What Hip-Hop Wants You to Know
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JustUS: What Hip-hop Wants You to Know by Grant Leigh Saunders Thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Creative Arts under the supervision of Dr Timothy Laurie (Principal) and Professor Larissa Behrendt (Indigenous- Secondary) University of Technology Sydney Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences November 2020 JustUS: What Hip-hop Wants You to Know CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINAL AUTHORSHIP I, Grant Leigh Saunders declare that this thesis, is submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the award of Doctor of Creative Arts in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Technology Sydney. This thesis is wholly my own work unless otherwise referenced or acknowledged. In addition, I certify that all information sources and literature used are indicated in the thesis. This document has not been submitted for qualifications at any other academic institution. *If applicable, the above statement must be replaced with the collaborative doctoral degree statement (see below). *If applicable, the Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property (ICIP) statement must be added (see below). This research is supported by the Australian Government Research Training Program. Production Note: Signature: Signature removed prior to publication. Date: 1st March 2021 2 Copyright Grant Leigh Saunders 2020 JustUS: What Hip-hop Wants You to Know Big-Ups: ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to pay respects to my elders- past and present, whose struggle against racism allowed me the privilege of being able to produce this film and write this paper. I would like to thank the Eora people of the Gadigal nation, whose land was never ceded, and on whose country this research and film production took place. This included the Redfern Community Centre, The Block Redfern and The Bankstown Community centre, in Bankstown, South Western Sydney. I would like to extend a special thanks to the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) and the Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning (IHL) for their support in providing financial assistance in the shape of the UTS Research Excellence Award and the Jumbunna IHL Postgraduate Scholarship. Without this financial support, my research journey would have been a whole lot more challenging; I am deeply grateful of this opportunity that I owe not only to these institutions but to those Indigenous academic leaders who forged a path in Indigenous Higher Education for myself, current and future Indigenous scholars. I would like to also thank all participants, organisations and communities who helped to make this project possible, who gave generously of their time, personal stories, intellect and support throughout the project; namely, Stephen Carr-Saunders aka Sonboy, Jurnan Amy Ayerst aka THORN and Last Minute Productions, Vyvienne Abla and Vyva Entertainment, the 4ESydney HipHop Festival and 2018 4Elements artists Sukhdeep Singh aka L-FRESH The LION, Maya Jupiter, Rhyan Clapham aka DOBBY, Lee Monro aka Figg Kidd, Duval Clear aka Masta Ace and mirrah; Daniel Pearson aka Triple Nip, Ebony Williams aka MC Ebsta, Vanessa Turnbull-Roberts, Uncle Mick Mundine and the Aboriginal Housing Company, Aunty Jenny Monro, Shane Phillips, Angelina Penrith, Linda June Coe, Cameron Manning, Dr Ray Kelly and Dr John Maynard. A warm thanks and respects to Gayle Hickey, Dyllan Voller, the Dungay and the Doughty families for allowing me to tell their personal and sensitive stories - my hope is that by retelling these stories, more attention is given to your personal and our communal pursuits for justice for you, your families and all those who have unjustly lost their lives to the criminal justice system. A huge thanks to my supervisor Dr Timothy Laurie, who fed me all the right material to bolster my crazy ideas and supported me throughout the whole process. Dr Laurie not only provided meticulous editorial and academic feedback and guidance, to the very end of the final draft, but also emotional support, reassurance, instilling belief and confidence that I could achieve this incredible undertaking. Without his sage and empathetic support, I would 3 Copyright Grant Leigh Saunders 2020 JustUS: What Hip-hop Wants You to Know have thrown in the towel long ago. To Professor Larissa Behrendt, I also owe a great deal of gratitude for not only providing intellectual rigour to the essay element of my documentary as one of its key experts but as my Indigenous supervisor. I feel extremely privileged to have received the mentorship from someone who I regard as one of my leaders and who I have utmost respect for in the tireless work she achieves in the Indigenous filmmaking space as well as her vital contribution to Indigenous research and scholarship. Last, but definitely not least, I would like to thank my precious family, who all endured my anxiety and time spent on this research, sometimes neglecting their needs and attention but who supported and continually encouraged me regardless, because they understood the project’s value and contribution. I love you dearly and very much look forward to giving you back all the time and attention you deserve from your husband and father. 4 Copyright Grant Leigh Saunders 2020 JustUS: What Hip-hop Wants You to Know Beats and Bars (aka Table of Contents) Abstract 6 Beat 1 The Hype-man 7 Bar 1 Introduction 8 Bar 2 Represent: Researcher Background 12 Bar 3 My Homies: My Relationship with Participants 20 Bar 4 What’s Up? The Problem, Context and Rationale 24 Bar 5 Freestyling a Theoretical and Methodological Bricolage 28 5.1 Indigenous +Hip-hop Pedagogy + Critical Race Theory = CHIRP 30 5.2 “Keepin’ it Real”: Indigenous Hip-hop Auto-ethnography 43 5.3 Each One Teach One: The Power of Hip-hop Based Education (HHBE) 45 5.4 Laying the Beats Down: Methodology vs Creative Process 51 Bar 6 My Indigenous Hip-hop film: JustUS 59 6.1 Australian Hip-hop Films So Far and Other Films that Resonate 59 6.2 JustUS as ‘Trauma Cinema’ 63 Beat 2 “That Resonated With Us”: The Rise of Conscious Hip-hop in Australia 68 Bar 7 The Birth of Conscious Hip-hop and Trans-cultural Communications 70 Bar 8 Racism to Embracism: The Changing Voice of Australian Hip-hop 80 Bar 9 The Bloc Breadfern: The Gentrification of an MC’s Hood 87 Bar 10 From Redfern to Kalgoorlie: Riots or Uprisings? 93 Bar 11 Our Black Lives Matter: Indigenous Hip-hop as Outsider Criminology 103 Bar 12 “But Who Protects Us from You?”: Abolitionism and Radical Reforms 117 Beat 3 Conclusion: The Revolution Will be Televised 123 List of Works Cited 127 Appendix 141 5 Copyright Grant Leigh Saunders 2020 JustUS: What Hip-hop Wants You to Know Abstract Hip-hop music is ubiquitous and Indigenous groups globally are using Hip-hop to express local social and political issues and movements (Mitchell 2001). The question that this film and thesis seeks to answer is evident in the film’s title JustUS: What Hip-hop Wants You to Know. More specifically the research and creative production focuses on a sub-genre of Hip- hop called Conscious Hip-hop which provides the audience with a critical lens on society and politics and rallies its listeners to demand social change. The main impetus for this research is to use the popularity of this global youth culture and its music to engage young people in matters of social justice. The recurring themes present in much Australian Conscious Hip-hop - police violence, the over-incarceration of Indigenous people in Australia, and the use of Hip-hop as a means of artistic resistance – are explored visually and aurally through this research and creative project. Conscious Hip-hop artists from Indigenous, culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds share their experiences and knowledge of these issues as they directly or indirectly affect them. I decided to focus on the personal journey of a young Indigenous rapper from The Block in Redfern, Sydney, Stephen Carr-Saunders (aka Sonboy). His story provides the audience with a more personal account of the trauma experienced by those directly affected by police violence and growing up in a predominantly Black community impacted by racism and colonisation. His story is also one of empowerment and an example of the transformative power of Hip-hop to heal those suffering traumas and offer an alternative pathway to recidivism. Sonboy’s story also provides another positive representation of Indigenous Australia. The film is directly informed by scholarly research pertaining to the over-policing and over-incarceration of Indigenous people in Australia and acknowledges the enduring importance of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody (1991). Indigenous scholars in the field of criminology have recognised Indigenous protest musicians, including Indigenous folk/country singer-songwriters, Kev Carmody and Archie Roach, as "Outsider Criminologists", who speak “truth to power” in their music, seen as a form of “artistic resistance” (Porter 2019, pp. 129-137). Additionally, some social anthropologists have recognised the social justice issues experienced by Indigenous Australians expressed in Indigenous Hip-hop as well as the cultural and political connections Indigenous Australians have with African American Hip-hop and the parallel histories of Civil Rights activism (Hutchings and Crooke 2017; Minestrelli 2017). The creative work and thesis build upon Australian Hip-hop scholarship, offering an Indigenous auto-ethnographic perspective and provides more detailed context to a number of social justice issues that Indigenous and other Australian Conscious Hip-hop speaks back to. 6 Copyright Grant Leigh Saunders 2020 JustUS: What Hip-hop Wants You to Know Beat 1 Co-informant-researchers Grant Saunders (left) and MC Sonboy walk the streets of The Block, Redfern. The Hype-Man 7 Copyright Grant Leigh Saunders 2020 JustUS: What Hip-hop Wants You to Know Bar 1 Introduction Compared to the cultural and linguistic pluralism more evident in Australian Hip-hop today, Australian Hip-hop from the early to mid-2000’s represented a very different demographic.