nobody could take away from you and that’s your voice, right? […] They can say, “Okay can’t speak here,” but you’re still gonna have your voice, right? So, music for me is just…it’s like, it’s the world, you know what I’m saying. I can say anything I want in my music. Everybody might not like it, but I can still say whatever I want. […] And that’s the thing about music that’s not like anything else, you know what I’m saying? Like, […] they don’t have to listen to you but […] [n]obody could really stop you from creating, you know what I’m saying? It’s […] my ultimate form of creativity […] and it’s just so free […]. [A]nything going on in the world right now, I could express it musically, you know what I’m saying. And I can reach who knows, god knows, you know what I’m saying, I could reach everywhere. So, yeah, music is definitely freedom. […] I just love getting like a beat or something. It’s like a playground, literally. It’s like, “Oh my gosh, what am I gonna do with this next?” […] That’s music […] [I]t has no rules to it, you know what I’m saying, and that’s…and I think that’s why a lot of people could, like, relate to music too, because there’s no rules. Like there’s, it’s not like tap dancing, there’s a right and a wrong way to do it, it’s just…freedom.

It was in a Grade 7 or 8 English class poetry unit that LolaBunz discovered that her expressions resonated with her peers. Eventually she added music to her poetry, “so then some of it was hip- hop.” She had discovered a forum for her shy, quiet thoughts.

Dialogic/Performance Analysis (DPA): Lola’s hip-hop story immediately recalls the refrains of freedom that accompany the culture’s history. Having been “born” into hip-hop gives weight to the role Lola plays in developing her art form and contributing to hip-hop communities. Upon first meeting LolaBunz, we instantly make the connection between her and the communities around her and how invested she is in hip-hop culture. More specifically, we are introduced to a rapper who is using lyrics to converse about topics of importance to her and to those around her.

7.2 Where you’re at is where you’re from

LolaBunz is “Toronto-born and bred, but […] also from a Nigerian background.” On a trip to Nigeria in October, 2012, she surprised a Nigerian audience with her ability to rap in Yoruba. Tapping into aspects of her background allows her to discover skills that could be used in her music- making. She reflects:

People know I’m from Jane & Finch and blah, blah, blah, but, who am I really? Like, this […] Canadian, but Nigerian, girl, so even with [the Controlla remix] track, like I was really excited to do that song ‘cause I’m like, people don’t know I could do this, like, who, and I even speak the language, everything. And so my people back home, it’s just like, it’s, it’s like, 107

woah, you’re from Canada, but you’re still sticking to your roots, right? Like, letting people know where you are.

Being in a particular performance space recalls meaningful geographic roots expressed in qualities of sound that allow her and her audiences to discover who she really is.

SNAPSHOT:

I have a song called ‘Sick” that I dedicated to my, one of my girls that passed away and it just talks about like “I’m sick of all the RIPs. I’m so sick of all the RIPs.” And it’s just, it’s paintin’ a picture of like, growing up in, in Driftwood and what we used to do, sit on the green box, you know the electric box [we laugh], […]. Sittin’ on a green box and having barbecues in our, in our backyard, with our little 5-cent gums and things. When we were young, we didn’t have money, but we’ll go to the store [beats the table] with like a dollar [beat], come back with a whole bunch of candy [softer beat], play some music in [softer beat] the backyard, and act like we’re having a jam, like [I laugh]. But it, it’s just, it’s just the real life, you know what I mean?

As I was re-storying Lola’s narrative, various news outlets were reporting a quotation from Community Safety and Correctional Services Minister and MPP Michael Tibollo, “I want to reassure everyone that the focus of this government is to ensure that safety is paramount in all communities. Personally, I went out to Jane and Finch,74 put on a bulletproof vest and spent 7 o’clock to 1 o’clock in the morning visiting sites that had previously had bullet-ridden people killed in the middle of the night,” Tibollo told the Legislature.75 Tibollo has faced criticism for continuing to disseminate a racialized, criminalized narrative of the Jane and Finch neighbourhood that paints it as a violence-ridden community. I asked LolaBunz what she thinks about this sort of portrayal of her neighbourhood:

LOLABUNZ: I mean, let’s...I usually start with the term that […] there’s a different term now, but it used to be called “at-risk.” These neighbourhoods that we live... […]

MYRTLE: I think you said “priority”? […]

L: Yeah, priority neighbourhoods or at-risk neighbourhoods. […] Growing up, when that

74 The Jane and Finch neighbourhood in Toronto’s northwest region has been called a ‘priority’ neighbourhood, a label frequently used to describe areas that lack economic investment. This particular neighbourhood has been stigmatized by reports of crime, even as the neighbourhood supports thriving resident communities. Jane and Finch’s demographics consist primarily of immigrants, many of whom recently settled. The most recent city census categorizes most of the area’s residents as ‘visible minorities’ (Toronto City Planning Strategic Initiatives Policy and Analysis, 2018).

75 See Ferguson and Benzie (2018). 108

term came along...like a lot of people don’t even know what, what is “at-risk?” So, for me, it’s like, everybody is at-risk. If you’re in Richmond Hill, you’re at risk, you know what I’m saying, of like, violence, or, you know what I’m saying, gun violence. It can happen anywhere. It’s not because you live in a certain area that it can only happen...yes, these certain areas maybe they have more poverty rates, more community housing, more drug use and things like that, but, I mean, if you don’t have the funds and the means to get by, people are gonna do things to make money […]. But it’s just the whole term “at-risk,” that kind of, I wasn’t, I didn’t really agree with, type thing. […] so, I mean, like, Jane and Finch community in the past, definitely, there’s been high crime rates and things like that, but that doesn’t determine the type of people that live there, ‘cause I […] would go to different communities, like, well-off communities and stuff like that, and I would not feel as comfortable as I am in Jane and Finch sometimes. […] Like, yes, there are the bad people and the good people, but that’s everywhere, you know what I’m saying. Just because they don’t look like thugs, or look like whatever this idea of at-risk youth are, doesn’t mean that they’re not in every neighbourhood. So, I mean, I don’t, I wouldn’t really say that these at- risk neighbourhoods are worse-off neighbourhoods than other ones. Yes, there are high crimes in certain areas, but that doesn’t...Just because of the things that happen around the community, it doesn’t label how the people are, you know what I’m saying. Because there, there are business owners, there are scholars, there are people doing a lot of amazing things, but the media focuses on the negative, so […] Even being a York University student, like, all the time, like...we’ll be in any social science class and then they will always bring up Jane and Finch […] and then there will be that one person in the class, who’s like, “Oh, I would never go to Jane and Finch, I’m gonna get shot,” or something like that, you know what I’m saying? [I laugh.] But a lot of people really think like that, you know what I’m saying. And then, I always feel like I have to be that person like, [raises her hand] “Hello, no, it’s not really like that. I live there. And York University is in Jane and Finch,” like, what people don’t understand, you know what I mean. […] But, I mean, it’s all about breaking the stigma and that kinda...goes back to what I… I’m only one person but it takes, sometimes, it takes one person to, to make people break out of that stigma and that idea. 109

DPA: We gain some understanding of the creation of the “ghetto” image via media and politically driven perpetuations through chosen slices of reality. The location of hip-hop in socio-politically “oppressed” spaces began with its spatial history in the South Bronx. Transported through place and time, the “ghetto” connects locations of hip-hop individuality through the echoing resonances created by inaccurate or unjust portrayals of residents, perceptions of gun violence, poverty, etc., (for further discussion on the discourse of criminality, see Aprahamian (2019)) as well as the empowerment that comes with asserting one’s stance against these limited and limiting portrayals.

7.3 The message76

LolaBunz did not begin rapping in order to be a mentor or a role model, but she is very aware that her performance platform comes with a degree of responsibility. She strives to have a message in her songs that will resonate with audiences and generate a meaningful feeling. In this way, she stays true to what she sees as the reason hip-hop was created,

for people to express themselves, for people to come together and have a feeling, have parties, and vibe, and relate to. It wasn’t created for us to promote like all this poppin’ mollies, and looking like Barbie, you know what I’m saying. That’s not, that’s not real hip- hop, you know what I’m saying? To me.

As a result, she is not afraid to talk about pressing issues, such as police brutality, too often fatal, against young, Black, males. This was the topic of her track “Ring the Alarm.” She explains:

[S]ometimes I feel like if I don’t say it, who’s gonna say it? Right? I feel like it’s, it’s my duty to just address these things musically, because, I mean, yes, we could listen to the news, we could read reports, but sometime you just need to hear a song to remind you. Like, even if you just remember the hook or one part, one part of the song, it’s, it’s sparking the discussion in somebody’s head. [A]nd me just bringing life experiences to music, that’s always what I wanna do, just spark that expression in somebody’s head. Make you think about it. If you didn’t think about it yesterday, listen to this song. Just listen. Give me one minute and listen to this song. Think about it. ‘Cause you never know, when, maybe when you think about it, maybe you gonna do some’in’ about it, right? I’m only one person, right? I’m only a artist. The, the best way that I could reach multiple people at once? For me? Is music. [She accentuates her speech with simultaneous hand beats on the table] […] [W]hen you attach a [beat]

76 “The Message” by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five appears to be the first commercial rap that describes the socio-economic landscape of artists’ neighbourhoods. 110

real life [beat] experience [beat] to a song [beat] or a moment [beat] like, you can’t [beat] forget it.

DPA: As an artist, Lola aims to educate, participating in both the “Each one, teach one” tradition of hip-hop as well as acting as a news and editorial source, much like Chuck D of Public Enemy described rappers about 30 years ago when he declared that rap is “black CNN” (requoted in Mahoney (2010)). LolaBunz feels a responsibility to make listeners think critically, to make them converse. Interestingly, though action might be an appropriate end goal, it seems discussion and critical thought are more important, pointing towards goals consistent with the purpose of cyphers.

7.4 Ladies first77

SNAPSHOT:

LOLABUNZ: Okay, so the cypher, it went viral. Like literally, it went viral within two weeks. That was our first video that we ever did. […] [I]t wasn’t supposed to be a female cypher. Um, these guys in Driftwood, north of Jane and Finch. […] [T]hey’re from north of Jane and Finch, we’re from south of Jane and Finch. It’s called […] “Uptop” and “Southside,” whatever, but they did a video of the cypher. I saw it and I’m like, oh my gosh, like, we should do a Southside cypher […]. So I actually reached out to a couple known rappers from the Southside, like guys, like guys, too. No actually, it was only guys and one girl, um, Badass Buck, the girl in the video. And it’s like, okay, nobody got back to me, nobody’s taking me seriously, I’m like, okay. So then me and my friend, Badass Buck, we’re talkin’ about it and then she’s like, “Yo, we should do a all female cypher instead. Like, forget the guys, like whatever, let’s do a female one.” I’m like, “Yeah, that would be so cool.” And then even the hoodies with our names on it, we did that the same morning. […] [W]e were gonna wear like black hoodies and white hoodies and we got them downtown Chinatown for like cheap. And then she’s like I know this guy in Vaughan Mills; we could go. And we went [snaps] like that morning 10:00 first thing. We’re like okay [we’re] gonna be [y]our first customer. […] [A]nd then we invited people to come to the video too and then it just happened to be like, only the girls showed up, so it just looked like a whole female thing, right? So, it was just, it was amazing and then we released the video, literally like, two weeks, it, I think it started at like, got like 1500 views. And then all of these blogs, they started reposting it. That’s why it got so many, so many views. And then we started getting booked for shows and all of this stuff.

MYRTLE: Woahh.

77 “Ladies First” was a collaborative track by influential female rappers, Queen Latifah and Monie Love. It is seen as a celebration of Afrocentric feminism that brought recognition to the important presence of women in hip-hop. Roberts (1994) delves into the issues addressed in this track. 111

L: And it’s like woooahh, like what? […] [I]t was a crazy experience […] [F]rom that it was just so much motivation, to, to just even do more and even just push the whole female empowerment thing, too, because like, these girls, where did these girls come from? And there’s, there’s, they have these hard lyrics, and it’s like, woah, like where’d you guys come from? And it was just, it was just amazing that experience. But literally, it was like, it was almost like by accident type thing, you know […] we didn’t expect that at all. Like, we’re just like, this is our first video, like, nobody knows us. And it went, right now it has, I think like 84,000 views and it’s still growing. […] It was amazing, man. People still remember me. Yeah, and then yeah, and then the DJ I met at uh Michie Mee’s show, he’s like, “Yeah, you’re that girl from the, the cypher.” And then I’m like, I’m like, “Oh wow, they saw this in New York?” They’re like, yeah, like, people out there, he’s like, “Yeah, people in New York know you.”

M: Wooow.

L: Like what? I’m like, whaat? Like. He’s like, “Yeah, people in New York know you. Yeah, you’re one, you were wearing the hat, right? You…” I’m like, “Yeah, that’s me!” It’s like, you know me for real? This is some big DJ and things like that, so it’s crazy how something, like, so little, like, a lot of people really know me off of that cypher, too, and then they, they look for my music and stuff like that, but. […] That’s how it came about. And, it’s funny like, even when I talk about the whole female empowerment thing, it’s, it’s funny, because, okay, reach out to the guys, but they don’t take you seriously. So it’s like okay, we’ll do it ourselves and it’s like “Heeey, we blew up.” Like [laughs]…

M: I was also like, I saw it and I was like where are they? I think that’s a parking garage.

L: Yeah, exactly. […] Yup, it’s a parking garage and the music’s playing from the car, but you don’t know that. […] We made it work. We said we wanted to do something. Regardless, we said we’re doing this and we did it.

Another young emcee I interviewed, Skyboxx, was part of a group of female emcees called 1st Ladies of the Rebellion, together with Zakisha Brown, Xolisa, Dynesti Williams, and Mapela. They met at Reaching Intelligent Souls Everywhere (RISE) poetry sessions, a weekly event in Scarborough, Ontario, through which aspiring lyrical artists test and refine works. Inspired by the Jane & Finch cypher, they set out to do a video as a collective.

We wanted to make a, you know, a really good video where each of us would actually embody a female emcee in the game right now in hip-hop, like a mainstream female emcee, and so we each chose our favourite. [….] [W]e had our verses and we had a vision for the video, that’s, that’s basically all we had. And um, and, and hence, we’re not […] a group. We’re not a group. We’re just female emcees that are getting together […] and just wanted to work on something. And, and, so we titled ourselves 1st Ladies 112

from that. […] 1st Ladies of the Rebellion. [….] I think there’s gonna be some disappointment out there, because a lotta people perceived us as a group and…they might just think, like, “How come female emcees can never stay together forever?” [….] [T]he response we got? […] It was like, wow, this has been missing. This is rare, this…this is not happening, you know. And um… […] to see it in […] Toronto was, was like wow, like. And we were all good and we, and we all had a chemistry, we all, we were all like, good with each other, and it was all peace and, and love at the end of the day, but like, it wasn’t the goal [to be a female rap group]. And, and, from that we were able to see that wow, people were actually craving this type a energy, like this feminine hip-hop energy out there, you know.

DPA: Female rap crews are a rarity and here we sense that there is a demand for such a group. It is interesting to note that Skyboxx feels there may be disappointment, stated as a question, “[H]ow come female emcees can never stay together forever?” followed by, “[W]e were all like, good with each other, and it was all peace and, and love at the end of the day.” She seems to be battling the negative perception of women competing with each other to rise to the top, as opposed to seeing a woman’s success on its own merits.

The hip-hop music industry continues to be dominated by males, making it difficult for a variety of reasons, for women to get the same buzz as men. LolaBunz could not give a particular reason for the shadow cast over women, but she observes that the same obstacles are apparent in other aspects of the entertainment industry:

[I]t’s sex, selling sex, you know what I’m saying? Ass and titties, for lack of a better word. […] But I’m like, I don’t wanna...That’s not the only way you have to go, you know what I’m saying. […] Being a male, it’s not that much focused on image, but being a female, it is. So me, just coming, ‘cause I grew up in Jane and Finch, like I grew up in a priority neighbourhood. I saw a lot of things growing up as well. So it was also my community and just the way that I grew up that I wanted to create music that people can relate to, but at the same time I didn’t wanna be like a puppet or a Barbie, you know what I’m saying. I wanted to be something else and I wanted to show people that females can do this too. We can even do it better than you guys. […] You know, that’s how, that’s kind of what my drive was.

113

DPA: Despite writing a song called “Real hip-hop,” that laments the popular, sexualized image of women in the rap industry, LolaBunz does not deny that the image of a hypersexual female rapper is part of hip-hop. She points out instead that it is not the only path available. B-boy Benzo, in his interview, parallels this statement as he reminds that “[Y]ou have the right to express yourselves in any way you want. Whether it's raunchy, political, anyway we want. There's rappers that have come up that have gone dark deep into like some vampire stuff and you have rappers that just, are conscious all the time and talking about political issues. But for some reason, when it comes down to the women, it's like, we don't care what you have to say, you have to look a certain way. That's discrimination. That's not hip-hop.” The issue is not expression, it’s limitation.

Another point of interest is Lola’s use of the term “priority,” which she uses here to describe her neighbourhood, despite the tensions the term provokes. This is a performative iteration that we see reworked through her storytelling process; in effect, Signified (Gates, 2014) upon, through her experiences and their eventual incorporation into her creative output. Using the term “priority neighbourhood” calls upon our understandings of this type of place via popular media portrayals. At the same time, she opens up new possible meanings through the excited tone of voice she uses, the way she speaks of this place as a source of inspiration and an empowered, female representation that signals the difference that can arise out of her place in this “priority neighbourhood.”

She breaks expectations as soon as she introduces herself.

Even when I tell people I’m a artist, like what do you do? Sing? All the time, like, I get that all the time, “What do you do? Sing?” “Nooo, why do you think I sing? I rap.” Like, “What?” I’m gonna like…“Rap for me.” Why do I have to rap for you? If a guy told you he’s a rapper, would you tell him [...] to rap for you?

There is a strength that comes from confronting biases against females in hip-hop, rather than buckling under the imperatives to prove herself.

To steel herself against the media and commercial pressure to conform to particular images of women, Lola strives to know herself and to determine what she values so that what she presents to the public aligns with her self-view.

I make it my duty to just keep it real in my songs and what I talk about and my image, you know what I’m saying. If I can’t turn on the TV or if I can’t put something on and, and I feel comfortable for my parents looking at it, or the kids that I work with looking at it, why would I do it, if I can’t be comfortable?

The underlying task of representing her community, and women, appears once again linked to the idea of being a role model, a manifestation of a frequently heard hip-hop culture call to action, “Each one, teach one.” She muses that if she had someone to tell her about how to become 114 successful in the music industry, she may be further along today. As a result, she is both encouraged and rewarded when a young person asks her questions:

I’m learning so much and then I, I could personally, […] share the information that I know with, you know, the young 15-year-old that’s getting into it right now, so like, by the time he’s 20 […] like he knows, okay, this is what I have to do, this is what I have to do.

DPA: Lola’s desire to pass on knowledge to an imagined, male, aspiring artist, says much about the prevalence of the image of the male rapper as well as the increasing influence and presence of females in the rap scene.

7.5 Real hip-hop

Whatever happened to the real hip-hop Where real recognize real And I look at them and see me? 78

LolaBunz’s definition of real hip-hop stems from her understanding of hip-hop history and the purpose of its cultural expressions. Specifically, hip-hop music must generate a feeling and have a message that resonates with lived experiences. For her, in particular, this message or feeling provides a positive, productive perspective, otherwise it’s just “noise.” To guide her creativity, she asks herself,

What have I been through? What, what do I wanna talk about? What message do I wanna put out into the world […]? […] I wouldn’t make music about something that is untrue to me, you know what I’m saying? That’s, that’s what keeping it real is for me. And then on the image side, it’s just like, what […] skin am I comfortable in, right? So that’s keepin’ it real for me, you know?

In line with this, she models her performance image on Aaliyah,79 an artist whom she considers a “teacher.” Lola describes her look as “urban with a sexy feel to it.” She tells me that she was a tomboy up until recently, wearing baggy pants and a cropped top or white tee, in Aaliyah’s style.

78 LolaBunz has a track called “Real Hip-hop” in which she laments the loss of hip-hop’s original purpose. In it, she names influential figures in rap music’s early development who used hip-hop’s art forms to celebrate or uplift hip-hop cultural communities.

79 Aaliyah was a popular American R&B artist whose successful career (through the 1990s) was cut short by her passing in a plane crash in 2001. 115

She has updated her look in part to look her age (people continued to think she’s 16) and also to reflect the name LolaBunz. Indeed, when I first met her, she didn’t have her hair as she did on our second meeting, with long braids rolled into stylish buns, accented by blue (and other bright colours at other times). She also pointed out the African influence in her braid style, which I see as complementing her relatively recent foray into adding Nigerian lyrics to her repertoire.

Having been “born” into hip-hop she has been immersed in and has internalized a standard of authenticity that requires artists to “keep it a hundred, […] no bullshit.” For her, certain songs are not just songs, they speak about life as it is. For example, when Jay-Z sings, “It’s a hard knock life” he taps into a recollection, “it was a hard knock life for us, you know what I mean? But, but, we still got through it, you know what I mean? So like songs like that, I mean, it’s just real life, and sometime it’s just, somehow you just need to hear that for motivation. Like somebody’s feeling you too, like, it is a hard-knock life for you. We are going through these things, but guess what? We’re still here, you know.” She describes hip-hop music as “very…no-filters […] [I]t doesn’t hide nothing, which she thinks leads to much criticism of its artists’ expressions. This is also hip-hop’s strength as its stories allow audiences to participate in the re-storying of the performance moment.

LolaBunz points out that hip-hop is also incredibly humorous, a point that many who view the culture from an outside perspective forget:

[I]t’s very humorous, too, like; it’s not always only scary stuff, it’s very humorous, like…Growing up, all a these crazy dances, like [I laugh] do the laffy taffy like, lean back, like, it was just, it was just really fun. And […] growing up in middle school […] everybody used to be a dancer, everybody was in a, a dance group […] ...It was crazy [she seems so happy to recall all this]! And just looking forward to those talent shows like, what show are they gonna do? Are they gonna do the Harlem shake? […] [I]t’s just fun. […] And the thing with hip-hop, too, it’s always changing. So I mean, it’s still hip-hop but it’s always, which route is hip-hop going now? You know what I mean? Like there was the Biggies and the Tupacs. Then there’s like the Nicki Minajs and then there’s like the Kendrick Lamars. And then there’s like the Jay Coles and the Jay-Zs like it’s hip-hop, but it’s just, […] [I]t’s the same genre, but it’s sooo different, you know what I mean? […] [I]t’s a playground [beats on table]. [I laugh]. It’s a playground.

The varieties of difference that are encompassed by “hip-hop” make it challenging for LolaBunz to define the term. Another difficulty is that it is a “lifestyle,” a definition frequently heard from those immersed in the culture. 116

[H]ip-hop’s a mixture of everything. It’s […] just seeing what you see in the world and, and putting it into your, into your style, into your [...] words […] Um, it’s, it’s [sighs] it’s hard to...explain [laughs]. […] It’s a community of, of people who believe in lyricism as a way of expressing themselves. Um, of people who believe in movement as a way of expressing themselves. […] I can’t define hip-hop without also talking about struggle, too, because, even if we look at the early hip-hop artists, like, what they were rapping about and talking about was stuff going on in the world, you know what I’m saying. And the way hip-hop does it, it does it in like, […] I would say like a fierce way. It’s different than any other genre of music, you know what I’m saying. It’s very raw, it’s very intentional.

She adds that each art form brings with it “a different world.”

She then turns to the specific hip-hop context of Toronto, citing that our sound is very different from the sound coming out of other places: “It’s like taking a whole bunch of different colour Skittles, putting them in a bottle and shaking them up.” She also says,

[T]here’s something about the feeling in Toronto music. It’s very diverse. It’s still hip-hop, but we will incorporate sometimes, like, reggae artists in our hip-hop, different R&B artists in our hip-hop, you know what I’m saying? Different, I don’t know, it’s very unique in Toronto, like, ah, how do I define this? […] I listen to an American artist, they have kind of a similar sound to them. Like, okay, let me look at hip-hop today, right now. Popular is like, trap music, um, you know, Young Thug, like those type a artists. In Toronto, you’re gonna find sooo much variety. Like, it’s not gonna be one type of hip-hop music. It’s gonna be the fast-paced, the slow-paced, the mixing rock with hip-hop [voice gets rawer sounding], mixing country with hip-hop. […] [We laugh]. […] Like, it’s like taking R& B, taking old school hip- hop, taking new school hip-hop and putting it in a water bottle, shaking it up. […] That’s Toronto culture [laughing].

DPA: Here, LolaBunz reiterates the correlation between Toronto’s diverse demographics and its diverse hip- hop soundscape. In so doing, she becomes connected to Toronto hip-hop’s historical roots (see Ch. 4, “Hip-hop in the T-dot”).

That Toronto sound is “different” also makes it part of a global hip-hop soundscape. B-boy Benzo points out, “hip-hop we, you have so many different sounds. You have the onyx sound which is like that loud, underground sound, very grimy, you know what I mean? You even have the sound like, uh, Queen Latifah, like that Jersey uptown anthem sound. Like, all those are different sounds, because they are people expressing themselves differently without even thinking about what's the record label gonna say, or what's, what are people gonna say, you know. Because expressing yourself is not about thinking about what someone’s gonna say. You're just doing it freely.” Once again, the idea of hip-hop as a location of “freedom” is evident.

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Regional dialects and slang are frequently injected into rap throughout the world. Toronto’s specific multicultural make-up creates its unique sound. LolaBunz points out,

[W]e’ll have the Jamaican accent patois slang. […] [T]his is the thing about Toronto, too, because there are so many different neighbourhoods, like even if you come to Jane and Finch, there’s different slangs here than if you go to Scarborough, you know I’m sayin’? […] [O]ur language and our dialect […] relates to our little hip-hop culture, too […] Even in the music too, like, sometimes you can just pick it up like yeah that’s, that’s Toronto, you know.

The relationship between speech and rap weaves a soundscape particularly recognizable for those who live in the same region as the artist, which allows LolaBunz, as both artist and audience, to feel part of hip-hop culture and its particular instance in Toronto.

7.6 Knowledge

SNAPSHOT:

[…] a very memorable experience. […] [O]ne of my favourite artists, um, Styles P and Jadakiss, […] I went to their concert when they came to Toronto […] And I actually got to meet them in person. And then I gave Jadakiss one of my mixtapes. Like, he actually took it. I’m like, “Oh my god, he took it, it’s so good.” Um, so that like to me is like, just going up, listening to somebody and then building yourself up to the point that you actually have your own CD and everything and then you meet them and they actually like, actually, you, who knows if he even listened to it, but the fact that like, they actually took it, like I felt sooo, like appreciated, you know what I’m saying? And I also met Mobb Deep as well. And like the “Real Hip-hop” track, ‘cause it was Mobb Deep inspired, right? So I, like, I gave my um, CD to Prodigy and he’s like, yeah, I’m gonna try to listen to it and I had a little conversation with him about my music and stuff like that. And he’s like, “Keep doin’ what you do,” like he gave me a little pointer, so I’m like, oh my gosh, my life’s complete now, like, you know. […] [B]oth of them are memorable, but like, even the Mobb Deep one, is like, oh my gosh I just, this track on your thing and you guys are really, you guys are like real hip-hop and, and it’s like I’m meeting you guys, and he’s like, he’s REAL. […] Because it’s just people you look up to and then you never think you’re gonna actually meet them right? It’s just like, oh my gosh, I met them AND you took my CD? Oh my gosh. My life is over. I don’t need nothing else, you know what I’m saying?

Like the other artists I interviewed, LolaBunz was not taught how to rap by teachers. Instead, she absorbed knowledge through keen observation and close contact with people who encouraged her development. Though she mentions Aaliyah as the artist she has always tried to emulate, it is her brother, Femi, who is two years older than her, that has played an important role in motivating her 118 progress. She and her brother first got their artistic start as actors and both are cultivating careers as performers. She recalls that he and other students would have freestyle battles at school and she would battle him at home after school.

[T]he freestyle battle is kinda like a test. So it’s like, before, before the battle, like I’ll be listening to music or whatever, whatever and then freestyle battle and make a beat [beats the table], and then, we just…rap. See what comes to mind […] freestyling, that was, I would say that was kinda training, you know, because freestyling is off the top of your head, right?… […] [T]hose little freestyles playing around with my brother, it was training, to just get my mind running and getting my lyrics going through my head all the time, ‘cause you have to be on top of it [snaps fingers as she says this], right? […] Yeah, so I would say, that’s kind of like my learning – listening, mimicking and freestyling.

DPA: I recall my interview with MC Abdominal in which he says, “even with […] the internet, and the multimillion dollar industry, you’re always gonna have 15 dudes in the circle, one guy beatboxing, or clapping their hand, or pounding on a table and someone freestyling, right?” (quoted in Ch. 5, p. 66). Lola, at this point, does not seem to have participated in battles publicly, making me wonder whether the participants at school were primarily male. Abdominal’s observation, though not meant to say that females cannot participate in freestyle cyphers or battles, does validate the statements about the taken-for-granted image of cyphers as being male-dominated. This brings further significance to the Jane and Finch All- Female Cypher. It also brings to mind questions about the learning environments of aspiring female artists, which was not a specific focus of this study.

Lola researched artists she admired, such as Jadakiss, Styles P, Remy Ma, Eve, and DMX. Not only would she listen to their music, she paid attention to topics they talked about and what they had been through in their lives. She describes the process:

[E]arly learning for me was literally just listening to different types of music, […] understanding styles and different sounds and different flows, like tempo and things like that. And just watching, like, watching videos like on, on TV and um, artists that I like and just kind of almost mimicking them in my own way, but also just like, seeing what they do, you know. Like the more I saw and the more I listened, the more I had an idea of what music was, like hip-hop in specific; but just being a artist in general as well. […] Um, other than listening to music and watching things on TV and things, it was like um, my brother would be like, the challenge.

She continues to learn about the music industry and what it takes to succeed as she goes through the stages of music recording and marketing. She is always asking herself questions: 119

How you gonna brand yourself? How you gonna market yourself? How you gonna get the views? How you gonna get the downloads? How you gonna sell the mixtapes? Who’s gonna shoot your cover? How you gonna apply for SOCAN to get your credits, get your royalties? […] [W]hat kinda pictures are you putting up? How are you getting followers? How are you getting out to blogs?

She also has to keep up her presence on Twitter, Instagram, SoundCloud, and YouTube. Meeting other artists and artist organizations allows her to promote herself and her music. She takes the initiative to attend grant-writing workshops like those hosted by ArtReach,80 and music conferences, always asking, “Can I…?,” in order to have the opportunity to showcase her music. “Okay, let’s do it. No sleep tonight? Alright. Two hours’ sleep? Alright, let’s go, get some coffee, let’s go!” – she juggles school, life, and family on top of this.

LolaBunz’s early career challenges are interesting to juxtapose with MC Abdominal’s reflections about his career stages. Abs recalls:

[B]ack then, that was like in ‘03, so the net was around, but people were still actually going out and buying CDs as I said, we sold you know, like 80,000 hard copies of the CD, whereas that’s almost unheard of now. […] Now it’s like all about your [said in a different voice to differentiate from his own] online presence […] and building a brand and like how many YouTube views [still in that voice] and like labels they’re all just, that’s all they look at, it’s like how many Facebook friends, how many twitter followers… […] and blah blah blah blah. […] So, I, I’m still trying to figure it out now. It’s, it’s you know, it’s good and bad, because it’s much easier now to get your music to people, obviously, because you have all these incredible platforms, like these powerful tools, with no budget at all. I mean, whether you’re signed to a major label or not, you could upload a video to YouTube, you could put stuff on Facebook, blah blah blah, but, um, yeah, it’s just different, you know. ‘Cause labels aren’t really signing as many people because it’s just like, how do they make their money, it’s the, you know, it’s the big question that’s plaguing […] the whole record industry, right, like…? […] It’s like anything content driven. Like whether it’s TV shows, you know, it’s all available for free, streaming, right, like, books, newspapers, magazines, so…Yeah, it’s, it’s tough to…How do you make it? You have to try to tour and get, get revenue from live shows, or licensing is important, like trying to get your music used in video games, and uh, ads, advertising, that kind of stuff. Um, radio play is still important. […] [A]n already difficult career choice is now, I would say, harder. […] ‘Cause, I mean, as difficult as it was, your main source of income was, still at least you could still sell CDs, but now that’s like, kinda dried up, so… […] Um, I’d say live shows definitely is up there. Um, yeah, I, I do okay as far as like

80 ArtReach is an organization that supports community-based arts projects that empower youth from under-served areas of Toronto. 120

radio play. Um, my, my quarterly SOCAN cheques, thank, bless SOCAN always. Um, so you know, CBC’s always good about playing my stuff, so…It’s not like I’m making a ton, like I can’t rely on that, […] it’s just every 3 months you get a payment, so I might get like, you know, like a few hundred bucks here and there and be like, “Oh, cool.” You know, “I forgot that was coming,” so…It’s of more like you get a few hundred here, a few hundred there and you could cobble together…

DPA: Abs’s career was starting to ramp up in 2003 and he released (in 2012) another album, “Sitting Music,” whose sounds and styles are considerably different from his early entries. LolaBunz, in 2015, was just getting started and released her first EP, “Wild Card” in 2018. Despite the span of time between them and despite their different locations is Toronto hip-hop history, similarities in music industry challenges remain.

SNAPSHOT:

Well, there…well, for me, like when I was recording my first mixtape there was a place called The Loft. […] [S]o, for me, like, and there needs to be so much more places like that. […] The Loft, it was a place, every Wednesday, from 10 to 3, it was free studio time. Come at like, what, 10:00 and then you just book, everyone books their hour. But coming every Wednesday, just being in the circle of all of these artists, um, while people was waiting for their time or just chilling, having a conversation and stuff like that, like, it was sooo refreshing, and I feel like I, I even feel like I wrote more, because, going there so often. Like, when you surround yourself with, and, and I think not even only for music, for business, for anything, when you surround yourself with like- minded people, the conversations that you have and the things that you think about, […] it runs and it keeps your mind working, you know what I mean? But when you’re kind of on your own, or like, you don’t really have a artist community to tap to, I mean, I’m not saying you, you still can’t be successful, but it’s a different vibe. And when you just have those people around you, it, it’s a good feeling and it keeps you more kind of motivated.

LolaBunz describes herself as a “sponge,” absorbing knowledge wherever she can. Other artists, within and outside of hip-hop, provide inspiration, informal mentorship, valuable information, and healthy competition. From them, she learns about how to obtain grants, tips on conquering writer’s block, and finds encouragement through the sharing of challenges, mistakes, and successes. She also meets people with whom to collaborate. All told, other artists keep her on her “A-game.”

Other music genres also become a learning resource as she discovers new rhythms, new sounds, and fresh ideas to inform her lyrics. The community of artists is not just made of up of those people she comes across often, it exists across time and geography. 121

7.7 On the come up

Despite being shy, LolaBunz has always loved performing and was a union actor at the age of 10. It was through high school talent shows that she began growing a fan-base with her music. She recalls volunteering to record for other students’ music projects and creating songs with friends. “Now,” her eyes get bright, “give me the mic and it’s like my playground, you know what I’m saying? It’s awesome. It’s like a different world.”

SNAPSHOT

LOLABUNZ: Gr. 10 talent show. I remember me and my two friends we did this song we created from scratch and everything. And then my girl sang, and then I rapped and everyone’s like, “Yeeaahhh…you’re so great. And then, then like, yup, [taps on the table] I’m an artist, you know what I’m saying. And the thing is, like, my name is Lola, right? So people used to call me Lola Bunny, because you know…Did you watch Space Jam, the movie? Like, you have to watch, it’s Bugs Bunny […] Lola Bunny is Bugs Bunny’s girlfriend, right?

MYRTLE: Oh yeahh.

L: Yeah, so like, I’m Lola, so everyone used to call me Lola Bunny, right? But then it was like, it was probably when I got a little older, 16, 17, my brother started calling me LolaBunz, I’m like, yeeahh, I like that, LolaBunz, you know what I’m saying? So then yeah, so it was around that, high school, I’m like, yeah, I’m LolaBunz, that’s, that’s who I am. That’s my artist name, let’s do this, you know what I’m saying? […] And I started, um, just researching artists and stuff like that and it’s like, “Oh, what do they do?” They make, like a mixtape. I’m like, you know I’d research, oh what’s a mixtape? What do you need? Some songs. So then I just started working on it, writing songs […] [H]ow do artists kinda get out there? […] [I]t was about that time when I said, yup, my name is LolaBunz. Then I’m like, yup, I’m gonna make a mixtape, I’m gonna do this. I wanna be a artist, you know? […] Yeah [laughing], yeah. Cause even the name LolaBunz, people always ask me, […] No, it’s not my buns. [I laugh] That’s what guys think it is. I’m like no, it’s not the buns, look up.

Lola has come up against many challenges as she strives to carve different lines in her career as a rapper. “I feel like I’ve always been a fighter. […] [N]ot only like physically fighting, but like…fighting for a voice, fighting for… […] space, fighting for… […] justice in the community.” She recalled when she had booked recording time and the staff person didn’t seem to take her seriously, saying it was time for a smoke break. With savvy, she pointed out that she was paying for session time. 122

[T]hat kinda built my confidence too, it made me stronger […] the male people in the industry, […] other females too, it’s like people don’t think you really know what you’re talking about. So it’s like, okay, [taps back of one hand on palm of the other] nah, I got my, I’m on top of this. Like, you know, […] don’t treat me like that, like, I got this, you know what I’m saying? So, it’s, it’s been...yeah...I learned, I’ve learned a lot, you know? And then, being…, and it made me kind of pro-…, I wouldn’t say like feminist or something, but, yeah, kind of, you know, ‘cause like, okay I see all these different experiences that people go through.

DPA: Here we have a glimpse into a female rapper’s learning environment. Talent shows were part of her artist development, not necessarily just rapping. Her early performance memories do not cite rap battles or freestyle cyphers, but the more commonplace talent shows that are a highlight for performance-inclined high schoolers (myself included).

Lola also learns from having to manage her own career, necessitating an assertiveness and perhaps a watchfulness due to prevalent responses to females in music industry settings.

I asked her about her hesitance to call herself a feminist:

[W]ell, for me, personally, it’s like, even earlier when I started to make music, people would say, oh I’m a conscious artist, right? […] I don’t wanna be stuck in that box of ‘conscious,’ that when I do something else, it’s like, oh my gosh, what is she doing now? Because it, it kinda limits you, and […] I’m not saying I’m against feminist rights or something, but I don’t wanna be just labelled as, okay, I’m pro this, or negative that. I’m, I’m building and I’m versatile, you know what I’m saying? My values are still the same, but I don’t wanna just be stuck in that box. […] And, hey, today I could make a conscious track and tomorrow I could make a trap song, you know what I’m saying, but I’m still LolaBunz and I still have that versatility, but I don’t wanna just be labelled as one type of artist until I kind of find my comfort zone, or my, my style, my sound. […] I can make conscious music, definitely, but I’m more than that, you know what I’m saying? So, I think’s just to not get stuck in a box that people kinda say that, oh I’m not a feminist, I’m not whatever, but...I mean I have a feminist in me definitely. Like, I would fight for this and I’ll do the march with you, but I just don’t wanna be stuck in a box, that’s the thing for me. […] When you don’t really know yourself yet, what you are, so you don’t wanna say yes, I’m this, and then when you do something else, it’s like, [said in a mock scornful voice] oh my gosh, like, what are you doing now? 123

There is a relationship between Lola’s questioning of her experiences and values and her search for a sound and image that reflects her discoveries, encapsulated as a “self” that becomes “LolaBunz.” The process of search and discovery, renewed as she lives and observes, results in sound experiments.

I love playing with words, playing with flows, playing with, um, the tempos, the ups and downs. […] [W]hen it comes to my style, like, finding your style, it takes a while to know what your style is. […] I’m just now kinda trying to, starting to find my sound, and my st…, well, style, sound, I don’t know it’s like the same thing. But my sound, like, who is LolaBunz? What kinda sound is LolaBunz? […] I would say I’m still kinda working on it, to try to find what my sound is. […] I’m still kind of developing my style and my sound, you know. […] And it sometimes, […] it’ll take a lot of songs to realize, okay, no, this is the type of sound I like. This is me, this is my style, you know. So I can’t really, really, really pinpoint it right, right now, but it’s something that it takes a while for you to kind of realize what your sound is [, …] what sound really fits you [….] Along with learning and stuff, finding your sound is, is a process as well. […] So literally, just, you have ta make a lot of music to really figure out what is, what is you. What’s LolaBunz? […] [T]rial and error. That’s my process. Just putting music out, recording a much as I can, collaborating with different artists and different producers and then seeing what the viewers, what the listeners, what the listeners like, you know? That’s kind of what it is. What I’m comfortable with and what the listeners like as well.

As she constructs her style, Lola incorporates not only her sense of self, but what audiences respond to. The resulting style is a manifestation of her situation within the various communities in which she finds herself. As she puts it:

Music is my life. And…my life reflects my music […] [I]t’s really important because it’s a lifestyle […] I don’t know, I don’t know, I, I don’t know what I would do without it, like. And it’s, it’s just like where I grew up [….] [T]here’s so many experiences and so many…memorable life experiences that I could trace back to like hip-hop experiences, or even songs that I remember that you know, I was going through this and then it’s this song that kinda brought me, that kept me [changes voice as if holding herself in], you know what I mean, in it, or, there was a lotta times in life that I felt like, you know what, like fuck it, I don’t wanna do it no more. But it’s, it’s, it’s music and it’s hip-hop that kept me sane.

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Chapter 8 Synthesis 8 Overview

The established history of hip-hop provides lasting normative frameworks that circulate within hip- hop culture. It provides a basic template for images of the DJ, the b-boy, the emcee. It is also the source of cultural values and philosophies that stem from its roots, established at a socio-politically oppressive time for those in the South Bronx of the 1970s. The artists I interviewed evaluate their art forms and artistic expressions against these images and values. The way hip-hop should be, that is, a force for expression of oppressed, repressed voices, continues to exert influence over who is seen as a legitimate artist, whether or not they produce works that are liberating or that ameliorate the socio- economic and political situation of those who make them and/or consume them. Regardless, hip- hop’s liberating force, as established on this dominant understanding, continues to afford possibilities of production than could have equitable effects. For the artists I interviewed, the contradictions in hip-hop culture, the reflections of the social challenges entwined with it, provide materials to sample and create with in order to produce something new that highlights difference.

The following sections respond to research questions that guided this study:

a) How is hip-hop culture defined by those who participate in it?

b) How does an aspiring breaker, DJ, or emcee acquire artistic skill?

c) What is the role of music throughout an artist’s development?

d) What is the role of the hip-hop community of practice in artist development?

e) What factors affect artist identity?

Responses to the above inform the answer to the dissertation’s overarching inquiry: How do a breaker, DJ, and emcee develop a unique performance identity within Toronto’s hip-hop communities of practice? My purpose, with this narrative research project, is not to generalize development processes but to uncover something of the complexities involved for each individual.

What I have discovered takes a linear form below, but I note that the response to Question (b) involves ideas emerging from conversations pertaining to my other research questions. This shows: 1) the simultaneity of learning activities in which my participants engaged and 2) that this simultaneity layers and intersperses skill acquisition with circulating historical narratives about hip- hop’s development and the ensuing normative expectations for those who aspire for artistic 125 recognition. To this end, the section on “Acquiring Skill” (8.2) includes the role of communities of practice, Question (d), through which aspiring artists come to formulate meanings and understandings about hip-hop.

Answers to these exploratory trajectories are drawn primarily from the narratives presented in the last three chapters, including reiteration of key quotations, and corroborated with statements from the other artists I spoke with in Stage 1 Interviews where necessary.

8.1 Defining the culture

The artists I interviewed found it challenging to define hip-hop in large part, because they see it as an ever-evolving culture and a lifestyle, changing with individuals who express themselves through hip- hop’s art forms.

B-boy Benzo, flipping the usual connotation of the word, “universal,” as something that applies similarly to everyone, explains, “that hip-hop is […] constantly changing, and it’s going to. If something is universal, it’ll never stay the same, right? […] And that’s where it always will just be this constant cycle of everybody trying to make a definition of what hip-hop is, when really, it is what it is” (personal communication, March 13, 2014). Hip-hop may come from the past, but it is defined by any given present. Explanations by my research participants point to hip-hop’s historical foundations – expressions of individual creativity amidst the party spirit of a racially and economically marginalized community – as the source of “a hip-hop point-of-view” (DJ Dopey, personal communications, March 24, 2014) or perspective, rather than a definition. This perspective appears to be derived from conditions that gave birth to the culture: place, creativity, and storytelling.

8.1.1 Place: Location, people, situation, self

A sense of place continues to shape hip-hop contexts around the globe. The idea of its original birthplace in the South Bronx as a socio-economically and politically disadvantaged location continues to inspire participants who share similar lived experiences, or who ally themselves with the social justice causes that emerge from similar conditions.

My narrative participants, B-boy Jazzy Jester, DJ Ariel, and LolaBunz, connect to the Bronx in their stories, usually through references to New York and through mention of influential hip-hop artists from that area. Jester proudly references being mistaken for a member of Rock Steady Crew (who was part of Zulu Nation) and part of the excitement of membership in his first breaking crew was their connection with Rock Steady. Ariel recalls hanging out with people with connections to both 126 these groups as well, even attending a Rock Steady Anniversary jam in her early career. LolaBunz shows the relevance and legitimizing power of New York as a hip-hop cultural centre, even today, as she excitedly tells of being recognized by a DJ in New York. New York as location is important, however, because of the artistry of people who generated the creative energy necessary for hip-hop’s development. The above examples are meaningful because they connect creative actions to artists from New York.

The earliest hip-hop artists and audiences are acknowledged as coming “from a serious place of oppression” (DJ Ariel) and LolaBunz adds that we “can’t define hip-hop without also talking about struggle.” B-boy Jazzy Jester elaborates, “hip-hop started through the ashes of like, the burning buildings in, in the Bronx and whatnot and then rising above it and like, finding your voice for yourself and being your own person and then showing the government that there’s more to this area and the people that live in this area.”

Though coming from Jester’s narrative, his framing of the ties to hip-hop’s cultural beginnings provides an appropriate summary for the ways other participants describe their connections to the broader culture. Jester’s commentary pulls together, like drawstrings, aspects of location, people and their situations towards himself, just as the other artists I interviewed have done as they situate themselves within hip-hop as lived in Toronto. He traces a web between the past residents of the Bronx, himself, and imaginary spaces existing across moments in time. He begins with a distanced, third person perspective on hip-hop culture’s history. The view then narrows and turns into what the culture encourages in individuals as he uses the second person, ‘you.’ It is obvious, however, that he includes himself in this ‘you.’ ‘You’ includes ‘me.’ The ‘I’ is in the ‘we.’ The importance of this cultural embeddedness to Jester is made clear when he declares that, though Filipino by familial ties, hip-hop is his culture.

8.1.2 Creativity: Mixing and sampling (people and time)

Beginning in the 1970s, hip-hop’s rough start date, the South Bronx became increasingly populated by people of colour who identified as Black and/or Hispanic (Robin & Robin, 1998, p. 8).81 Cultural cross-pollination was taking root, arguably, in many aspects of life, music and dance included. Early DJs spun music from a variety of genres such as funk, soul, rock, and disco.82 Breaking incorporated

81 Robin and Robin (1998) gathered South Bronx census data that shows that by the 1980s, the majority of the South Bronx population identified themselves as Black and/or Hispanic, with Hispanic people also identifying themselves as “White,” “Black,” or “Other.”

82 For discussions on musical genres sampled in early hip-hop music, see Chang (2005), Ch. 1.4; George (1998), Ch. 2; and Rose (1994a), Ch. 2. 127 an array of moves that demonstrates the confluence of music and movement from Afro-Caribbean and Hispanic-Caribbean traditions that, in themselves, are already a mix of Spanish, African, and Indigenous artistic expressions (Schloss, 2009).83

The use and combination of cultural sound and movement practices at this particular time, in this particular place, was reflected in the developing practice of sampling by which segments of sound and movement from a variety of sources were re-worked and mixed in different ways to produce new, creative expressions. The artists I interviewed have integrated these approaches into ways they conceive of and execute dance movements, music, and rap lyrics.

The following interview excerpt, taken from Jazzy Jester’s discussion of the foundations of breaking, shows how he has come to understand this ethos of sampling and mixing.

I think, the main basis of what hip-hop is about, is [t]aking whatever it is, and building your own fundamentals out of that […] and … defining yourself through that […] loose structure of hip-hop […]. This one works for me, this doesn’t work for me. And then you start taking other things and then you start building your own structure […]. And then you keep altering it…

These creative processes are, in turn, employed in the production of his dance movements. Channeling creativity through this continuous process of experimentation and situational change becomes a defining perspective in hip-hop culture: “musical elements…reflect worldviews…critical in understanding the meaning of time, motion, and repetition” (Rose, 1994a, pp. 67-68).

DJ Ariel uses this perspective not simply as a means of producing music, but a means of understanding her mixed heritage, her memories of which are simply pieces, samples from what she has learned gradually. She takes these and seeks a greater understanding to create a rough sketch of her cultural history, much of which still seems unknown. Her musical expressions seem to go through the same process: “I don’t know how to characterize my style. It’s definitely […] my own. I’ve developed my own style. I mean, I’m not afraid to play what I wanna play if I feel like the room will be receptive to it. I play a lot of music that people don’t know.” The samples of her heritage, pieced together through my invocations to narrative parallel the sound collages she puts together, if the audience seems receptive. Explorations manifest through sound.

83 See Chapter 7 in particular, “From Rocking to B-boying: History and Mystery.” 128

The practices of sampling and mixing to produce something new have been reified over time. As iterative practices, they provide a way to gesture at the malleable borders of local instances of hip- hop culture. LolaBunz describes Toronto hip-hop with reference to the varieties of style available, resulting from the city’s diverse population: “It’s like taking a whole bunch of different colour Skittles, putting them in a bottle and shaking them up.” This shake-up scrambles sounds and dialects that can even point the audience to specific neighbourhoods in Toronto, and to specific points in time in the city’s history.84 For my narrative participants, sampling and mixing become not just ways to create artistic works, but lenses through which they make sense of their lived experiences and eventually fashion a sense of self.

8.1.3 The “real” story

The creative process finally results in a story – the manifestation of the past-influenced now, the current whole as embodied pieces of inter-cultural knowledge and (un)intentional gaps made visual, aural, palpable through dance, music, and lyrics.

Jester reminds us, “[T]hese kids came out from the ghetto, you know, the ghetto ghettoes and they wanted the world to see who they were through a way of […] fashion and style and movement and sound. So they were like, ‘This is who we are.’” This representation is the result of the process of living; that is, it is both thoughtful and unthoughtful, but in the moment of performance, intentional. It is also a story recalled and retold by those I interviewed as they tried to describe and define hip- hop.

Representation, “This is who we are,” is a claim to identity, a pronouncement through stylistic gestures; and, because stylistic, implies the result of creative process. LolaBunz describes the critical aspects of this process:

What have I been through? What, what do I wanna talk about? What message do I wanna put out into the world […]? […] I wouldn’t make music about something that is untrue to me, you know what I’m saying? [W]hat […] skin am I comfortable in, right? So that’s keepin’ it real for me, you know?

Hip-hop’s history, individual experiences, and a determination of performance intent and content, become wrapped in “skin,” attached to oneself in a way that packages these pieces into a whole.

84 See Chapter 4 for a discussion on Toronto’s changing hip-hop names. 129

This crafting of a story as identity is seen by Jazzy Jester as “what hip-hop’s always been. […] [H]ip- hop’s been like, moving and changing and evolving and like, shape, shaping uh…to a certain individual” when remixed with one’s experiences. LolaBunz demonstrates this as her self-inquiry continues:

That hip-hop takes its shape from individuals involved in its culture creates reverberations between each person and those around them who form communities of influence with them. This dynamic relationship created by stories upon stories upon stories, ad infinitum, means that hip-hop is

always changing. So I mean, it’s still hip-hop but it’s always, which route is hip-hop going now? You know what I mean? Like there was the Biggies and the Tupacs. Then there’s like the Nicki Minajs and then there’s like the Kendrick Lamars. And then there’s like the Jay Coles and the Jay-Zs like it’s hip-hop, but it’s just, […] [I]t’s the same genre, but it’s soo different, you know what I mean? […] [I]t’s a playground. (LolaBunz)

“Keepin’ it real,” then is a continuous act framed through the artistic gestures of socially embedded individuals harnessing the momentum of change.

Blended, steeped, and aged, gestural expressions of “This is who we are,” appear effortless when performed. Ariel states it as a matter of fact, “I think even just the diversity that I play shows [originality and where I’m from]. I don’t really have to stretch very far. I have a different look. I have a different vibe. I have a different way of presenting myself. […] I don’t have to think about that.” This presentation of self, referencing place, as performed through musical gestures are tied to personal stories, which, because they emerge from the individual and their particular experiences can be construed as original works of/from self, that is, as stories of a culturally-embedded identity.

Diverse and diffuse, these stories told through dance, lyrics, and music complicate attempts to define hip-hop in static terms. My participants seem to agree, however, that hip-hop is defined by the stories it holds, as unique and changing as the people who create, perform, watch, and listen. 130

8.2 Acquiring skill

To create a story with intention requires skill. Today’s students of hip-hop art forms can learn in more conventional, institutional settings, i.e. DJing classes, dance studios, and writing workshops. Despite their increasing availability, there is no requirement to take classes in order to be acknowledged as a student of hip-hop, and no matter how one begins to acquire skills, being able to create with greater expertise requires the same general process through which earlier practitioners of the art form developed. That is, they must find and participate in local learning environments where participants with a spectrum of skills, and from a spectrum of skill levels interact under presumed engagement in hip-hop art forms and with hip-hop culture. Within these learning environments, the call, “Each one, teach one,” continues to be enacted as knowledge of artistic practices is formed together with the acquisition of a hip-hop cultural perspective.85

8.2.1 Observation, reflection, experimentation

The artists I interviewed both in the First and Second Stages of study did not take classes. Instead, they were introduced to hip-hop through family or peers. None of them began by going to an “expert” or “teacher” in order to learn how to do the art form in which they were interested, though they may have learned from someone who knew more than they did at the time.

Beginning the learning process includes listening to recorded music and/or watching videos to get a feel for the music and the movements associated with the art forms. In other words, observation, is a requirement of the learning process. Jazzy Jester recalls that he and his cousin taught each other what they know. He also watched breaking videos that showed more skilled dancers performing. He then “tried on” the moves: He saw what worked for others and discovered whether or not these worked for him, adapting as necessary. This trying-on requires an active, physical reflection. It is an ongoing experiment that simultaneously queries both the working process and the creative output itself.

Though consisting of only himself, his cousin, and distant performers on video, Jester’s early learning took place through information-sharing and feedback within a group consisting of both local and distant individuals. Observation then does not simply entail watching and listening, but

85 Fogarty (2012) discusses the way this call is manifested in Toronto B-boy, Dyzee’s, mentorship of neighbourhood youths as he ensures that anyone who cannot yet exhibit a particular break move is taught by those who have learned how to do it (pp. 57-58). 131 will be shown to become an increasingly immersive experience that attends to the making of an art product, as well as the performance interactions that surround it.86

The same collection of steps can be drawn from Ariel’s narrative. She and a friend would go digging, searching for sounds in record stores. What goes unsaid here, though it is implied, is that she had heard enough hip-hop music to develop a particular sound taste – “female” hip-hop – that no one else seemed to want. Because Ariel’s entry into the culture was through b-girling, the music she heard would have been, as for Jazzy Jester, an experience of sound, lyrics, and movement – already a full body experience. In addition to crate digging with peers, she was surrounded by freestyle rappers and their rhythm and rhymes. Her musical education permeated her daily high school life and not just the moments when she would produce music. It was so ingrained that “it wasn’t really anything that was...like it wasn’t a process. It was just something you did, something I did.” Acquiring skill, then, includes immersion in the cultural interactions that generate the art forms. This allowed Ariel to eventually gain a “spidey sense” for what would be good through “watching and practicing.”

LolaBunz had a very similar process: “I would say, that’s […] my learning – listening, mimicking and freestyling.” Listening and mimicking are fairly self-explanatory, but freestyling includes experimentation in rhyme and flow within a rhythm. LolaBunz honed this practice through battles with her brother: “[T]hose little freestyles playing around with my brother, it was training, to just get my mind running and getting my lyrics going through my head all the time.” Again, music was not relegated to practice or lesson time, but was something that was happening all the time. To know what works is to be repeatedly critical, which is both a reflection on self and on acquired skill in relation to a community of surrounding participants engaged in hip-hop artistic production.

8.2.2 Role of hip-hop community of practice

At a University of Toronto conference in 2010 focused on women in academia, Dr. Alissa Trotz, now Director of Women’s and Gender Studies Institute at U of T and a Caribbean Studies professor declared that we often mistakenly think of “community” as a group of people who agree with each other. In practice, members of communities disagree all the time, but are nevertheless invested in the well-being of the community.

86 This will be further discussed in Section 8.2.2, which pertains to the role of communities of hip-hop practice. 132

This is also true and ever-evident in Toronto’s hip-hop community, where differences of opinion, and even of fact, create a dynamic dissonance that enriches artistic development as skill is acquired.

8.2.2.1 Competition and evaluation

Communities of artists and audiences are crucial to creative development. The ways that my participants spoke of connections with other art practitioners echo Wenger’s (1998) description of communities of practice. As part of a social learning theory, Wenger (1998) explains that a community of practice is comprised of the relationships that form between people mutually engaged in the enterprise of meaning and identity negotiation in a learning environment. Through this sustained engagement, a “repertoire [that] includes routines, words, tools, ways of doing things, stories, gestures, symbols, genres, actions, or concepts” (p. 83) develops. This repertoire can then be deployed in this negotiation. Such a community also develops modes of accountability between its participants (p. 84). The communities of practice that make up Toronto’s hip-hop community provide developing artists with an implicit or explicit competitive platform for differing creative perspectives to manifest in efforts to be original. This point was emphasized by the artists I interviewed, all of whom indicated that the expectation of producing something different, which would then be evaluated as artistic expressions, motivated them and developed their creative abilities.

Competition need not happen in a formal way, e.g. a contest with judges, but rather seems always present as a self-test. LolaBunz says that other artists keep her on her “A-game,” while audience reaction provides her with feedback about how effectively her messages are received:

[I]t was also my community and just the way that I grew up that I wanted to create music that people can relate to, but at the same time I didn’t wanna be like a puppet or a Barbie, you know what I’m saying. I wanted to be something else and I wanted to show people that females can do this too. We can even do it better than you guys. […] You know, that’s how, that’s kind of what my drive was.

Her competition is against no one in particular, but rather against the limiting conventions she perceives as a female rapper. Striving to be better and more than expected is a strong motivator.

Formal competitions also exist, however, and Jester’s narrative reveals its varied effects. Opportunities for musical expression amidst a formal battle context are described on a spectrum from celebratory, to tense, to constricting. His first battle experience was nerve-wracking as he is not a confrontational personality, but this initiation opened up a close friendship with another b-boy. 133

Indeed, as Jester’s narrative continues, we see friendships arising from his competitive experiences, brought about by respect for other dancers’ skills and ideas.

Yet Jester also comes to realize that competitions can severely limit creativity of movement and musical exploration, despite propelling b-boys and b-girls into an international career, when dancers sculpt movements in order to cater to the perceived tastes of judges. Tensions then arise between creative freedom and tactical battle requirements, amateur and professional ambition, and underground and commercial viability.

The above competitive contexts are delineated once again by historical expectations surrounding the practice of hip-hop art forms. Ideas of freedom, creativity, and individual representation are normative ideals that splinter with the friction of everyday realities.

DJ Dopey, turntablist, and DMC World Champion in 2003, speaks about the tension by comparing DMC battles in the late 1990s and early 2000s to the more recent Red Bull turntable battles. He thinks that more “old-school” turntable skills and vinyl may make a come-back because of corporate interest in DJ battles. In his view, after the DMC World Championship in 2003, turntablism’s popularity waned, but recently, “because of probably Red Bull, and how rich Red Bull is and like how, how these guys can like literally just shit money, and like spray the whole city with like, ads and like, give free tickets […] out to everybody, right? […] with that kind of recognition, I think […] it’ll slowly come back to like, turntablism again ‘cause kids are started to get interested again.” Despite this renewed positive valuation of turntable expertise, we can read suspicion of Red Bull’s intentions in Dopey’s words as generous corporate sponsorship can lead to a devaluation of less profitable hip-hop cultural practices.

DJ Ariel also acknowledges normative battle expectations but for the most part seems to distance herself from competition. Though participating in international battles seems to be expected as one progresses, Ariel refuses to be successful on terms set by corporations who capitalize on hip-hop culture art forms, such as those increasingly set by hip-hop event sponsors, also citing Red Bull as an example. By absenting herself from this performance arena, she faces another set of tensions as her decision not to play in this game is also a decision not to participate in the inevitable competition against and with the popular, masculine face of hip-hop commerce and culture.87 Given that this is

87 The DMC World Championships, which began in 1986 saw thousands of DJs battle for world renown. And yet, as Mark Katz reports, “Among the thousands of DJs who have entered the organization’s events since 1986, perhaps no more than ten have been women; only one—Kuttin Kandi—has progressed to the U.S. finals” (2006, p. 580). Though hip-hop culture values diversity and women have been part of its development from the beginning, the popular face of the culture is undeniably masculine. 134 the existing terrain that all DJs must navigate, non-participation according to established pathways to success can put one at a disadvantage.

At one point in our conversation pertaining to the importance of crate digging and being able to create music with vinyl records, Ariel muses about the implicit requirement to learn essential turntable skills, despite the increasing prevalence of technology that no longer requires it (Serato is a popular example). Ariel thinks that “the old ways are being kept by the older heads [most of whom are male…]. It’s like an evolution, but a lot of people don’t want to accept it, because it’s not fully rooted in the culture of it all.” She adds that she is probably seen as less of a DJ because she “hasn’t been practicing on [her] turntables as often […] not scratching as often. But it’s okay, because [her] history, actually, is there in DJing.” Authenticity as a DJ seems to stem from learning and practicing on turntables and working with vinyl.

This excerpt from my interview with DJ Dopey, explains how he views the value of spinning vinyl:

DOPEY: Serato, you could like, you really see, it’s visual, too, so you could see like, say the kick and the snare, uh, they provide lines for you and you could actually line them up with the other songs. So, I would still say that, like, learn to use the vinyl and like, learn to like mix with it, because it’s such a different way of mixing and like, you don’t look and it’s…it’s very challenging, right? And a lot of DJs that learned only on Serato probably can’t mix with vinyl because it, it’s a lot of it is, is, you know, very minute changes that you can’t see with your eyes, so.

MYRTLE: Yeah. So, what do you think the advantage is to…

D: To just vinyl?

M: Yeah, just like not having the visual and you’re just…

D: Um…honestly, I think it’s m…I don’t wanna say it’s a disadvantage. I think it’s, it’s actually a disadvantage [I laugh]. And I think it’s just…because it’s, it’s a lot harder, so, I mean, I understand why a lot of people wouldn’t even like, bother. But, I mean the advantages are, you get the sound and like, you get, a truer feeling of like, what the true art form is. It’s a, it’s basically a purist point of view.

M: Yeah, yeah. 135

D: So it’s like, there’s no real advantages to playing vinyl, other than, maybe track selection, and the sound being, you know, a little bit better, so.

There is a tension between keeping up DJing’s historical, technical roots and the advantages of newer technologies. History has become expressed in physical movements over an instrument and these gestures have given form to the idea of “the hip-hop DJ,” with these technical abilities stereotypically assigned to men (Katz, 2012; Schloss, 2004). That they continue to be valued as a sign of authenticity makes explicit the ways DJs are evaluated, conferred recognition, and authenticated. Ironically, this work of “realness” is what sponsors like Red Bull hope to capitalize on, prompting questions about cultural appropriation and the degree to which traditionally maintained practices and values are up for sale. Who buys? Who or what is unmarketable, and what Signifyin(g) possibilities might this afford? Breaking away from this normative DJ image makes possible new filters and the emergence of new images of the hip-hop DJ.

Evaluation is implicit even in ostensibly non-competitive scenarios, effected through and against the normative frameworks, expectations, and images developed through the culture. Communities of hip-hop practice are sites for renewal of these expectations as well as sites for breaking them as individual artists must be recognizable as part of hip-hop while also being different from previous hip-hop formulations. Artists must be real and be recognized as part of the culture. They are evaluated by audiences (which include the artist in reflexivity) against these complex criteria that both sustain and expand the boundaries of hip-hop.

8.2.2.2 Knowledge of self and community

The artist narratives presented in the previous chapters show the ways the delineation of hip-hop’s boundaries, informed by its history and reinforced or reshaped by hip-hop communities, are woven into their daily lives and developing perspectives. For aspiring artists, the imperative to “Keep it real,” in order to be recognized by their communities of hip-hop requires working with the tensions that arise from efforts to be true to oneself and to be true to hip-hop. Understanding self and the surrounding hip-hop community become essential requirements for the production of art works, and the interrelatedness between the individual and the collective is shown by the artists I spoke with to be inextricable.

Throughout her narrative, LolaBunz describes her community as a dynamic space where she continues to understand herself and her embodied artistry. This segment encapsulates the complexities and symbioses between self and community: 136

[W]hen it comes to my style, like, finding your style, it takes a while to know what your style is. […] I’m just now kinda trying to, starting to find my sound, […] well, style, sound, I don’t know it’s like the same thing. But my sound, like, who is LolaBunz? What kinda sound is LolaBunz? […] I would say I’m still kinda working on it, to try to find what my sound is. […] I’m still kind of developing my style and my sound, you know. […] And it sometimes, […] it’ll take a lot of songs to realize, okay, no, this is the type of sound I like. This is me, this is my style, you know. [….] What’s LolaBunz? […] [T]rial and error. That’s my process. Just putting music out, recording a much as I can, collaborating with different artists and different producers and then seeing what the viewers, what the listeners, what the listeners like, you know? That’s kind of what it is. What I’m comfortable with and what the listeners like as well.

Recognizing her embeddedness in community spaces, LolaBunz strives to create a sound to represent “what is” LolaBunz. This sound will be both a reflection of self and of the listeners who interact with it and with her self.

Similarly, Ariel tells me, “I don’t know how to characterize my style.” Adding that she will play what she wants so long as the audience is receptive to it. Ariel’s “community of practice,” does not consist primarily of other DJs or hip-hop artists, but rather

people who are curators. Who…have their own websites that are music-based, or they do events that are music-based, you know. They’re actively involved from another prong. And they’re facilitating what I do, and how I come to be able to do what I do by promoting music. I’m not in the realm of DJs.

The circles of community she describes parallel the diversity of her cultural heritage:

My family consists of so many different nations. So many different people that, how we even got here…to say that I’m Indigenous and that I’m still here is a miracle. To say that part of my family survived the Holocaust and we’re still here. That’s a miracle. To say that, like, you know, that all the other pieces in between that I don’t even really know much about, you know like…heaven itself is political. I’m supposed to not be here, like […] I mean, technically, on paper, the Canadian states got me, ‘cause I’m not status. So technically I’m not here, right? You can’t take that away from me, so that’s their problem, not mine. But, but it is. I don’t see it as being different. I don’t see it as being a thing either. It’s just what I was born into; that’s who I am. I’ve always just seen it that way because that’s my complexity. 137

“Who I am” can be seen as the current result of a community-embedded, inquiring self. From the onset of his interest in hip-hop, Jester decided to immerse himself in Toronto’s culture:

I wanted to know the emcees, I wanted to know the DJs, I wanted to know the graffiti artists [. …] so I could be, you know, I could be part of them and know what it’s like to be part of a hip-hop community, to be part of what I love so much – the music, the fashion, the art, the style, the dancing, like, everything in one.

These people, (inter)acting in community spaces, became a source of hip-hop-oriented information that Jester actively uses to craft his dance moves.

Activated by these music-infused spaces, Jester aims to communicate to others:

I like connecting with people and it doesn’t matter how it’s done, or how it’s perceived as long as there’s a connection. […] I freestyle everything I do. I do. But, the more and more I think about it, the more and more […] it plays in my head. I, I really don’t, I, as much as I freestyle, right? I feelstyle it. Like, I feel it, and I’m very situational and I have to feel that situation in order to move that certain way, right? So, I feel like that’s […] the way I contribute to my community, is by giving people a feeling of something, you know [….] [Y]ou’re a performer, […] regardless if you like it or not. Once you’re in that circle, you’re performing and you have an audience, so you gotta, you gotta be conscious of that, right? [….] [T]here is a consciousness that’s still there, that’s still relevant while you’re still dancing for yourself. So because of that consciousness, you, you’re now exuding this, this energy, and […] for me, I always want to give that energy out in a way where it’s not just like, “Yeah, that was really cool, that like, what I saw,” but I want people to feel what I, what they’re watching. […] [T]here’s new sounds now that’s just, just like, “Oh,” and then you get that stank face [makes face and I laugh] and then you’re just like, “Oh shiiit. That’s so good,” right? That’s, that’s the feeling […] I wanna try to exude […] when I’m dancing…or when I’m moving, for people to have that, that same reaction.

Knowledge of self and of community is formed and expressed in a give-and-take dynamic that becomes crucial to artist progress, recognition, and self-satisfaction.88 As my participants’ voices narratively illustrate, it is through this interaction that acquired skills are employed toward lyricism, music production, and dance, transformed into artistic knowledge through socially embedded creative

88 The reflexivity of the freestyling process in a cypher context is described by Jazzy Jester’s fellow crew member, B-boy LefteLep, in a video documentary (and article) by Fogarty (2016). 138 acts. The resulting expressions emerge from the process of grappling with personal histories, hip-hop history and its normative frameworks, feedback from evaluative moments of competition, and from practicing acquired skills needed to fashion tensions into creative works through which their identities as artists can be self-affirmed and recognized by their communities of practice.

8.3 Role of music

Music is a gateway. For my participants, it provided a point of entry into hip-hop. They describe in one way or another, a gravitational pull caused by beats and lyrics that made their bodies respond through movement. As they learned more about hip-hop culture, participated in its communities, and worked with their chosen art forms, a personalized attachment to the music began to form.

DJ Dopey describes music’s connection to the movements of his life:

[T]here’s always a beat to my life, I find. So like with, with the golf, like a golf swing, it’s all about tempo, and it’s kinda like the same thing with, with fishing, and like, hip-hop. And like it’s, it’s just all about the tempo of things. […] And the tempo is always kinda like a hip- hop tempo, which is like, maybe like, an 80 bpm, 84 bpm, and that seems to be […] the re- occurring factor that I, I find always relates to everything in my life. […] And everything is artistic in a way, where, and I know golf and fishing doesn’t sound artistic, but […] the golf swing is very intricate and […] you kinda sculpt it to a point where you’re like hitting these […] beautiful shots. […] And with fishing, it’s kinda the same thing. […] [A]t least for the type of fishing that I do [….] it’s not necessarily about catching the fish, […] it’s also about like, the cast. And like I, I always try to achieve like a, like a beautiful cast [….]. It sounds all, it sounds weird, but like, when, when you watch it, and like you actually watch it to […] a hip-hop beat and like, you’re watching this fucking cast, like it might make sense. […] I’ve never really like, talked about it, but like I feel like that’s, that’s what […] relates everything back to hip-hop and like back to just that tempo in general in music.

Similarly, my narrative participants’ stories speak about music as an essential tool in the daily meaning-making of experience. “It influences how you think. It influences how you move and how you live your life through the course of everyday things around you, … everyday surroundings,” Jazzy Jester explains. Music infuses his very body such that “whatever is happening in music is happening to [him] too, ‘cause it affects our moods and changes our […] being.”

Far from being a benign reaction to sounds, DeNora (2000) notes that “when the music ‘hops’ and ‘skips,’ so too bodies may feel motivated to move, as it were, like the music. In these cases, music is 139 doing something more than re-presenting or simulating bodily patterns and bringing them to mind; it is providing a ground or medium within which to be a body…So, aligned with and entrained by the physical patterns music profiles, bodies not only feel empowered, they may be empowered in the sense of gaining a capacity” (emphasis in original, p. 124). The inverse is also true. If music can empower, it can also oppress. And the ways of being in entanglement with music transform over a lifespan.

The effects of musical immersion are cumulative and develop or change with the artist as listener. DJ Ariel has come to understand that she has always carried these effects with her. At this point in her life, she reflects:

But hip-hop’s musical formations are diverse and “every once in a while there’s the gems” (DJ Ariel) that LolaBunz views as moments of joy, celebration, and knowledge-building. Thinking back to her earlier school days, she points out:

[I]t’s very humorous, too, like. It’s not always only scary stuff, it’s very humorous, like…Growing up, all a these crazy dances, like [I laugh] do the laffy taffy like, lean back, like, it was just, it was just really fun. And […] growing up in middle school […] everybody used to be a dancer, everybody was in a, a dance group […] ...It was crazy [she seems so happy to recall all this]! And just looking forward to those talent shows like, what show are they gonna do? Are they gonna do the Harlem shake? […] [I]t’s just fun. […] And the thing with hip-hop, too, it’s always changing. [….] [I]t’s a playground [beats on table]. […] It’s a playground.

As a rapper, she also feels a responsibility to motivate listeners to social action: 140

[W]e could listen to the news, we could read reports, but sometime you just need to hear a song to remind you. Like, even if you just remember the hook or one part, one part of the song, it’s, it’s sparking the discussion in somebody’s head. [A]nd me just bringing life experiences to music, that’s always what I wanna do, just spark that expression in somebody’s head. Make you think about it. If you didn’t think about it yesterday, listen to this song. Just listen. Give me one minute and listen to this song. Think about it. ‘Cause you never know, when, maybe when you think about it, maybe you gonna do some’in’ about it, right?

These ways of being in hip-hop entwine musical engagement with acts of living. The above artists don’t seem to disconnect from the effects of music and by extension, hip-hop culture. Their narratives reveal the complex weaves of musical and life strands.

8.3.1 Music and memory

Anecdotally, it seems that a familiar song can take us back to particular times in our lives, making the moment reappear not just through imagined images, but through the emotional tints and shades that accompany them.

The process of sampling that permeates hip-hop culture makes tangible the ways we assemble patches of recalled information or memories to create what we might call “knowledge.” DJ Spooky, who calls himself a “memory artist” views the improvisational aspects of hip-hop artistic creations as an act of knowledge because during this process, new information is formed (Becker et al., 2002). In effect, a circular creative path emerges wherein music helps recall the past (i.e. history) which is reworked in the present and forms new music that bears re-visioning of past samples, which is used by new audiences to recall all over again, repeating the act of knowledge formation.

The artist narratives I gathered illustrate this memory-accessing function of music in a way that feeds the present moment of creation and performance. In a description that did not seem to flow into her story-telling about lyrics she wrote for a track called “Sick,” commemorating loved ones who have passed away, LolaBunz provides me with a memory fragment:

[G]rowing up in, in Driftwood and what we used to do, sit on the green box, you know the electric box [we laugh], […]. Sittin’ on a green box and having barbecues in our, in our backyard, with our little 5-cent gums and things. When we were young, we didn’t have money, but we’ll go to the store [beat] with like a dollar [beat], come back with a whole bunch of candy [softer beat], play some music in [softer beat] the backyard, and act like 141

we’re having a jam, like [I laugh]. But it, it’s just, it’s just the real life, you know what I mean?

“Sick” recalls lost lives whose ghosts bring up youthful stories already set to remembered backyard music, which, in a stroke more complicated than a return to the present, informs the writing of “Sick.” The workings of this circular path were not, or perhaps could not be, described through the narrative linearity of our interview process, resulting in what seemed to me as a fragment that I, the new audience, turned into an act of knowledge.

For Jazzy Jester, music aided learning and internalization of hip-hop history.

I really wanted to understand the culture of what was happening in that era. [….] I studied it, I studied the culture through the internet, through that book and then […] I made a CD of songs that I thought that they listened to […] in their era and I had it in my CD player, […] listening to it, reading [….] over and over and over to get a sense of what was happening and the feeling that was coming out of that book and the sounds that were coming out of that book in order for me to understand the feeling of what hip-hop was.

Facts were felt through careful listening. Jester then used this information to influence his dancing during his first international performance. Music accompanied that past and was re-heard in the present knowledge-making moment and used through Jester’s performance, arguably, a re-mix of history in dance.

DJ Ariel provides a glimpse into the way that hip-hop music inspires her creativity:

Freddie Gibbs just put out a new record and he has a track with Black Thought called “Extradite.” [….] [I]t’s those ones that I’m like, “Oh you sampled Bob James. Oh you didn’t even need to, like, you just looped it.” And I love Bob James, and…you know like he’s like that jazz/funk era that inspired so much hip-hop. And he brought it back to that era, he brought it back to that time. And then he brought the message back to a way that I can relate. Where it’s like, Ohhh! You’re talking about something real now. […] Um, because that’s obviously where my heart is. I love, I love that sound. [….] Gonna love the stuff that I love, I can’t help it. It’s not…I’m never ever gonna put it off the table, but maybe I need to start making it.

Again, hip-hop’s early history is emphasized, sampled by Freddie Gibbs, given meaning through Ariel’s experience, generating yet another creative, knowledge-forming possibility. Hip-hop music 142 allowed my participants to access parts of hip-hop history, their own personal memories, and the feelings that attend these recollections.

8.3.2 Creation – expressions, community, identity

LolaBunz describes an example of the connections hip-hop music can make between people distanced from each other in many ways by referencing Jay-Z’s “It’s A Hard Knock Life:”

[I]t was a hard knock life for us, you know what I mean? But, but, we still got through it, you know what I mean? So like songs like that, I mean, it’s just real life, and sometime it’s just, somehow you just need to hear that for motivation. Like somebody’s feeling you too, like, it is a hard-knock life for you. We are going through these things, but guess what? We’re still here, you know.

Jay-Z accessed LolaBunz’s memories and becomes allied with her struggles, which are also the struggles of others around her, as evidenced by her use of “we.” The inclusion of life history references in lyrics resonated powerfully with LolaBunz and Jay-Z is no longer just a celebrity, but a person “impacted by the very same social, economic, and political conditions that affect other members of [her] communit[y]” (Alim, 2006, p. 971). It is through this type of connection, explained by Appadurai (1990) as a kind of cross-global coherence, that the idea of a “hip-hop nation” can form (E. Clay, 2009; Hayduk, 2004).

DJ Ariel describes this strength of hip-hop, saying:

[It is] a way to tell stories and that to me, that’s really inherent to some of my traditional background, because a lot of us are storytellers. […] [W]e all have a story to tell and the more that we listen to each other, the more that we’ll be able to see the common truth in everything, to be able to find that commonality, to actually form a brotherhood or sisterhood.

These collective voices, whether sounding in close proximity, or resonating across the globe, connect because of a perceived common experience, or minimally, feeling, brought about by the music. In his discussion of the importance of personal stories in building a community history, Alim (2006) asserts, “Life histories become the social history of a community. In this case, individual Hip Hop life histories, when grouped, actually serve as an oral, social history of the Hip Hop Cultural Movement from within” (Alim, 2006, p. 971). 143

Communities don’t simply come together to party, to discuss in online forums, or to comment on videos and tracks, they have the ability to assert a political presence, as Jazzy Jester reminds me in reference to the originating South Bronx context of hip-hop, “These guys are…these guys are scary in a way where they have a voice. A community that has a voice that can be overpowering.” Music, as entwined in skill acquisition, in hip-hop history lessons, in individual and collective memories, and spaces of party and protest, “is a resource against which holding forms, templates and parameters of action and experience are forged, if it can be seen to have effects upon bodies, hearts and minds, then the matter of music in the social space is, …an aesthetic-political matter” (emphasis in original, DeNora, 2000, p. 129).

This music, replenished by renewed access to recalled information, makes space possible for a remix with experiences past, present, and in the future from both individual and communal perspectives. As a conduit for memory and a medium for creativity, “[m]usic, then, plays a significant part in the way that individuals author space, musical texts being creatively combined with local knowledges and sensibilities in ways that tell particular stories about the local, and impose collectively defined meanings and significance on space” (Bennett, 2004, p. 3). As an entrenched resource for hip-hop community participants, music becomes material to be worked on, fashioned through social and personal tensions and resonances, with the potential to gesture towards artist performance identities.

8.4 Factors affecting artist identity formation

A confluence of complex cultural influences, as discussed in the foregoing sections, demands that an artist find one’s place and express their uniquely understood and structured knowledge in an embodied way – a present, embodied exegesis that becomes associated with their artist performance identity, what they refer to as their style.

The accomplishment of a personal, recognizable style takes work over time, shown by the ways the artists I interviewed speak of it as an exploratory process. LolaBunz, equating it with sound creation, says:

[S]tyle, sound, I don’t know it’s like the same thing. But my sound, like, who is LolaBunz? What kinda sound is LolaBunz? […] I would say I’m still kinda working on it, to try to find what my sound is. […] I’m still kind of developing my style and my sound, you know. […] [T]rial and error. That’s my process. Just putting music out, recording a much as I can, collaborating with different artists and different producers and then seeing what the viewers, what the listeners, what the listeners like, you know? 144

Style, as realized in her sound, becomes embodied (“What kinda sound is LolaBunz?”) and heard as her artist performance identity (“But my sound […] who is LolaBunz?”). It is also the result of a negotiation with audiences who may have different creative expectations.

Similarly, the unity between person and style is made adamantly clear by Jazzy Jester: “[W]ithout style, you’re never gonna know who that person really is. […] without having to say anything, you’re showing everyone who you are.” He further ties style with the idea of the “real,” connecting it with hip-hop culture’s call to authenticity (“Keep it real”). Once again, meanings made by individuals of their life experiences must be represented as honestly as possible to the ever-present hip-hop community, which has the capacity to decide the authenticity of creative works.

Ariel’s explanation speaks of style as something she has worked on over time. Her descriptions also hint at its development as a search, “I don’t know how to characterize my style. It’s definitely […] my own. I’ve developed my own style. I mean, I’m not afraid to play what I wanna play if I feel like the room will be receptive to it. I play a lot of music that people don’t know.” She plays out her desired sounds, knowing that she risks rejection. She expresses authorship of her style, despite not having the words to describe it; and, as it comes out in her music, she creatively works with the tensions news sounds and a different style could produce.

These ways of speaking about style show how it is bound to an individual and the extent to which it can be inextricable from the identity that is performed through creative gestures by artists. In other words, style, performed identity, and the artists’ sense of self (aspects of which may or may not be part of the identity they choose to perform) become entwined. So much so that style becomes a signifier for the “real” artist self. Style as performance identity is embodied in a way that entangles it with artists themselves.

The role of hip-hop community validation can also be seen in the above descriptions. There is always a nod to the audience who can accept or reject expressions of style. And because style is so closely bound to artist identity, which in turn, is so closely bound to lived experiences that are formative of identity in broad terms, the recognition conferred by hip-hop communities is essential for a sense of belonging to hip-hop as a culture.

Ultimately, learning how to be a hip-hop artist, beginning with the ways creative skills are acquired, can best be characterized as processes of action that make possible the formation and expression of artist performance identity. Normative frameworks that arise from the body of stories (mediated overwhelmingly by music) that define hip-hop further require that artist performance identity be 145 bound to their non-performance selves who make meaning out of their histories and day-to-day experiences through the hip-hop discourses circulating in their communities of practice.

The foregoing sections provide insight into the ways normative hip-hop cultural expectations create tensions for artists as they make sense of their experiences in communities. As the artists I interviewed practice creative skills, they do so with the expectation that they will come to represent the reality of their selves as narrated through the gestures of their art forms. That is, acquired skills, moulded into artistic knowledge, can be employed toward the performance of artist identities.

Judith Butler’s (1990) theory of performativity and Gates’s (2014) explanation of the act of Signifyin(g) provide useful lenses for understanding these processes of action. This next section provides analysis of the way artists’ learning experiences, through which they acquire skill, culminate in the development of unique performance identities.

Judith Butler theorizes the ongoing activity of acquiring ways to act within a culture with an eye toward identity performance:

[T]o understand identity as a practice, and as a signifying practice, is to understand culturally intelligible subjects as the resulting effects of a rule-bound discourse that inserts itself in the pervasive and mundane signifying acts of linguistic life. Abstractly considered, language refers to an open system of signs by which intelligibility is insistently created and contested….In a sense, all signification takes place within the orbit of the compulsion to repeat; ‘agency,’ then, is to be located within the possibility of a variation on that repetition…the rules governing signification not only restrict, but enable the assertion of alternative domains of cultural intelligibility. (1990, p. 198)

A hip-hop performance identity will be “intelligible” so long as it falls within the culture’s normative frameworks. But as Butler points out the rules both restrict and enable ways of acting, ways of being intelligible.

My interviews with Toronto hip-hop artists exhibit, however, a more active role in performance identity creation. They are not simply restricted or enabled, they do something with the overlapping imperatives of discourses, normative frameworks, circulating in their communities (hip-hop or not). It is here that Henry Louis Gates, Jr.’s explication of Signifyin(g) illuminates the work that goes on in Butler’s location of “agency.” This space is inhabited and, as my participants’ narratives illustrated, sought, not merely as possibility, but more importantly, opportunity to perform the 146 realness of their experiences and the identities that result from their personal meaning-making processes.

Henry Louis Gates Jr. explains that Signifyin(g) is “a mode of formal revision...most crucially, it turns on repetition of formal structures and their differences” (2014, p. 57). As opposed to “signification” (small cap), which in everyday usage pertains to what words, and as an extension, gestures, mean, Signification (capitalized) plays with possibilities of meaning revealed through creativity and interpretation.

[T]o revise the term signification is to select a term that represents the nature of the process of meaning-creation and its representation….We are witnessing here a profound disruption at the level of the signifier, precisely because of the relationship of identity that obtains between the two apparently equivalent terms….To revise the received sign…is to critique the nature of (white) meaning itself, to challenge through a literal critique of the sign the meaning of meaning. What did/do black people signify in a society in which they were intentionally introduced as the subjugated, as the enslaved cipher?….By an act of will, some historically nameless community of remarkably self-conscious speakers of English defined their ontological status as one of profound difference vis-à-vis the rest of society. What’s more they undertook this act of self-definition, implicit in a (re)naming ritual, within the process of signification that the English language had inscribed for itself. (2014, p. 52)

The artists highlighted here understand the art forms they create as their expressions of difference in the break, that location of “agency,” made inevitable by the loop, the iterative replaying of normative discourses that lulls individuals into sameness, reified over time. The performance identities hip-hop artists present through the process of Signifyin(g) are embodied revisions of preconceived notions others might impose on them. Importantly, this process of identity development frequently results in a renaming. All the artist names used in the narratives of the previous chapters are hip-hop names conferred through time and recognized through iterative Signifyin(g) practices that cohere as their individual style in public performance arenas.

8.4.1 The loop and the break

Hip-hop’s normative frameworks provide a means of cultural belonging in ways that differentiate those who identify with it from dominant, often limiting or oppressive, socio-political discourses. Hip-hop culture’s origins story, characterized by its location in a socio-politically and economically disadvantaged 1970s Bronx, and by the ethnic origins of its early practitioners and communities, is referred to in ways that illustrate the foundations for hip-hop’s modes of creativity – its art forms. 147

Mixing, sampling, and layering became means of gathering materials for musical (including dance) creations. These processes closely paralleled the multi-ethnic interactions taking place at the time. When viewed as an Afro-diasporic artistic culture that co-existed and interacted with other ethnicities, first in the South Bronx, and then globally, hip-hop’s development is a story of making a whole of myriad, diverse pieces – whether to make sense of individual and communal identities, or to craft creative works of music and dance.

Indeed, the narratives presented in this dissertation show the dialogic relationship between musical creativity and identity-building. Together with Bronx inhabitants’ (particularly its youth) need to be heard and recognized in contradiction of prevailing narratives of poverty, loss, and racist stereotypes, musical creativity and identity-building became a means of announcing the challenging, raw, and hard-hitting realities overwhelmingly faced by the marginalized populations of 1970s Bronx neighbourhoods. That is, artistic, musically-oriented gestures were born by unabashedly “Keepin’ it real.” Hip-hop communities generally and, for the artists I interviewed, communities of practice, grew to become arbiters of this “realness” – carving out the borders of cultural belonging with its own “rule-bound discourse” (Butler, 1990, p. 198) that safe-guarded their communities (e.g. through the Zulu Nation’s efforts at peacemaking between gangs; and later, from capitalistic, appropriative forces).

Butler’s definition of performativity, growing out of analyses of dominant, heteronormative discourses, with a caution against a “transcultural notion of patriarchy” (Butler, 1990, p. 48) shows that this belonging, or normative intelligibility, is a function of the ways bodies are interpreted as bearers of identity. Within Toronto’s hip-hop culture, the artists I interviewed show, above and in the preceding chapters, the ways their bodies are “read” within the rule-bound discourses Butler describes, but more compellingly, how those who don’t readily conform to these discourses are skimmed over: LolaBunz has to perform her self against the predominantly Black, male image of the “rapper,” Jester smiles and jokes against the serious, more aggressive b-boy stances, and Ariel faces challenges in a masculinist DJ industry while grappling with the realities of neo-colonial systems. These artists Signify upon existing forms of the rapper, the b-boy, and the DJ (themselves replete with intersectional normative social, political, and economic discourses) to project their “realness,” and the realities of their experiences.

Each artist’s agency, according to Butler is to be found in the possibility of not repeating identity discourses, of changing the frames of understanding by which identities can be understood and therefore, accepted. The use of the loop in hip-hop art forms, a repetitive musical segment generating interest with insistence, can be seen as an analogue to the iterative aspects of identity development. 148

The loop’s inherent repetition is harnessed by hip-hop artists as a means of setting up the excitement of the break that cuts off the loop and opens up space and time for something new and exciting. The loop is performativity at play, an iterative whirlpool with a hypnotizing, gravitational pull. To be drawn in is to submit to the possibility of a comfortable normativity that points to a well-paved path to easy-to-read identities. As Butler continues to point out, however, signification resides in the loop, always ready to be activated towards new possibilities.

Kool Herc, who threw that now-historic Bronx party said to have heralded hip-hop, upped the game. If the break was exciting musical possibility, where dancers would showcase their moves as original, different, then he would loop the break, extending it with turntables playing it back to back. With this technical ingenuity, Kool Herc seized performative signification and Signified, that is, he took preceding forms of meaning and revised them toward a new purpose that continues to proliferate new artist identities and creative works to this day.

Aspiring hip-hop artists can be seen to take advantage of the proliferation of meanings opened up by the African American act of Signifyin(g). As it is practiced, performed, and recognized, these creative gestures cohere into what audiences attach to artists’ performance identities. As embodied in an artist and named – B-boy Jazzy Jester, MC LolaBunz, DJ Ariel – they signify a Signifyin(g) style, shaped by histories, people, and places.

According to Jazzy Jester, Toronto hip-hop is stamped with individual artists’ styles:

[T]o me Toronto is all about style and being yourself. And…I don’t know, it’s just very hip- hop to me when I see it. Yeah, you can claim your own moves, you can claim a style, but fuck it man, Toronto is about style in general…We don’t lock it down for one thing, we lock it down for a whole bunch of different things because we’re all different people. Yeah, […] each crew can have their own style, but it won’t define every individual in that crew…Bag of Trix all had their own style. They didn’t say, “This style is our style.” No, they were like, “I’m so-and-so, this is my style” and that’s kind of what I got from them, not even by talking to them, just being like, just taking it in.

The artists I spoke with informed me in various ways of the imperative to create a unique style, an imperative absorbed through observation and immersion in local instances of hip-hop culture. These values were “taught” and interpreted through gesture. Through this learning process, artists forge links between themselves, hip-hop writ large, and the Toronto hip-hop community. Artist and community, in turn, and through each, are linked to hip-hop’s origins in the South Bronx through confident expressions of identity through style. In this way, history repeats through revised 149 individuated interpretations. In turn, one’s process of style configuration is subject to normative frameworks of intelligibility, not only those imposed by hip-hop culture, but those applied in day-today life. The individual is multiply embedded in cultural imperatives and artistic works are manifestations of each one’s (un)intentional acceptances and rejections thereof.

Performative identity production occurs within “rules governing signification [that] restrict, [and] enable the assertion of alternative domains of cultural intelligibility” (Butler, 1990, p. 198). By Butler’s explanation, this rule-governed discourse renders bodies intelligible or not, seemingly passive until the enabling moment of the law. Within this normative framework, however, the prohibitions are emphasized and possibilities they open up seem accidental to the purpose of the law. For Signifyin(g) hip-hop artists, these possibilities are understood, seized and intentionally inhabited and harnessed for creative purposes.

As my participants’ voices lay bare,89 difference and change are not enabled by discourse, they are always already on the body, ready for recognition, inextricable yet ever-renewed as skin.

I was always looked at differently, even though I carry, you know, lighter features. […] still, people look at me differently because they can see there’s something a little bit different./You know I’m native, right? […] Like, I am red. (DJ Ariel)

[W]hat […] skin am I comfortable in, right? So that’s keepin’ it real for me, you know? (MC LolaBunz)

I just, I just got comfortable in my own, my skin/I started taking hip-hop more as where I fit in./You know, I went through all those moments where I was like, am I this? Am I that? Am I Filipino? Am I Canadian? What am I? Like, I’m everything, but the one thing that puts it all together is hip-hop. […] Because hip-hop is showing me…I’ve learned to put everything together because hip-hop is a, a mosh pit of just, different things put together…to define yourself. (B-boy Jazzy Jester)

By living with and questioning normative frameworks imposed by hip-hop culture and the broader social circles inter-layered within, artists craft performance identities alive with the creative tensions unique to their own lived experiences by formally revising (Gates, 2014) and confounding dominant readings applied to reflections of their selves. Ultimately, their performance identities are crafted by manipulating the foundational skills of their art forms to tell a story about difference.

89 The slash (“/”) indicates that sentences were taken from different sections of my participants’ narratives. 150

8.5 Conclusions and implications for further study

Hip-hop pedagogies and curricular activities are employed at all levels of education, yet when I began my project, the voices of practicing hip-hop artists were absent from the conversation. How they learned, what they learned, and how they used this information and knowledge was undocumented in music education scholarly literature. In 2013, when I proposed this project, I had only found one account of how a hip-hop artist learned to DJ (Fikentscher, 1999) from a specifically music education-oriented inquiry. Since then, Snell and Söderman (2014) have sought answers from DJs and emcees, and Kruse (2018b) has explored the question with emcees, DJs, and producers, emphasizing the voices of his participants. Previous explorations in music education have also left out the voices of dancers from the hip-hop music storyline, resulting in an incomplete picture of a music culture that continues to be inseparable from the movement of the body.90 The result is an exciting opportunity to connect with a diverse group of musicians who may inspire new ways of teaching and a more inclusive community of learners (teachers among them) in our institutions.

In pursuing my research inquiry, I hoped to discover sources of motivation and the ways educational challenges are overcome in the process of learning hip-hop art forms. To do this I wanted to hear directly from Toronto hip-hop artists about their learning contexts. I wanted to discover not just what they learn, but how, together with their views on the communities that surround their learning processes. If we are going to begin using hip-hop art forms in our classrooms, we should understand how practitioners of these art forms develop within a culture whose stories might be forgotten in the day-to-day stresses of teaching and managing classrooms. By using narrative inquiry and its attendant methods I was privileged to witness first-hand stories unfolding not just about learning, but about each individual, themselves. Their narratives are rich resources teeming with more pathways of inquiry and exploration. Below are avenues that will further enrich not just the field of music education and other areas of scholarly research, but just as significantly, a public audience who has yet to hear the lively stories of local communities often overlooked and forgotten in the writing of grander histories and narratives.

8.5.1 Learning and pedagogy

Having synthesized key findings in this narrative inquiry, formulations of pedagogy that may influence learning techniques and curricula can be forwarded. My nascent formulation of a cypher-

90 Kyra Gaunt connects this issue to dearth of inquiry and literature on gendered bodies, writing, “Music scholars are compromised by the fact that our training tends to exclude analyzing choreographed movement, embodied percussion, and dance, not to mention gender and sexuality, in our interpretations of musical performance” (2006, p. 11). 151 based pedagogy (Millares, 2019) requires development. The voices of the artists I have spoken with, whom I observed at sessions, performances, and workshops, whose words have inspired my own music and teaching practice, remind me that spaces of tension and even combative interactions can serve the positive growth and expansion of a dynamic, creative culture. These spaces, where cyphers are heavy with emotion can become, within classrooms, safe spaces where embodied differences agree and disagree. This developing pedagogy would benefit from action-research that tests possibilities of music-making that engage with tensions or conflict rather subsuming them in an effort to foster commonality. The objective would be to outline useful techniques and strategies in the classroom that create new forms of connection from an alternate standpoint.

Such strategies may also be better informed by the incorporation of dance pedagogy, which this current dissertation brushes up against but cannot properly address. This is particularly important because of hip-hop music’s entanglement with the body – those beats will make you move (and how?). To refer to hip-hop respectfully in our teaching means to understand this crucial part of the culture’s music-making, lest we find ourselves extracting resources from Black, Brown, Indigenous, People of Colour while leaving out the bodies that produce these forms of knowledge.

8.5.1.1 Popular music education and discourses of democracy in the classroom

Popular music has increasingly been employed in attempts to diversify the study of music in classrooms in tandem with the growing diversity of music students. This inclusion has often been framed within discourses of democracy. Karlsen and Westerlund (2010), writing from a Scandinavian context, discussed how such discourses, in conjunction with the notion of plurality, could benefit immigrants. Significantly, they argue for the productivity of disagreement and difference in endeavours of inclusivity, a discussion previously forwarded by Schmidt (2008) in “Democracy and Dissensus.” In 2011, Schmidt additionally highlighted “the need to consider uneasy propositions, while moving away from politically correct slogans” (p. 2) particularly given the demographics of the urban classrooms under discussion in his text. Hip-hop was cited via a teacher’s voice who recognized the culture’s impact on their students but did not feel well-prepared to engage with issues of race and poverty in the music and in students’ lives. Yet the potential for meaningful engagement is apparent: “Conflict in rap and hip hop is and has always been a form of power manifested in the attempt to ‘connect’ with or address others and ‘ramify’ our own selves” (Schmidt, 2012, p. 10) through engagement with difference.

Despite these ongoing calls for plurality and more democratically inclusionary practices, as recently as 2016, Allsup reminded music educators of a need to “remix” the classroom. After establishing the spirit of Remixing the Classroom: Toward an Open Philosophy of Music Education by quoting rapper, 152

Snoop Dogg, he notes, “A breach, a general failure to act in required ways, is taking place in the field of music education. Tired of closed forms of life and living, we want to break free – we are longing for openings” (p. 1), explicitly pointing to hip-hop’s pedagogical potential for productive divergence. This longing is echoed by Christophersen and Gullberg (2017) who continue to note an emphasis on dialogue and consensus, ignoring “dissensus” (Schmidt, 2008). This results in the continued primacy of rock music91 in classrooms, ignoring other genres, and leaving out what may be critical disagreements. My study provides a much-needed resource for those who want to engage with hip-hop, but recognize that “given who ‘we’ are…a predominantly White, middle class, classically trained population.…educators and scholars in music education…are often predisposed to lack knowledge of and experience with hip hop music” (Hess, 2018, pp. 8-9). It directly addresses difference and productive outcomes through entanglement with disagreement, injecting a hip-hop perspective into these discussions.

8.5.2 Collective narratives: Toronto hip-hop history

In the process of researching Toronto’s hip-hop history, I discovered that no comprehensive volume yet exists that covers the history of hip-hop art forms in this city together with the people and communities that worked in this newly transplanted culture. Toronto hip-hop was comprised early on by participants whose families come from regions across the globe. Those I interviewed revealed the names of Filipino artists who influenced and created the musical soundscapes of many early jams and battles in the city. Their roles in the development of Toronto hip-hop promise a rich source of socio-cultural and artistic history that would enrich the teaching of hip-hop music and culture through an understanding of migrant experiences.

I also note a specific gap in the story of breaking, between 1985 and 1990 an area of research that may reveal the dynamics of art revival and the meanings sustained across a “lost” time. Following up with my participants may uncover sources of information from this time period, while also discovering how their relationship to hip-hop may have changed since we last spoke.

I focused on only three narratives in this dissertation, but the other artists I quoted throughout each have their own rich stories. They also generously offered connections to Toronto hip-hop “legends,” who would be able to share a special perspective on early cultural developments in the city. Detailed inquiries into the specific art forms, their convergences and divergences, would also enrich public

91 Lucy Green’s extensive and influential study of students’ informal learning of rock/guitar band music resulted in pedagogical suggestions published in Music, Informal Learning and the School: A New Classroom Pedagogy (2008). 153 knowledge of the diverse communities of learning and creative practices that come together to be called “Toronto hip-hop.”

We have seen how my participants cite stories within their stories, giving us a glimpse of the way that hip-hop has grown from a small area in the Bronx to a worldwide cultural phenomenon. As in this dissertation project, voices are paramount to future inquiry, particularly from those looking for their chance to get in the cypher.

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