Indigenous Youth in Australia and Canada: a Modern Narrative of Settler/Colonial Relationships Through Indigenous Rap Music

Home , 1901 in Australia, All My People, Australian reggae, Bundjalung people, Fucking Yzarc, Gumbaynggirr

Jonathon Potskin

Indigenous Youth in Australia and Canada: a modern narrative of settler/colonial relationships through Indigenous rap music

Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences The University of Sydney

July 2020

A thesis submitted to fulfil requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

Statement of Originality

This is to certify that to the best of my knowledge; the content of this thesis is my own work. This thesis has not been submitted for any degree or other purposes. I certify that the intellectual content of this thesis is the product of my own work and that all the assistance received in preparing this thesis and sources have been acknowledged.

Signature* Jonathon Potskin

Acknowledgements

I would like to firstly acknowledge the ancestors, the ancestors of the lands I mainly did my thinking and writing for this thesis, who are the ancestors of the Eora Nation. I would like to acknowledge my ancestors that help guide me in my journey throughout the earth. And for the present generations that are living amongst the lands of the Indigenous peoples I did my research on from western Australia’s Whadjuk Nyoongar people to the Gumbaynggirr people on the east coast of the continent, and in Canada being on the lands of the West Coast Salish people through the lands of the Cree, Blackfoot, Iroquois and Anishinabe of the great shield of Canada. This research is for the future, future generations of Indigenous youth around the world that are searching for their culture in modern times. Hip Hop in this research is representative of future cultures that influence and enhance a modern form of our ever-evolving cultures worldwide.

I would like to thank the Sawridge First Nation and the Sawridge Trusts for financially supporting this degree. These trusts were created from my rights to Treaty #8 in Western Canada, so I would like to acknowledge the Ancestors that negotiated and signed Treaty 8 for the betterment of me, their future generations.

Editing work was undertaken across the thesis by my supervisors, Professor Jaky Troy, Professor Linda Barwick, Associate Professor Catriona Elder, Dr Clint Bracknell. I was also enrolled in FASS thesis writing units and other editing and suggestions were made by Dr. Bronwyn Dyson.

Table of Contents

Statement of Originality 2

Acknowledgements 3

Table of Contents 4

List of Figures 5

Chapter 1 – Introduction 6

Pîhtwâwinihkêw 6

Chapter 2 – Methodology 19

Wesakecahk 19

Chapter 3 - Literature Review 54

The Trapline 54

Chapter 4 - Alienation - Paskepayihowin 79

The Ancestors Told Me … 79

Chapter 5 - Decolonisation - Kasispowicikew 126

Kohkom 126

Chapter 6 - Indigenous Resistance - Iyisâhowin 178

Indigenous Resistance as a Personal Journey 178

Chapter 7 – Conclusion – Ekosi Maka 216

References 224

List of Figures

Figure 1: Indigenous Research Paradigm 23

Figure 2: NAIDOC Poster from 2016 31

Figure 3: Metis sash (Canada) 40

Figure 4: Word cloud of Indigenous Identities of survey participants 47

Figure 5: Responses to Q: How would you describe where you live 49

Figure 6: Researcher’s own artwork 81

Chapter 1 – Introduction

Pîhtwâwinihkêw - she/he arranges a pipe ceremony; s/he gives a smoking ceremony (CW)

This thesis is taking an Indigenous approach to research, some will call this a decolonial approach to research, an Indigenizing research approach or some may call this post-colonial research. From where I gaze this research is a form of pre-colonial research. Within the Indigenous research framework centring oneself in the research is vital to starting the process, this is used through personal stories. This method engages the reader and brings forward trust and truth. I am the collector of life stories through being an Indigenous researcher, which in my cultures holds a lot of responsibility to be ethical, responsible and truthful. In Australian Indigenous communities in modern Australia there is a process called a “Welcome to Country”, this process takes place when a person of the Indigenous peoples of the territory you are in, welcome you on to the land and shares some history of country, its animals and people. It is a process that creates a trust from the people that are entering the territory to respect the laws of the land that the people follow. In my culture the pipe ceremony is a way to bring people into your community, this comes with stories of the elders sharing the laws of the land, of the society your visiting that come from the ancestors. These ceremonies are done to bring forward truth and honesty to the people in the circle, and to bring forward good intentions for the visit. It is this truth telling and sharing that starts this thesis, and each chapter. I ask you to pray in your way to bring forward good thoughts and ways of being. Most Indigenous cultures in both Australia and Canada use the sacredness of smoke to bring forward a cleansing and bring forward our ancestors. This is the start of the thesis and as Shawn Wilson shares “Research is Ceremony”. I am a Nêhiyaw and a Métis man from regions known as Sawridge First Nation, Alberta, Canada, Treaty 8 and 6, descendent of the Métis homeland called the Red River and many other forms of names for these places. My mother comes from a long line of Nêhiyaw ancestors that have protected the lands of the Sawridge First Nation for hundreds of years. My dad is Métis from Alberta with his ancestry going back to the Red River. Both of these cultural identities are crucial in my life and equal within my cultural teachings. Growing I had parents that taught us their cultures, my dad, Lyle Donald, raised us in the Métis community

of Alberta. Him and my grandmother Georgina Donald created a Métis dance group when I was a child, it was at first just my family, my brother, sister and cousins. We performed and taught Métis culture across Canada throughout my youth. My mother raised us with the Nêhiyaw teachings of her Father, Albert Potskin, from the Sawridge First Nation. She taught us our spirituality, our connection to land, and the importance of family bonds with our First Nations cousins. I grew up with my cousins on both sides of my family, this was important to my parents and was great for me as I don’t remember much of a childhood being lonely or ever having to search for friendships as I had around 70 first cousins and I was in the age group that was in the middle of this huge tribe. From the sounds of it I grew up with two cultures in my life, but that does not include the culture that I lived in outside the warmth of family. I grew up mostly in the city of Edmonton, with small amounts of time living on my nation and small towns in the provinces of Alberta and British Columbia. My childhood was full of disconnection as my school years started. I found myself alone in the classroom full of non-Indigenous students, with some years having some comradery with other Indigenous students, usually only one other in my class to connect with. I was ignored and felt very invisible within the education system. My achievements were never celebrated like others in my class and I was often left quiet and alone at a desk surrounded by no relations. This third culture I was in was not what I was used to, in my family our teachers were our parents, aunties, uncles and especially our grandparents. When I achieved, one or all would show some sort of honour for me. My sister and I and other Indigenous kids at our schools were always in lunch time and after school brawls with boys in higher grades than us and often told to “Go Back Where You Came From.” Which we would yell back “this is our land, you go back to where you came from” which often confused them, as this saying did not hurt us but reflected back to them their disconnect with the land, they call their own. When I got to middle school years, I was able to attend an all ‘Native’ school called Ben Calf Robe in the city of Edmonton. These years were essential for who I am today. It is here I was able to connect with other students; we started each day with a smudge and prayer. Not that we were out of cultural harm, as our teachers were mostly non-Indigenous and were ignorant to us and a lot of times abusive, using the tactics of their forefathers when dealing with educating the ‘Indians.’ They were mostly there as our school was a process to allow them not to be sent to rural schools and remain in the city for their primary years as an educator. But it was the relationships I built

with other students that remained my sanity through going through the western education system, and most of those relationships are still alive today through communication on social media and at gatherings. My later education became harsher as I went to high school at St Joseph Composite High School in Edmonton. It is here where I saw the true separation of us and them, and not just me as an Indigenous man but many nations of separations. This school had around 2000 students attending it, and with that big a school it had many entrances. These entrances became racialised. I of course hung around and entered through the ‘native’ doors. The teachers at this school were of the mind that if you were native you were not supposed to be smart or at least not smarter than your peers. I found myself constantly being bombarded with hate from the teachers, being pulled out of class and yelled at and at some point, receiving minor physical abuse, all because of asking questions. It was and still is this inquisitive nature of mine that has brought me to where I am today. I had to leave High School to start my education again. I attended Norquest College as an 18- year-old ‘man’ and was able to complete my courses to attend university. What does this have to do with my research? It is these experiences, though very topical in the scheme of things, that have guided me through my western education. At the university level these experiences were similar and sometimes magnified but where my covert writings were not really accepted, but rather mostly tolerated. This covert writing becomes my connection to Indigenous Hip Hop. I was a teenager in the 1990’s when Hip Hop starts becoming a daily musical form in my house and in the community. The stories coming out of the Black experience in the United States mimicked the experiences of the treatment of Indigenous peoples in my and surrounding Indigenous communities. Though I never fully got into the Hip Hop scene or its music, I did see a new form of empowerment happening with my brother, cousins and community members. In Edmonton I started seeing Indigenous Hip Hop groups forming like One 18 and Red Power Squad, which were local Indigenous youth rapping and dancing. This new culture that was being developed from America had taken hold in our communities, but like Indigenous people have done since time immemorial we adapt and flourish. In 2009 I started my master’s degree at the Australian National University in Canberra. During the orientation week I was walking by the refectory when I heard some beats and raps happening. I went in and started to watch and listen to The Last Kinection, a brother and sister duo rapping with their mate deejaying. As I heard their messages it took me back to my youth and hearing the same messages that were coming

from groups like One 18 and Red Power Squad. It was hearing the messages and the unique form of rhyming that enhances the message that got me intrigued on what I saw as ‘Indigenous Hip Hop.’ At this time my nieces and nephew were teenagers and when I would talk with them and go home for visits, they would perform their rap lyrics to me. I saw their pride in who they were coming out and also saw the hard work that comes with the thinking and writing process for these messages. The empowerment of Hip Hop is something that is produced outside the western education system, but I found these youth participating in creating Hip Hop music to be just as informed and well versed in writing as the youth who accomplish western education accolades. Though this genre of music is still new, I am seeing the more recent generation combining their street knowledge and succeeding in western education. As the art form and culture of Hip Hop becomes more accepted in mainstream society, we will see ‘Indigenous Hip Hop’ flourish and be a conduit for voicing the Indigenous experiences to mainstream societies globally. While researching for this thesis I came across a paper “Edmonton Pentimento: Re- Reading History in the Case of the Papaschase Cree” by Dwayne Donald. While reading his paper I realised we are related. This should have been clear to me from the title as my Dad’s family is descended from Papaschase and his last name is my father’s family name. In Donald’s writings he brings forth “Métissage” (Donald, 2004) as a form of writing from a personal perspective within research. His teachings come from ancestral knowledge of learning about his great-great grandmother, my great-great-great grandmother Betsy Donald (nee Brass.) Through his story I not only related to him academically but culturally through our shared Métis culture and relationally through us sharing the same blood. So, the act of Métissage writing is what informs these beginning sections of each chapter. I am writing with my own voice from my Nêhiyaw and Mitchif language background. You, the reader will hear these languages in my use of “English” as you read. My voice, my language use, grammar and choice of vocabulary all reflect my community languages. I am writing to you as a Nêhiyaw and Métis Man. So welcome to the territory of the mind and heart of my ancestors, myself and the participants in this research and all Indigenous people that call Hip Hop their culture alongside their Indigenous identities.

Overview of Chapter 1 Indigenous research methodology/paradigm/pedagogy is rather new within the western academy. This form of research allows Indigenous people to inquire through an academic lens that honours their worldview and ways of being. Often Indigenous people were researched from a coloniser/settler view that was objective and compartmentalised. My hope for the reader of this research project I did within the Indigenous Hip Hop movement in Australia and Canada, is not to see this research from the objective view and not to compartmentalise the work, but to become a part of the subject to see the wholeness of this research. This is done through experiencing the research with me as your storyteller, not as the objective researcher. While living here in Sydney, Australia I learned a word in the Eora language of Sydney ngara - to sit and listen intensely and learn from my Cultural Educator Drew Roberts. This is my expectation of you as the reader of this story, on this journey into the research topic. I ask of the reader to hold off on questions during the introduction of chapters and topics. Often in academia we want a western structured form that introduces and concludes an idea before actually looking in-depth at the topic.

When I think of the concept of ngara I think of teachings from Elders when I was young, we were not to ask questions but to keep quiet, sit still and listen. This is how our Elders were at meetings, they did not usually speak until the end of the meeting, ensuring they got the whole story before they interrogate the topic at hand. It is this form of critical analysis I will ask you to take when reading my work, hold off on the question until I have completed making the case I am writing. I write or share this in my introduction as I want to help guide you through my writing and form of inquiry. There is an expectation for you to participate as well throughout the thesis, as I have attached links to my blog, and the music videos for the songs that will be used to increase the messages from Indigenous Hip Hop artists. With storytelling sometimes there is a repetitive word or concept, this is intentional, I will try my best to find synonyms for the words I use so as to not overuse or over exemplify an idea. As the reader of this story I hope that you can take this journey with me on my quest to look into the ever-evolving cultures of Indigenous Peoples in Australia and Canada.

The research is twofold research. The first involves a question, an encompassing question: “Can an Indigenous Research Methodology be used in a global context?” The

second process is the more specific research question “How are Indigenous youth from Canada and Australia articulating a modern narrative of settler/colonial relationships through Indigenous Rap Music?”. An Indigenous Research Methodology is important to the research as it holds the values and worldviews of Indigenous ways of being. It is a solid form of Indigenous Knowledge production. Researching Indigenous youth and their connections to Hip Hop culture and Indigenous cultures is rather a new way of researching the voice of Indigenous youth. This research is looking to answer many aspects of Indigenous Youth culture from local knowledges and those that surpass our community boundaries and go to the regional, national and international realm of consciousness. The study is looking at also answering the following three secondary questions:

1. Does Indigenous Rap challenge the stereotype of “Authentic” Indigenous cultures? 2. Are Indigenous youth gaining traditional knowledges from Indigenous Rap and how does Indigenous Rap use the traditional form of oral culture to transfer Indigenous Knowledges? 3. Where do Indigenous youth go to find Indigenous Hip Hop community (websites, social media, community gatherings, Indigenous events)?

It was these initial questions that helped me create and manage the research from its humble beginnings to the conclusions that came from the people that I was able to observe and speak with. As you will witness in this thesis, I was able to create and use an Indigenous Paradigm/Methodology that is relatable to Indigenous youth in both Australia and Canada and that allowed me to relate the research to those who participated.

In Sociology we are often introduced to C. Wright Mills’ concept of the Sociological Imagination as the “vivid awareness of the relationship between personal experience and the wider society." (Mills, 1970) This concept was important for me to look at, as I often at times tried to locate where my research sits within the academic framework of the Social Sciences. Mills (1970) expressed in his essays that it is important for Sociology to locate the individual in society and find how their ‘issues’ relate to other people and how these experiences could be studied to situate them within the broader context of their society.

The first fruit of this imagination - and the first lesson of the social science that embodies it - is the idea that the individual can understand her own experience and gauge her own fate only by locating herself within her period, that she can know her own chances in life only by becoming aware of those of all individuals in her circumstances (Mills, 1970).

What is also important within this quote from Mills (1970) is that in understanding this “own experience” within society one needs to place oneself within the “period” (time) and assess this in order to understand anyone else’s life chances. This is important for Indigenous research within sociology. We need to look at Indigenous peoples and their experiences within the timeframe of the research. Often Indigenous research looks at past cultural values as a deficit to our societies or as the answer to all present social problems. In locating the Indigenous youth experience within a sociological framework I decided to look at the Hip Hop community amongst Indigenous youth in Australia and Canada. I then “placed” my own and the individual (Indigenous Youth) experiences, found the community of Indigenous Hip Hop, and chose the time as the present (2015-2019). It also was important to me to collect the interviews and songs presented within this thesis because they are the expression of the life chances that Indigenous youth will experience, both in the past and in the future, that is what their music expresses and helps them to explore as individuals and as a collective.

Aileen Moreton-Robinson (2015) puts the call out to sociology to look at the sociological imagination within an Indigenous view. She states “The ‘sociological imagination’ has not been applied to investigate the existence of Indigenous sovereignty within both structure and agency, yet this is surely what sociology requires” (Moreton- Robinson, 2015). Sovereignty as we will see throughout this thesis, is one discourse that does not fit within the context of most sociology, as this concept goes against the sociological imagination of most studies completed with a sociological lens. From my experience this is because Sociology is often dictated by the nation state’s goals and finding how the individual and that community can better assimilate itself into the nation state’s imagination and/or structures. Indigenous sociology is not race based research that is searching for answers about achieving equality within their nation state societies, it is or

must also be about the recognition of the sovereignty that is held by Indigenous peoples, as peoples that belong to nations that existed and still exist on the lands that settlers call home today.

Literature and Methodology The first section of the thesis looks at previous research completed through the Literature Review and the Methodology chapters. These two chapters introduce the base knowledges set out in the research in order to enhance the second section which is the empirical and original research completed for this thesis. Honouring the ancestors is important for this research, this section is based also on the Indigenous research of ancestors, those that came before me. This section alone has been the basis for many thesis and research studies globally.

Through the literature review process, I found that there has been research in the past on Indigenous Hip Hop. My introduction to Indigenous Hip Hop in Australia was through a friend setting up a meet up with Rhyan Clapham, or as he is known within the Hip Hop scene as Dobby. He had just completed his degree in Music at the University of New South Wales and his honours degree on Indigenous Hip Hop in Australia. This meeting was very educational and encouraging for me. Dobby shared his research (Clapham, 2015) with me and his lived experience as an Indigenous youth and a Hip Hop artist. It was through our conversation and him sharing his thesis that started me on the path to finding more information on Indigenous Hip Hop. The research within the Indigenous Hip Hop scenes in Australia and Canada was done mostly with Hip Hop artists and with community organisations that provided Hip Hop programs to relate or share certain social messages to youth. Hip Hop and Indigenous themes were studied as separate entities with Indigenous Hip Hop artists located within this intercultural space. I found papers from the early 2000’s by Tony Mitchell (2003) that called for more research with the Indigenous Hip Hop community in Australia. To understand this community better I researched Indigenous youth and music, Indigenous youth and society, the history of Hip Hop, the pedagogy that frames Hip Hop at the academic level and globalisation. It is these different pathways and how they intersect that I needed to understand before going ahead with research in this community.

As Moreton-Robinson (2015) stated the Sociological Imagination needs to look at sovereignty within the individual and structural experience of Indigenous Peoples. Sovereignty within this thesis starts with the entire framework of the research, through what is called an Indigenous Research Methodology/Paradigm. This paradigm or methodology gives agency to the research itself, to me as an Indigenous researcher and to the youth and artists that participated in this research. It allows an Indigenous perspective to take the lead in the quest to learn about the dynamic community that is known in this research as Indigenous Hip Hop. My goal at the beginning of this research journey was to use an Indigenous Paradigm within frames of what is considered Sociology. There is a growing trend around the world with universities looking at Indigenising their programs and institutions, research like mine is a start to see how the world looks from an Indigenous stand-point.

The Indigenous Research Methodology/Paradigm created for this research is influenced mainly by scholarship from Linda Tuhiwai-Smith (1999) and Shawn Wilson (2008). Tuhiwai-Smith’s (1999) book ‘Decolonising Methodologies’ is one of the main readings for Indigenous Research globally and has influenced a new generation of scholars looking into Indigenous Research. Wilson’s (2008) book ‘Research is Ceremony’ was very influential research for this research as his book sets the foundational guide in creating an Indigenous Research Methodology that is global. Relationality is at the core of this research method, including the relationships we hold with one another as humans, with the animal community, the spirit world and with our cosmos. This part of the research was guided by me exploring the ontology, epistemology, axiology and methods within an Indigenous framework that fits for Indigenous communities in Australia and Canada. As Wilson’s title - ‘Research is Ceremony’ - suggests ceremony is the foundation for this process. This is reflected in the importance of following each step like a ceremony to get the correct answers one is seeking. It is through this process that I hope the reader can understand the importance of Indigenous knowledges leading the space when researching Indigenous peoples.

Alienation, Decolonisation and Resistance Part 2 is the start of the showcasing of the empirical research for this thesis. There were three major themes that came through the research that guides each of the three chapters Alienation, Decolonisation and Resistance. These themes are the pillars of this research and bring focus to the experiences of the youth with settler society through listening to Rap music and being a part of the Hip Hop and Indigenous communities. The structure of these chapters is formed by the different forms of methods engaged for this research. As witnessed at the beginning of this chapter, first there will be personal conversations with you from myself the writer and researcher. This section of each chapter is for me to relate the research to you from the perspective of my experiences as an Indigenous man and as an Indigenous researcher from my lived experience. Second, I will include in each chapter interviews I did with Indigenous youth and Indigenous Hip Hop artists, as well as interviews I was able to find on artists that I wasn’t able to interview due conflicts in schedules and/or location. Third, there will be sections in these chapters called ‘Acimowin’ (Waugh, 2019) which in the Nêhiyaw language means a form of storytelling of the News. These sections which will showcase an Individual story of people I interviewed. Fourth, each chapter has a lyrical portion to it where I analyse one or more of the messages that are in songs by Indigenous Hip Hop artists. In this section I am hoping you can link to the song on YouTube and watch their video to understand the aspects of the messages that come out through their online performance. The lyrics are provided to help guide their message as Rap is an oral communicative tool that is fast and full of messages. Overall, the format of each chapter is created with these sections, but they are moved around in each chapter to better express the themes in that chapter.

Alienation is at the core of the Indigenous settler experience. Settler colonial society is based on imperialism and colonisation practices that formed capitalistic societies that depend on the extraction of natural resources of the lands they settled on. Tuck and Yang describes settler colonisation as a form of “colonialism [where] settlers come with the intention of making a new home on the land, a homemaking that insists on settler sovereignty over all things in their new domain” (Tuck & Yang, 2012, p. 5). The goal of settler societies is to create an economy through these natural resources to sell as commodities to one another globally. This creates their epistemological relationship with

one another through money. This creates a form of alienation from Indigenous peoples as the leading principal epistemologically is about living in relation with the land. This creates teachings of respecting the land, living in a reciprocal relationship with the land that generates responsibility to protect the land. It is the ontological and epistemological aspects of Indigenous identities that create the discourse with settler societies. This is expressed in Indigenous Hip Hop through many songs and expressed in conversations with the youth. The form of relationality used in this chapter is based on Joanne Archibald’s research into “storywork” (2019). Storytelling is at the core of Indigenous ways of sharing knowledge with one another, as prior to settler society arriving most nations depended on oral historical and lived accounts to be shared with one another. It is through the storywork process that this chapter takes that it brings forward the messages of this form of alienation that occurs with Settler and Indigenous relations.

The chapter on Decolonisation is about a step that can create better relationships with Indigenous peoples and their settler societies. Decolonisation within this research looks into Tuck’s and Yang’s paper “Decolonisation is Not a Metaphor” (Tuck, 2012). They define decolonisation as a process that brings forward “Indigenous sovereignty and futurity” (p.35) and “will require a change in the order of the world (Fanon, 1963)” (p. 31). This leads to me investigating the two aspects that are brought forward in this paper – External and Internal colonisation. Through using these two forms of coloniality I explored the messages of decolonisation from the interviews and ethnographic work I did for this research which is showcased in songs by the Indigenous Hip Hop artists. One key point that came through from the research that I showcase in this this chapter is that there is a form of decoloniality that is empowering Indigenous women and is helping them to start leading this movement. In this chapter I examine what decolonisation looks like through an Indigenous Feminist perspective that is now leading Indigenous Hip Hop music. The Indigenous Feminist movement is something that is different from mainstream feminism, as this is about a resurgence of traditional knowledges that Indigenous people have been following since time immemorial. Colonialist and settler society’s treatment of women has been examined in many forms, but the Indigenous women’s experience has often been left out or underappreciated in society and academia (Moreton-Robinson, 2000). This chapter I explore

the way this form of resurgence is at the core of a lot of songs within Indigenous Hip Hop, especially with teachings about the values of respecting the land as the earth gives life to us all, so do women.

Lastly, the research took me on the path towards the theme of Indigenous Resistance. As previous chapters have revealed, there is a separation of ideologies at the core of the settler and Indigenous experience. This forms the praxis of what is referred to as Indigenous Resistance. Indigenous Resistance is showcased in many forms in this thesis through the songs written by artists to advance the message of community voices that are dealing with the day-to-day effects of the colonisation that the Nation States continue to endorse. Hip Hop culture has what is known as the 5th element of their culture which is ‘Knowledge of Self and Community’ (Love, 2014) that parallels the Indigenous form of Self- Determination, which is the underlying current of this chapter and the thesis. When considering the modern forms of communication we use with one another in the twenty- first century and the concept of relationality the chapter then looks at how social media influences and develops different forms of Indigenous Resistance at the community, national and global levels. To end off this chapter we look at Maggie Walter’s (Walter, 2010) “Market Forces and Indigenous Resistance Paradigms” to showcase Indigenous Resistance in Indigenous Hip Hop. Then using another of Walter’s writings this one on the ‘Domain of Aboriginality’ and ‘Resistance, Endurance and Survival' the chapter ends by analysing songs that bring forward past, present and future forms of resistance.

Conclusion to Chapter 1 I designed an Indigenous Research Methodology/Paradigm for this thesis to help me explore how Indigenous Rap challenges the stereotype of “Authentic” Indigenous cultures and to show how Indigenous youth are gaining traditional knowledges from Indigenous Rap but also how Indigenous Rap uses the traditional form of oral culture to transfer Indigenous Knowledges Across the thesis I will demonstrate where Indigenous youth go to find Indigenous Hip Hop community including websites, social media, community gatherings, and Indigenous events

Using the key themes of Alienation, Decolonisation and Resistance this thesis demonstrates the importance of the relational aspects of Indigenous societies that create strength and endurance of our traditional cultures and the resilience of the ancestors and present generations that find new forms to communicate old ideas. It is this strength and endurance that is the focus of community driven actions that come out in the form of songs in Hip Hop to call out for positive changes for future relations with settler societies and Indigenous Nations.

Chapter 2 – Methodology

Wesakecahk In Nêhiyaw culture we are taught about Wesakecahk, the trickster. He is a spirit of our creation times. He is known to teach us lessons about living in balance with humans, animals, the environment and the spirits. Wesakecahk stories are told in the winter when Nêhiyaw people spent more time gathered together as families and communities. Wesakecahk lessons come from him being a trickster but also a shapeshifter, he is able to transform himself to human form, animal form to teach us a lesson. The stories of Wesakecahk are different for each community as his teachings brought order to our people, a set of rules to live by, some can see his stories like those of the bible of western cultures. The teachings of Wesakecahk help guide children to be better humans and in balance with everyone and everything. I bring up Wesakecahk as this chapter on the Indigenous paradigm are led with culture, not just mine but guided by different stories from my upbringing, stories I learned from meeting many Indigenous elders and teachers from across Canada and Australia. I lead this research with my culture as that is the one, I can speak for the most, it is me. This chapter is a Wesakecahk lesson, I am learning the rules of research, from the core of our beings with ontology; why we do things in a certain way with epistemology; the rules that come at the end of the story that create our ethics and morals in our societies and lastly methodology, you learn the first three steps you go out and learn the art of storytelling from others to perfect yours. The last step is becoming the storyteller, or in my case writing this thesis, though I do tell the story of this research often at conferences and community events. When I was driving across Canada doing interviews with artists and youth, I had the experience of not only meeting diverse people, I was able to experience the elements and see the land and animals. When I travel back home, I am usually always led by the Eagle, I see them guiding me, and protecting me during my travels; which is why again this time I was able to see them sporadically in my travels. What I was not expecting was to be led across the country by our hawks. Why is this important? When I first started my studies at the University of Sydney, I was able to take a Bundjalung language course at Eora College taught by Drew Roberts. To learn the language, we had to first learn the dreaming and kinship. Drew teaches through us experiencing the culture, this is done by choosing a name for

ourselves in language and he set us up in family groups. It was at this time we learned of the Moieties of his Bundjalung culture, Eagle hawk and Crow. Drew is a friend of mine, we talked about my values and life and he said I am Eagle hawk. You kind of think of these talks and insights from friends of other cultures as important to create human relationships, but they do come to fruition. While I was travelling the Hawk took care of me, I remember driving through Ontario and thinking in my head, I keep seeing Hawks flying above me or sitting on posts along the highway where are my Eagles? When I would ask that question within a few kilometers they would peek out and fly above me and go back to their business, they never left, but allowed my spirit from Australia protect me back home. This adoption of spirits is important for this research as I am using many different cultures to gather information, I feel that the hawk’s presence in my home country was to let me know that the ancestors of my Australian home were with me. The teachings of Wesakecahk are stories that relate us to each other through teaching order through the way we relate and allows the voice of our ancestors to be heard.

Overview of Chapter 2 This chapter will build toward outlining the methodology for this study. It will initially discuss the use of Indigenous research methods in the academy. Within my own Indigenous framework, it will also consider ontology – the nature of being. This will link to consideration of epistemology – the nature of knowing, and axiology – the nature of value. The chapter will close by detailing the mixed methods used in this study, including my initial survey, interviews, ethnography, and autoethnography. While these methods are widely used, their application is informed by the unique worldview and attendant philosophy, knowledge and values of the Indigenous researcher.

Indigenous Research Methods

Research is linked in all disciplines to theory. Research adds to, is generated from, creates or broadens our theoretical understandings. Indigenous peoples have been, in many ways, oppressed by theory. Any considerations of the ways our origins have been examined, our histories recounted, our arts analysed, our cultures dissected, measured, torn apart and distorted back to us will suggest that theories have not looked sympathetically or ethically at us (Smith, 1999, p. 39).

An Indigenous Research Paradigm creates a framework for presenting research from an Indigenous worldview (Kovach, 2009, Wilson, 2008). It sets the stage for taking out the “otherness” that is placed on Indigenous peoples in research that situates Western forms of knowledge as superior. In the Indigenous Research Paradigm Indigenous peoples and their knowledge are at the centre of the ontological, epistemological, axiological and methodological aspects of research. This allows Indigenous forms of research to explore Indigenous peoples and their ways of being from a perspective that is within the authentic day-to-day lives and culture of Indigenous peoples in the 21st century, and not that of a past identity perceived through a non-Indigenous lens. The Paradigm that was created for this research uses a variety of Indigenous Knowledge Systems from Canada and Australia in order to research modern Indigenous cultures through Indigenous Hip Hop.

decolonising the way future research can be completed with Indigenous Peoples. I will focus my Indigenous Rap research on the Indigenous peoples of the present; taking Indigenous identity as it is today and not focus on the identity of the past. Patrick and Biddle (2018) researched the Milpirri Festival in Northern Australia, a festival that combines traditional ceremony and modern forms of tradition and that they say enhances the community’s ability to deal with youth suicide. They use the word ‘Hyperrealism’ to describe the scene, not from its traditional anthropological sense, but from an Indigenous worldview of community resurgence of tradition and modern cultures. This community, like many others, came together to bring forward Rap music to allow a healing process for the youth. The artists see themselves in the struggles they face in their daily lives due to issues such as: their socioeconomic status, racism, loss of cultural identity, Stolen Generation in Australia, Residential Schools and Sixty Scoop in Canada and other factors affecting Australia and Canada Indigenous peoples (Makokis, 2008b). It is important to Indigenise words like “hyperrealism”, so they come to be understood from an Indigenous worldview. This specific project is Indigenised, it will also be looking at culture from a modern Indigenous context that includes what is known as Traditional, Western and Hip Hop cultures. Lastly Indigenous people like all people of the 21st century are global people have multiple cultural identities that cannot be boxed into an academically traditional form of Indigenous culture(s) (Chilisa, 2012).

Indigenisation is a form of self determination for Indigenous people as Janice Makokis addresses in many forms in her thesis called ‘Nêhiyaw iskwew kiskinowâtasinahikewina - paminisowin namôya tipeyimisowin: Learning Self-determination Through the Sacred’ (Makokis, 2008a). Makokis writes that we as Indigenous people need to start using our languages when using Indigenous knowledges:

First and foremost our actions should be guided by our own epistemological frameworks if we are seeking true vindication from a philosophical colonial construct that has held us to be social, political, cultural, and economic prisoners within the very spaces we seek redress. In doing so, we have to return to our teachings found in the languages we speak, the songs we sing in ceremony, the teachings found in the ceremonial structures that have been passed on to us

from our ancestors, and the philosophical bundles of knowledge found in the ways of our ancestors (Makokis, 2008, p. 41).

To incorporate this structure, I will be using Indigenous languages throughout my research. The languages I will use will predominantly be Nêhiyaw as this is the language of my people who I have lived around. I learned Nêhiyaw through hearing it spoken amongst my grandparents and aunties and uncles. I was also in school in the 1980’s in Alberta when they started teaching Indigenous languages in mainstream schools and I was able to learn Nêhiyaw throughout my schooling from grade 4 up to grade 11. I was also able to learn more of my language taking Cree classes for credit at Yellowhead Tribal College in Treaty 6 Territory. I am not close to any sort of fluency but have basic knowledge, which is not much when you’re in the community. I will also be using references from Neal McLoed’s “100 Days of Cree” (McLeod & Wolvengrey, 2016) and the website Cree Dictionary (Waugh, 2019). I will credit more people throughout my writing when using language. I also had the privilege to take the Certificate 1 in Bundjalung language at Eora College, which gave me language skills in Bundjalung. This course was so much more than language, I learned the culture through teachings on Kinship systems, Moieties, Totems, and Skins from our instructor Drew Roberts. Throughout this writing I will also incorporate other languages from readings I have done on different cultural processes.

Another main catalyst for changing the way research is viewed in the Indigenous research world is Linda Tuhiwai Smith’s 1999 book “Decolonizing Methodologies”. She was able to obtain a strong international audience of Indigenous researchers. Although there were other Indigenous academics working on this, her book gave voice to what Indigenous academics were experiencing and writing about since research began in their communities. Decolonizing the research was the start of a whole new aspect of research that has gained momentum into what is now recognised as Indigenous research and Indigenous Research Methodologies which is led by Indigenous people. Tuhiwai-Smith does not take away from the western forms of research but includes an Indigenous view:

Decolonisation, however, does not mean and has not meant as total rejection of all theory or research or Western knowledge. Rather, it is about centering our concerns

and world views and then coming to know and understand theory and research from our own perspectives and for our own purposes (Smith, p. 39).

Decolonizing is looking back at previous research that has been conducted by non- Indigenous people and applying an Indigenous view. Often non-Indigenous researchers were coming into Indigenous communities with a cultural superiority view, known as having a Eurocentric view. Decolonizing previous works brings the voice of those people studied back into the research and gives agency to them and their communities. Whereas Indigenizing is not correcting the past with our work but using it to form an indigenous worldview that is validated through English or other colonial languages.

Author Bagele Chilisa (Chilisa, 2012) states in the book “Indigenous Research Methodologies” that the concept of the paradigm was created by Thomas Kuhn in 1962 (Chilisa, p. 19). A paradigm-based thought process was created in order to position the communities’ particular ways of being through their belief systems and so creating their worldview. A paradigm-based thought process assists researchers and their community to position themselves with values that are open to a new research lens. The paradigm or worldviews were taken for granted when applied to past Indigenous research like that shown in the works of W.E.H. Stanner in his work on the Dreaming, space and time (Stanner, 2011). Stanner is able to get the foundations of their Dreaming down through the understanding of Tjukurpa, but when he starts to categorise and objectify the knowledge you start to see the writings get confused, and leaves the reader with information that is not related to the stories he was told. The foundation of understanding and research processes was based on Eurocentric views. When Indigenous peoples started to gain access to western education systems, they recognised how people were often misguided, and that the truth was hidden within the research frameworks used.

Indigenous research methods start from a research paradigm that has four elements: Ontology, Epistemology, Axiology and Methodology. Wilson suggests that “An Indigenous research paradigm needs to be followed through all stages” (Wilson, 2008) to be effective and complete. For this research I used the process of the Medicine Wheel teachings (Wenger-Nabigon, 2010) of the four stages of life that I learned throughout my

life from many Elders, teachers and community Leaders. This teaching will be brought forward more in the epistemology of the research, as this was the worldview I took when applying my knowledge to the research but as Wilson also states “rather than thinking of them [the elements] as four separate ideas or entities, try to think of them in a circle.” (Wilson, 2008, p. 70) Application of these four elements allows a more balanced approach to assessing the research and needs to be looked at in its entirety and not just through each quadrant separately.

The creation of each Indigenous research paradigm begins through the researcher assessing themselves and their research within the guidelines of the paradigm. Chilisa’s paradigm is a “Postcolonial Indigenous Research Paradigm”. She states a Postcolonial Indigenous Research Paradigm is:

… one that articulates the shared aspects of ontology, epistemology, axiology and research methodologies of the colonised Other discussed by scholars who conduct research in former colonised societies in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, among Indigenous peoples in Australia, Canada and the United States, and other parts of the world, and among the disempowered, historically marginalised social groups that encounter colonizing effect of Eurocentric research paradigms (Chilisa, 2012, p. 20).

Kovach (2009) and Wilson don’t use the phrase Indigenous research paradigm but refer towhat they do as an Indigenous methodology. Using this Indigenous research paradigm allows the researcher to go back to the beginning stages of research and center the Indigenous Knowledge system they are using in their research to be at the core of all aspects of the research. In a presentation I was doing for the Higher Degree by Research Day for the School of Social and Political Sciences I surprised myself by declaring that my research is “not postcolonial as it is bringing forward traditional knowledges and it is precolonial.” With that statement made I do want to reaffirm that my research is not situated in any prescribed western post colonist knowledge but stands on its own merit as ancestral knowledge that was passed down through generations of people, before colonial contact, to those of us using it today.

All aspects of the methodology need to be completed from the community’s perspective in order to have their worldview properly understood and to have outcomes of the research that reflect the community’s needs (Chilisa, 2012; Kovach, 2009; Wilson, 2008). This allows the research to be more inclusive to the participants and will ensure the later stages of analyzing the data will be more appropriate to the communities studied. Framing the research to an Indigenous perspective for the case of this research will bring greater understanding to Indigenous peoples. As the common way of framing the research on Indigenous people is “Issue” based and from the perspective of the western gaze it does not allow the true essence of the community’s voices to be understood (Henry et al., 2002). In this research in order to have their worldview understood there was a process of learning the Hip Hop culture that I needed to understand. Through my readings in the literature review process, growing up around Hip-Hop and in the answers to the questions from the interviews I have learnt more about Hip-Hop Culture. This research takes a positive view Hip-Hop culture and uses the Hip-Hop Global movement as the main transnational culture as the conduit for the research, I am doing on Indigenous Rap Music in Australia and Canada.

“Tjukurpa” 1 - Ontology Ontology is the start of the meaning of the truth in the world through the eyes of the culture studied. This research is based on the positioning the ontology of Indigenous peoples. It comes from my research into Creation or Dreaming stories from Canada and Australia to form the connection of relationship of the people to their lands, cosmos, the ancestors, each other and the spirits. As Wilson (2008, p. 33) writes “Ontology is thus asking, ‘what is real?’” As the beginning of cultural knowledge systems Chilisa describes Ontology as relational. She writes: “In a relational ontology, the social reality that is investigated can be understood in relation to the connections that human beings have with

1 Tjukurpa is listed in the Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Dictionary as having both meanings; the lowercase tjukurpa refers to ‘story’ and ‘word’ or ‘what someone says’, while uppercase Tjukurpa refers to the ‘Law’ and ‘Dreaming’. Anangu commonly use the term ‘Tjukurpa’ to translate the Biblical concept of ‘the Word of God’, as both word and Dreaming Law are Tjukurpa. There is a sense in both Christian and Anangu ontology that the ‘word’ either spoken or sung activates life, it is the creative force that brings God or Tjukurpa to life. (James, 2015, p. 38)

living and the nonliving” (Chilisa, 2012, p. 20). Both Wilson and Chilisa in their research have combined Ontology and Epistemology. Whereas in this research they will be explored as two separate components, one I explore them separately in order to connect Indigenous people more through an Indigenous lens that has both local knowledge to global connections.

One’s ontology has to figured out at the beginning stages of the research as it sets the stage for the rest of the research through creating (or planting) the seeds for the reality that the research is taking. Wilson positions ontology within an Indigenous Research Paradigm as understanding:

that, rather than the truth being something that is “out there” or external, reality is in the relationship that one has with the truth. Thus, an object or thing is not as important as one’s relationship to it. This idea could be further expanded to say that reality is relationships or sets of relationships that make up an Indigenous ontology Wilson, 2008, p. 73).

This reality and the sets of relationships attached to it in an Indigenous knowledge system are often first taught through stories of the creation of our world and us as a people. Our reality is taught to us through our relationships with the earth, animals, spirits and each other. Vicki Grieves in her 2008 article explains creations stories as:

varying from region to region, in content and emphasis. They contain, however, the same basic elements: the creative beings are responsible for the features of the land and the entire natural world including species and plant life. Their creative activity was formative: they created the whole world including the species, landform, water, and so all of these have special sacred meaning. And they continue to be imbued with their life force and interconnectedness (Grieves, 2008).

It is the way we organised those relationships that move us into our epistemological perspective of the world and how we live in balance with all elements. You may recognise this from the beginning story with Wesakecahk.

Creation and Dreaming stories start the connections that Indigenous societies have with their spirituality, environment, each other and knowledge systems, as Thomas King puts it:

Personally, I’d want to hear a creation story, a story that recounts how the world was formed, how things came to be contained within these creation stories are relationships that help to define the nature of universe and how cultures understand the world which they exist (King, 2003).

It is that innate connection that a lot of Indigenous people around the world feel even when they do not grow up within their traditional cultures. As Kovach (2008) explains through her own auto-ethnography in her research, this is what she names ‘tribal knowledge’. This knowledge is usually shared with community members who are willing to listen to stories and share them. King retells a common North American creation story ‘The Woman who fell from the Sky’ in multiple versions (King, 2003). In his retellings the story varies in style and some aspects of the narrative but the foundational elements such as characters and the meaning of the creation of Turtle Island remain the same. This demonstrates how that oral cultures keep stories and adjust them to their own experience, but the main context remains intact. It is these creation stories that build on our relationship with our creators, their creations and each other as humans respectively.

In my first year as a PhD student I completed a Certificate 1 in Indigenous Languages – Bundjalung. Bundjalung language comes from the country of the Bundjalung People in Northern New South Wales and Southern Queensland. In learning the language my Instructor and Friend Drew Roberts taught us about the creation of their land, the Creator being Biame. The Bundjalung word for creation is Biderahm (Sharpe, 2013), which was the time of creation, it encompasses all the dreaming stories from. Baime is a creator spirit of their land and language from the coast to the mountains in the west. Baime is a part of the “songlines” that belong to members of the nations from across New South Wales. Understanding the songline of Baime helped me to also connect to the country I live and study on of the Eora Nation. “Songlines” are important as each nation within Baime’s

(encompassing ontology and epistemology) and the actual methods” (Kovach, 2009, p. 25). However, for me epistemology is a more holistic approach to seeing the culture through Indigenous languages, cultures and ways of being; the truth is more than one view of seeing the world it has a group of knowledge bases, whereas ontology is the connection to creation, Epistemology shows the way the connections are organised to create balance in the world. Indigenous research is relational; it is about setting the stage of our relationships to each other in our individual societies, relations to our environment, with other Indigenous groups and the spiritual side of our societies. Kovach explains the relational aspect of her research through a Nêhiyaw Epitimology as:

… an Indigenous research framework that utilizes a methodology based on Nêhiyaw epistemology is relational methodology, so while I speak of knowledges (e.g., values, language), it should be assumed that they are nested, created, and re-created within the context of relationships with other living beings (Kovach, 2009, p. 47).

I too, am Nêhiyaw and understand this way of connecting to our epistemology. Earlier I wrote about pow-wows and how they connect us. Every summer on Turtle Island you can find pow-wows within hours of where you may be at. These were traditional gatherings for us to share our stories, meet with family, create new family allegiances and also pass on different knowledge bases. Pow-wows today are more showmanship, but with everything we do the ceremonial aspects have stayed the same, there is ceremony for new dancers, those leaving the dancing circle, when a feather falls to when one of our people fall. It is ceremony and celebration of who we are. You can read in most Canadian textbooks and many Indigenous studies books about how our governments banned these cultural practices, but they lived on to still be here for our children and grandchildren. Why did this not die out with western cultures banning us from this ceremony? It is because you cannot take away our relationship with one another, the common language became English or French in Canada but for us our way of being with each other and how we connect couldn’t be taken away. That is what epistemology is to me for this research, the way we connect. Our music connects us to our spirits, the animal kingdom the land and one another. Like that of the Milpirri Festival (Patrick & Biddle, 2018) and many others on Turtle Island and in

Australia the incorporation modern music into what is known as traditional spaces is allowing us to own our identities, a form of self-determination that allows Indigenous cultures to grow and be relevant to modern times.

Burbidge (2014) brings examples of epistemology through sharing the relationships that are within family kinship processes of naming and relationships. The Wiradjuri People within the modern boundaries of New South Wales have a reciprocal relationship that is best shown through how grandparents and Grandchildren relate through naming the child to their relationship:

Grandparents call the child Nan [Nanny] or Pop [Poppy], a practice that reinforces mutual being - a collectivism between the self and other - between child and grandparent. The gender of the grandparent determines which term, ‘Nan’ or ‘Pop,’ is used while the gender of the child is irrelevant. Reciprocal grandparent terminology is most likely a modification of the older custom of cyclical kin terminology, based upon membership to the generational moieties” (Burbidge, 2014).

Relationship building is the core to the Indigenous epistemological process and the example of the Wiradjuri can also be put into context through Wilson’s example of relationships between Great Grandchildren and Great Grandparents in Cree Culture and Language:

A very different epistemology can be seen in the Cree Use of the word chapan, which describes the relationship between great-grandparent and great-grandchild. Both people in the relationship call each other chapan. Chapan is a balanced relationship, without hierarchy of any sort (Wilson, 2008, p. 73).

This is a great example of how relationships within the Indigenous context is not of hierarchy but of creating relationships. The Wiradjuri story is about the child learning the moiety system within Wiradjuri, as the child will learn from names their moiety structure from the names of their grandparents. The Cree teaching shows the circular relationship that happens in the teaching of the Medicine Wheel, where life continues throughout the

circles of life. The fourth generation renews the circle of relationships as does the Wiradjuri relational names do with grandparents and grandchildren.

These relationships built with kin, the spirits, the cosmos, the animals and the earth are what make up epistemology (Wilson, 2008; Kovach, 2009; Chilisa, 2012). There are many examples to put here that can be made for all the aforementioned functions in epistemology. I will bring forward more examples throughout my writing to bring forward different worldviews through the concepts of relationality. Kinship systems are at of introductions, when I attend meetings in Canada and Australia with Indigenous people, we always introduce ourselves, our community and any other totem or skin group we belong too. This introduction is not only to be proud of where we come from it is also looking for relatives in the group, but also allows others to talk with you about someone that may belong to your family, community or totem to start a new relationship with you. When I was learning Nêhiyaw in school as a child I remember we always had to learn or relearn our introduction:

Tansi – Hello Tansikiya – How are you? Jonathon Potskin Nitsikasoyan – my name is Jonathon Potskin Notawiy Lyle Donald, Nikawiy Lilly Potskin – My Father is Lyle Donald and my mother is Lilly Potskin ...

You can go one naming grandparents and uncles and aunties as well to create the first contact with people. Like I said earlier when I learned Bundjalung the first thing we learned was the dreaming. Secondly, we learned the kinship system. Kinship is at the core of our epistemology, that is why the forced removal of children from their families has lasting effects on Indigenous communities, as these teachings are familial and community driven.

These relationships built with kin, the spirits, the cosmos, the animals and the earth are what make up epistemology. There are many examples to put here that can be made for all the aforementioned functions in epistemology. I will bring forward more examples throughout my writing to bring forward different worldviews through the

concepts of relationality that come to fruition in the interviews with the youth and artists.

Manâcihitowin3 - Axiology

The words story and work together signal the importance and seriousness of undertaking the educational and research work of making meaning through stories, whether they are traditional or lived experience stories. Seven principles comprise storywork: respect, responsibility, reverence, reciprocity,5 wholism, interrelatedness, and synergy (Archibald, 1997).

Axiology is the way we hold knowledge, carry it, and transfer it to one another sacredly. The transfer of knowledge within the Indigenous Paradigm of research is completed through forms of ethics. In Joanne Archibald’s research into “storywork” looks at the seven principles created to make meaning when researching with Indigenous Peoples. This is important to researching with oral cultures as the ethics (responsibility) of holding, sharing and receiving knowledge is core to the message being passed on with its true intent. The seven principles here are very important and will be explored throughout this thesis, as I am your storyteller, sharing the stories of Indigenous youth, Indigenous Hip Hop artists, Indigenous academics, Indigenous storytellers, my own family’s knowledge and many other community voices that I hold responsibility for. Your position as the reader is to be responsible with the information you are given and to share the message with the same principles. The rule here is not to change the message but change the story that it is relatable to the listener, so the message is received.

Indigenous Knowledges are not held by a select few, but are shared in different ways. The story you received in our pre-contact years usually related to what clan/kinship system you belonged too, similar to the ways university faculties can teach the same topic but in a different form for Humanities, Social Sciences, Science, Business and so on. To

3 Manâcihitowin – “respect; where you think of someone highly without regard for yourself”. Perhaps we could use this as a term for “ethics”. (McLeod)

understand how storytelling was important in the past and how we try to communicate our knowledge to settler societies today I will now focus on the initial storytelling you would have encountered in pre-contact times and how this is still done today. Within this framework I have decided to keep all lyrics in full for this thesis. With the multiple messages and dynamism that each song produces I didn’t feel that it was appropriate for me to only present sections of the lyrics.

In a traditional sense one would not go into another group’s territory without proper teachings from the community or it was a form of trespassing. To gain entrance into a territory there was ceremony and teachings that went into stepping into another group’s lands. Across North America this was done through teachings and ceremony with the traditional Pipe ceremony. It was this ceremony that came the ethics of entering the land. It was what one could see today as going through customs at the airport. You are introduced to the rules and obligations of coming into the land of the Indigenous group territory you are entering. The pipe is often called a “Peace Pipe” in English as it did create peace between groups or in Nêhiyaw “Ospwâkan” (Waugh, 2019). This spiritual process of sharing the Pipe creates a relationship amongst groups through a spiritual connection from the ancestors. In “The Reason You Walk” by Wab Kinew (Anishinaabe) he writes about a traditional adoption he performed with his family (2015). He explains that:

Many people ask what the pipe is for, and some ask what we put in it. We fill it with tobacco, only tobacco. The pipe is a model of reconciliation. The bowl is feminine. It is of the earth and it receives the stem. The stem is masculine. It is placed into the bowl, but also grows from the earth. Each has integrity on its own. When we place the bowl and stem together, the two elements form a new unified entity, which is stronger than each on its own. This is how we might think of reconciliation – two disparate elements coming together to create something more powerful (Kinew, 2015).

The pipe represents more than just a symbol but a spiritual connection that helps create relationships that Kinew suggests can be a process forward for reconciliation. With these

relationships come responsibility for one another, this can be observed in the word Manâcihitowin to represent Ethics.

In Australia a “Welcome to Country” (Pelizzon & Kennedy, 2012) is a process quite like the pipe ceremony. Today a “Welcome to Country” or “Acknowledgment of Country” is performed at the beginning of different gatherings across Australia, according to Everett (2009) Welcomes to Country started being performed 40 years ago at Australian events, and was brought forward by former Prime Minister Rudd who opened parliament every year with a Welcome to Country. Everett’s ethnographic work concludes that this process is an act of reconciliation from the Australian public, as there is assurance that this is symbolic as the Native Title ensures that their land is safe from ‘Being Taken’ back by the Aboriginal People.

In Everett’s (2009) work she discusses the performance of the “Welcome to Country” to include Language, dancing, welcome speech and a Smoking Ceremony. Everett’s perception of the Welcome to Country only being 40 years old and being for only performance to counter the lack of title to land by Aboriginal people shows the importance of understanding the ontological and epistemological perspectives of the research. As you can read in this excerpt:

These days welcome to country ceremonies always take the form of speeches. They often include other representations of Aboriginality. These might include didgeridoo playing and dancing whilst dressed in lap-laps with skin painted in ochre. Other times, the person or people presenting the speech may dress in Aboriginal colours of black, yellow and red. There are no fixed rules, however, and sometimes there are no signifiers of Aboriginality other than the verbal claim of the speaker (Everett, 2009, p 58).

This is usually the attitude towards the Welcome to Country shows that the ontological and epistemological perspective of the act of the ceremony are not within the grasps of the audience in a lot of Welcome to Countries. This is the importance of not just calling this

section Ethics and Axiology itself as a conceptual meaning that needs more rigour and explanation.

Aboriginal people know that Welcome to Country was performed well before the end of the last century. Pelizzon and Kennedy use their paper to dispel some myths of the contemporary view of performance when it comes to the previous view and state the importance of this protocol and the ceremony involved.

It is clear that whilst Welcome to Country practices as performed at public events today are certainly contemporary acts, they are also rooted in a vast range of traditional protocols and ontological perspectives. Consequently, it is important to always identify the fundamental implications of traditional practices of recognising and negotiating access to Country that contemporary Welcome to Country practices refer to, if the confusion mentioned in the previous section is to be avoided. Practices such as smoking ceremonies provide a good example of such confusion, lack of understanding and common mishmash of contemporary Welcome to Country events. A smoking ceremony is a cleansing ritual intended to cleanse people and, or, places. Although it might happen at the same time that prospective visitors are accepted into someone's Country, the two practices are not necessarily related (Pelizzon & Kennedy, 2012, p. 59).

The smoking ceremony is an important part of the process in this case. It shows the ontological perspective of bringing forward the creation and the spirits for honest relationships between the people involved in the Welcome to Country. The story of the boundaries of the group are usually explained and this process brings forward the epistemology of how the country you are on was created which reflects the laws of the land and the people – axiology. Another part is showing the relationship through generational knowledge by acknowledging the Past (Ancestors), the Present (current relatives and friends), and the Future (younger and generations to come.) It is important to honour the relationship of the people.

In Bundjalung there are three main Laws that come from their teachings: Respect, Responsibility and Reciprocity 4. These three laws govern the worldview of the Bundjalung people and most Indigenous nations in Australia as we will see in the next section of axiology. In Canada the 7 teachings that govern the Anishinaabe people are that are in sync with the Bundjalung teachings. These seven gifts appear in The Mishomis Book as follows:

1. To cherish knowledge is to know WISDOM 2. To know LOVE is to know peace 3. To honor all of the Creation is to have RESPECT 4. BRAVERY is to face the foe with integrity 5. HONESTY in facing a situation is to be brave 6. HUMILITY is to know yourself as a sacred part of the Creation 7. TRUTH is to know all of these things (Benton-Banai & Burfield, 1988).

It is these laws that govern the way people treat oneself and others. It is as the term Manâcihitowin stands for ‘respect; where you think of someone highly without regard for yourself.’ That respect is what guides axiology.

It is well noted that Indigenous communities around the globe have been over researched (Smith, 1999, Wilson, 2008, Kovach 2010). Through many years of participating within the western research framework, Indigenous peoples have gone forward to create ethical guidelines that meet Indigenous ways of knowing. In Canada Indigenous research often focuses their ethics for research to the Ownership, Control, Access and Possession (OCAP) Report that came out of the First Nation centre with the National Aboriginal Health Organisation (OCAP, 2007). In Australia research with Indigenous peoples often use the Guidelines for Ethical Research in Australian Indigenous Studies by the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies. The research set forward follows these guidelines and also uses the “USAI: Utility, Self- voicing, Access, Inter-relationality” (OFIFC, 2012) document by the Ontario Friendship

4 Teaching from Drew Roberts in Bundjalung Language at Eora College, 2016

Centre and the thesis written by Errol George West. These documents are important, they were to assist community organisations with negotiating tools to enhance the community’s knowledge on what is being researched and how it can be done in a respectful, responsibility and reciprocal relationships with researchers and their research. As I have a clear Indigenous Paradigm created my work complimented these documents.

Methodology Chilisa (2012) discusses a third-space for methodologies, which is located between the binary opposites of Western knowledge and Indigenous Knowledges. This is also referred to by Ricardo Viera as “metissage”. I have used this term myself to explain my writing in some sections of the thesis . Viera says mettisage is “close to Homi Bhabha’s “third-space” (1994) and to “cultural hybrid-ization,” a concept used more often in North America. He also brings forward the idea that it is about “transformation of differences through dialogue (Bastide, 1955)”. For this thesis I used the the Métis sash to assist my thinking about the concept of metissage, dialogue and transformation (which is an aim of this thesis). If you look at the beginning of the Métis sash you have your individual threads made up of the five colours, then you weave them together following your pattern to make the sash (see Figure 3). At the end of the sash you are back to the individual threads. The woven part of the sash is this “third space” that allows the writer become part of the research as a storyteller; in storytelling the teller needs to be able to relate to the story and to be part of the story. They also need to share their story

Figure 3: Metis sash (Canada)

Chilisa does her work on these “third-spaces” from a post-colonial view. In her book we see the introduction of “The space in between involves a culture-integrative research framework” (Chilisa, 2012). This cultural integrative approach is taking pieces from western forms of knowledge with Indigenous knowledges. Chilisa like most writers in Indigenous Methods look at the process being post-colonial and spend time decolonizing the process to reintegrate it back in an Indigenous view. Though I don’t consider my research “postcolonial”, this is valid within the approach I take in the methods of research I did for this project. Just like Indigenous hip-hop this part of the research is modern in scope but traditional in practice.

Using an Indigenous research methodology, the research is a cross sectional study using a mixed method (Benaquisto & Babbie, 2002) approach to gather information. The cross-sectional research took place from May 2017 to March 2018. The time was frame was 5 months in each country visiting Urban and Traditional Indigenous communities interviewing and participating with Indigenous Youth Culture and studying its connection to Rap Music. The mixed method approach was conducted in five ways: 1. Individual interviews with Indigenous youth; 2. Interviews with Indigenous Rap artists; 3. Ethnographic work conducted via community interviews and fieldwork; 4. Online survey; and 5. Auto- ethnography.

This is a cross-sectional study looking at Indigenous youth in Australia and Canada and how rap music creates a new form of Indigenous Identity. Interviews with youth through purposive sampling and facilitation were used. My connections enabled me to interview these youth that are involved with Indigenous Rap music. I engaged with the youth through different community and educational institutions that use rap music as a medium to bring forth a new way of learning through Indigenous Knowledge and Hip Hop culture. Kovach (2009) and Wilson (2008) both put forward a form of Indigenous research methodologies that are positioned for qualitative research and use the traditional form of storytelling as a form of Indigenous knowledge. Quantitative research methods are also valid within Indigenous Research. Walter and Anderson (2013) both focus on the ontological

and epistemological in qualitative research as the bases for Indigenous research in formulating and analysed questions.

Multi-sited work was the process I took to gather information from both countries. Indigenous Multi-Sited Work is the process of gathering information that is looking at the relationality of Indigenous people and their worldviews. Multi-sited work with multiple Indigenous groups and their music is not new, in Gabriel Solis chapter “Transpacific Excursions – Multi-Sited Ethnomusicology , The Black Pacific, and Nettl’s Comparative (Method)” (2015), one can see this form of collection of data on Indigenous people was done since the times of Imperialism. The difference between my research is that I don’t look to compare cultures but to show their connection of different communities and how that is relatable to different cultures and people. Mazzucato in her chapter on transnational research approaches state that “…the challenge has been to combine multiple locations with an in-depth understanding of different localities, as well as to be able to contextualise the often-fragmented information that one gets from multiple-sites.” (Mazzucato, 2013).

This could have posed an issue with some of the sites I went to for research as the cultures are different, but it did not from my perspective as the relational ontology and epistemology allowed the work to be able to relate the information gathered from all the sites.

1. Indigenous Youth – Indigenous (Aboriginal Australian, Torres Strait Islander, Aboriginal Canadian, First Nation, Metis or Inuit) and be between the ages of 16-29. 2. Indigenous Rap Artists – Indigenous from Australia or Canada that perform and records rap music. 3. Ethnographic work and interviews – These interviews were more focused on meeting artist and community members that work in the field with the youth and Indigenous people. 4. Online Survey – The online survey was available for four months while I was doing my fieldwork. Four months gave me plenty of time through social media and attending events to have the surveys filled out. It will be very accessible on smart phones.

5. Auto-Ethnographic – The Indigenous methodology should be relatable to the reader. The auto-ethnographic section of the research reflects my experience throughout the entire PhD program. This will assist the reader in relating to me through creating a relationship between the Researcher/Writer and the reader. This is will was conducted through the keeping field notes and my blog page (Potskin, 2017-2019) and my experience as the Researcher.

Collecting Data and Sampling For this research purposive and snowball sampling was completed. Snowball sampling is the best sampling for this project, as the concept of relationality is one of the bases for an Indigenous research methodology and snowball sampling fits within the Indigenous methodology (Biernacki and Waldorf, 1981). I wanted to engage with the youth through different community and educational institutions that use rap music as a medium to bring forth a new way of learning through Indigenous Knowledge and Hip-Hop culture. Hip-Hop culture itself is a culture that explores and uses technology to advance its social and cultural influence its members fit with the sample of participants I wanted to attract. In Inge Kral’s article (2010) on Remote Indigenous Youth in Australia and Media she brings forward:

Youth media research indicates that new technologies are also enabling young people's agentive participation in global youth culture (Hull and Stornaiuolo 2010), whereby young people are exhibiting new 'practices of participation' (Ito et al. 2010: 19) in public domains. Ito et al. (2010: 10) propose that YouTube and Facebook represent 'participatory forms of media engagement' by providing an online forum for the youth voice (see also Soep, 2006) and for the new positioning of self in the public domain. Identity formation experiences for youth are now highly self-reflexive and this is reinforced by the 'public styles' (Rampton 1999) that abound in media society (Kral, 2010, p. 5).

This younger culture formed through media and social media is in line with Hip-Hop culture and its growth during the time of technological advancements of the internet and the now social media platforms. The world has become a smaller place with more information shared and a new sense of agency for youth and people in general around the globe. With

technology and a sense of independent agency I decided to go forward with my research without going through community ethics processes.

This was more of a challenge for my research as most Indigenous organisations are prepared for research and have their own processes and I did not have the time to go through this procedure. Because of the multi-sited work, I was doing I did not have time to gain attention of organisations as there are ‘Research Ethics’ practices that are now in place in communities and all have their own ethics or community councils that decide what research is to be done. It would have greatly increased the time required for this study if I had engaged at that level. I chose to contact youth and community members as my methodology per my research Protocol number: 2017/178 with the University of Sydney Ethics.

In using non-probable sampling (Benaquisto & Babbie, 2002), it is important for me to look at how the data is going to be collected and then create a set of sampling criteria for the research. I tried to have the samples equal for each country to ensure there is balance of voices from Indigenous youth in each country. Though I was not able to have equal numbers due to time constraints I was able to find a common ground through my research by the way I structured the collection of data. I have been able to have more interviews in Canada as I have more community connections there and my snowball sampling method worked well. In Australia my connections to youth are lower but access to performances was greater and I was able to do more ethnographic work.

I choose to use of social media, in this case Facebook, because it is a very accessible tool for most people in the world to communicate (Carlson, 2013). The relationality that comes through the concept of social media is parallel to the already formed view of being related to one another or now becoming “Friends” on Facebook or other social media outlets. Because of the easy access to affordable smart phones, laptops, tablets and other forms of media youth today have real time access to each other and information from around the globe. Most research into the area of youth digital or social media culture and use are done in remote communities in both Australia and Canada (Kral, 2010; Carlson 2013; Molyneaux, et al., 2014; Gibson, 2014).

Youth interviews The interviews were done at different locations within Australia and Canada. I attended community gatherings and events to promote the research project. I approached different non-profit organisations that provide Indigenous and Hip-Hop programs to recruit youth for individual interviews. Most of the recruitment was done through Facebook and connections through friends and family. I was able to interview 15 youth in both countries; this was done through creating a Facebook page. This was important as Carlson states in her research that:

The rapid rise in the use of social media as a means of cultural and social interaction among Aboriginal people and groups is an intriguing development. It is a phenomenon that has not yet gained traction in academia, although interest is gaining momentum as it becomes apparent that the use of social media is becoming an everyday, typical activity (Carlson, 2013, p. 147).

The recruitment of youth was done through Facebook and was very successful as social media makes the world a smaller place and easier to communicate on different personal and social issues in our societies.

Interviews with Indigenous Rappers The interviews with Indigenous Rap Artist were in-depth. The goal of the interviews with the artist was to see what their intentions are of the rap artist’s songs. This will create a baseline to see if the messages of the artist are clearly being understood by the youth. The Interviews with the artist took place at the beginning stages of the research. The recruitment process for this was through social media as well. My recruitment here was done through researching Indigenous artists on their social media platforms and contacting them for interviews. Having a Facebook page and the website I created I was able to gain trust with the artists. Trust was key here as a lot of these artists have been and are still being approached for many other research projects. I was able to contact many artists who were willing to do the interview but had no time to meet with me. I decided to send the ethics forms and questions to them but had no response or apologetic for them to be busy, but all were enthusiastic and encouraging.

Ethnography An ethnographic approach was used to bring forward a worldview of the youth that are being researched. Ethnography is often positioned as an outsider looking into a community and observing and making notes on cultural and daily activities of its participants. As I am not a youth or at the centre of Hip-Hop culture it is only correct to see myself as an outsider to the community I am studying, from an age and my separation from hip-hop culture. This was done through observing youth in videos that use Rap as their medium to communicate effectively with Indigenous youth, attending Indigenous Hip Hop events and Indigenous community gatherings and events. Observations were recorded through the researcher’s notes, pictures, videos and recordings and a lot was uploaded to the Indigenous Rap Facebook page and webpage. It has been shown through different research projects that Rap music enhances youth’s self-awareness, builds self-confidence and gives a sense of place in settler societies (Akom, 2009; Buffam, 2011; Marsh, 2012; Travis & Maston, 2014; Stavrias, 2005). On the website I created I did a blog of my experiences. This was to ensure that I was being as transparent as possible to the community. It also helped me record my experiences on a topical level.

Survey The research consisted of an online survey that was set up for Indigenous youth to complete. This was advertised through social media; at community events and presentations I completed or was attending. The survey was completed by 35 youth from varying Indigenous backgrounds in both countries (see Figure 4). The hope was to get around 200 surveys completed. One of the challenges to have youth fill out the survey was making it worth their time. Most research now gives prizes for people who complete online surveys, this was the downfall of my research as I had no prize or instant end product to give the youth. Kovach in her book states that Indigenous methodologies need to use the qualitative research gaze. In contrast, in Walter and Andersen’s (2013) book “Indigenous Statistics: A quantitative research method” they argue that as long researcher are using an Indigenous methodology this will privilege the voice and intent of both qualitative and quantitative Indigenous research.

“My relationship with Indigenous Rap, is nothing but bonds Something you create, maybe even to right your wrongs It's a little different than just singing songs It's putting words together to create new worlds It's somehow easier for my love to unfurl To show that I'm here, for you to see me Cause I had enough of the voices saying that not how to be Rap is a tool to mold the minds of tomorrow, to finally let out all those caged emotions of sorrow To try and be a leader, with hopes that people follow With fear coming up, that is something we have to swallow. With courage in our hearts and hope in our eyes, Indigenous rap music should no longer be a surprise The only thing surprising, is the amount of Indigenous youth arising from peoples criticism, doubt, and hate They should've thought about their consequential fate, because now that were fighting an artistic fight, They are afraid of what we have to say, 'cause It is our turn to shed a little light..” (Paige L'Hirondelle 8/30/2017)

Demographics Participants were all Indigenous from Australia or Canada. I recognise that the term “Indigenous” is contentious and had a couple youth not identify as Indigenous, but all youth listed an Indigenous group they belonged to, which fits with a lot of conversations I have had in different communities on both countries. As set out above results show that: 71 percent live in an urban setting, with 17 percent living in rural communities and the remaining 12 percent living in remote communities (see Figure 5). I don’t find this too surprising as most of the research as statistics show that Indigenous people are moving to cities at a faster rate than in the past.

increasing critical thinking and being socially conscious or as said in Hip Hop terms “To be Woke”. As one survey participant wrote:

I grew up around Rap Music, and so when I see a lot of Indigenous rappers, I see a lot of healing being created through music. I write poems myself, but I haven't added music to it yet. (Anonymous youth, 8/11/2017)

There was a total of 31 different cultural groups identified in the study which range from traditional territories from across both countries. Only 55 percent of the respondents recorded belonging to a specific land-based nation (for example a Reserve or Mission.) We know that because of the displacement of ancestors and the move to cities for a better life some youth don’t have a strong connection to a home community though they identify with their nations culture and language. Ten youth answered “yes” to the question about if they spoke and Indigenous language. They identified the following languages that they spoke: Kreole, Noongar, Gundungarra and Murrumurang, Broken tongue, Tlicho, Torres Strait Creole, some Aboriginal English, Yuin, Gudang, Cree. This was amazing to see, especially that most of the languages listed are Australian Indigenous languages. Some answers told me they were not fluent. I think this is important as where does one measure the ability to speak an Indigenous language.

The Likert scale which goes from “Strongly Agree” to “Strongly disagree” was used for these questions. However, I have decided to present the information as “Agree”, “Neutral” and “Disagree”. This is because I wanted to form questions that get an opinion from the youth using the wording of “Do you feel …” or “Do you think …”. With this decision the results here show: 77 percent of the youth felt that Hip Hop is a way for Indigenous youth to feel more connected to their Indigenous culture; with the remainder of the participants on the fence with being neutral on this question. This is a positive comment on Hip Hop and culture

“Hip hop and Indigenous Youth

rap music for me is a way of telling stories. hip hop itself is a culture so indigenous rap definitely is a way for me to explore my own aboriginal culture.” (Anonymous youth, 1/18/2018)

I found the question on if Hip Hop fits with traditional values to be important as an almost equal number of the participants agreed or were neutral. This may come from there being little out there (besides in artists lyrics) that speak to this intercultural phenomenon, that has happened since the inception of Hip Hop going global.

When it comes to the question of Hip Hop fitting into Indigenous cultural values there was 54 percent agreement on this, with 42 percent saying they were neutral. This is a hard question to think about and I think it took a lot for the interviewed people to answer this question as it makes you evaluate what Hip Hop culture looks like and how it coincides with their own knowledge and cultural group. I still find this a high percentage only of it is just above half the participants who agreed with this. But this changes when asked if they think that Indigenous rap helps connect youth to their cultures, as three-quarters of the participants agreed with this statement. I think it can be difficult to understand the connection of Hip Hop culture at times for the youth as it is their daily lives, when we think of our Indigenous cultures it is in our daily lives but no so normalised in settler societies. The youth felt that Indigenous Hip Hop assisted in increasing Indigenous knowledges.

The survey lastly suggests Indigenous Hip Hop can teach positive cultural values and help make positive changes for this generation of youth through their way of using traditional story telling with modern forms of music. The majority of the youth felt that Indigenous Hip Hop is a way for Indigenous people today to tell their stories of their daily lives in our societies today. When asking this question, I think about the work that most researchers are doing with Indigenous people and the way they are always looking at our cultures as being lost and needing recovery. I say if we start researching Indigenous people from a modern approach we will find out more about the needs of this generation and future generations of youth.

Autoethnography Onowa McIvor (2010) argues in the article “I Am My Subject: Blending Indigenous Research Methodology and Autoethnography Through Integrity-based, Spirit-based Research” that auto-ethnography is an essential part of using an Indigenous Research Paradigm. When viewing the Medicine Wheel (Wenger-Nabigon, 2010) one can see that we, as researchers, are a part of the experience, and can learn as the person doing the research. Without my experience the research is only half done. How does one learn without hearing about the experience of the researcher? This article by McIvor along with many other authors writing on auto-ethnography see it as an essential part of centring the research in its true paradigm form. I have kept notes on my memories and experiences from the onset of the research and also have the blog to work with. It is important in the Indigenous research paradigm to put yourself in the research in order to bring forward the relationship you share with the research and the people involved.

Autoethnography also brings forward a way for Indigenous researchers to claim their space within the academy and to bring forward their experiences as well as the community or communities they are studying. This is a form of decolonisation of research and Indigenizing the academy:

Indigenous/native ethnographies, for example, develop from colonised or economically subordinate people, and are used to address and disrupt power in research, particularly a (outside) researcher’s right and authority to study (exotic) others. Once at the service of the (White, masculine, heterosexual, middle/upper –classed, Christian, able bodied) ethnographer, indigenous/native ethnographers now work to construct their own personal and cultural stories; they no longer find (forced) subjugation excusable (see Denzin in Lincoln & Smith, 2008) (Ellis et al., 2011 p. 276).

Autoethnography allows research to come from an Indigenous perspective that is relational and personal. It is hard to centre the research in an Indigenous paradigm if the researcher is not invested and involved with the research, community and the people. The autoethnography for this research is based on experience of the researcher while

doing the multi-sited and multicultural work. In my blog page post titled “Is it fieldwork or just my life?” I talk about this experience.

At times while discussing the research I am doing the word ‘fieldwork’ comes up, this is becoming an awkward word to use for the experience I am having within the Indigenous Hip Hop communities. I feel my experience is a transformation of myself through listening to the messages that come from various Indigenous Hip Hop Artist and the youth I have spoken to that live Hip Hop culture while still promoting their own cultures (Potskin, 2017-2019).

This post is similar to Clint Bracknell’s article “Say You’re a Nyungarmusicologist: Indigenous Research and Endangered Song” (Bracknell, 2015) where he explores similar aspects of the methodology he created for work with his home community in the South West of Australia. Bracknell’s article explores more of the personal connection when going to your home community to research, but is still very relevant to the process of self-discovery as an Indigenous academic.

Conclusion to Chapter 2 My methodology, framed as a paradigm, will assist not only me but also other Indigenous people and non-Indigenous people in the future to conduct research with Indigenous peoples about Indigenous culture from a perspective that isn’t always within the western research forms. The methodology that the thesis brings to the forefront allows an Indigenous perspective that does not privilege the traditional western standards of research that tend to problematise Indigenous communities. My aim was to create a new research agenda through using an Indigenous methodology that is more culturally relevant to the community and their goals and to guide future researchers into this frame.

Chapter 3 - Literature Review

The Trapline Traditionally my people hunted during seasons, setting traps and collecting furs and meat for their families and communities. This was the times of my grandfather and his father and so on. Nêhiyaw people created their territory through hunting and trapping. To create your trapline you needed to know the environment, every water source, all available natural foods and shelters. One would know the cycle of the animals within this territory and know how to hunt and trap in balance with the environment. This is what, academically, I see as the role of this literature review. I have to get to understand the environment of the hip hop movement. When I heard I was accepted to do my PhD I had to start by exploring Hip Hop culture. I have only ever been around hip hop. The culture was built around the time of my youth, but I was always on the periphery of the culture and not immersed in it. My brother was into hip hop, I shared a room with him. His side of the room was of posters of Ice T and Ice Cube, MC Hammer and throughout time, other Hip Hop artists. At times through my Brothers influence I was wearing big baggy Adidas track suits and Air Jordan shoes. Though I was more of a pop music fan, and only really listened to hip hop that was on the Top 40 lists. Though I was influenced by his love and embrace for this culture I never did become one with hip hop. My brother has four children. I was able to watch them grow up to be great young adults. Observing them I saw this connection they had to Hip Hop and our Mètis and Nêhiyaw cultures. I saw other youth their ages participating in traditional music and dance and also with Hip Hop culture. This culture that has developed over time has become intergenerational and connected at the heart of some youth identities. I wanted to explore how this new culture is allowing the youth to voice their everyday experiences they are facing within the colonial times we live in. The stories that come out of rap music are lived knowledges that allow others to experience their relationships with one another and settler society through lyrics and beats.

Overview of Chapter 3 Hip Hop needs to be understood in relation to a range of race-based experienced. The origins of Hip Hop in the USA are inseparable from legacies of slavery, immigration and discrimination and the experiences of African-American people (Dwamena 2018). The link between African American musical cultures such as Hip Hop and Aboriginal communities in Australia can be considered in terms transcultural Blackness (Solis 2015). However, different to African Americans, the experiences of settler colonialism are the common denominator amongst Indigenous peoples in Canada and Australia. While these experiences certainly include various forms of slavery and discrimination (Behrendt 1993; McGrath and Stevenson 1996), rather than being established to extract Indigenous slave labour, settler colonies “are premised on displacing indigenes from (or replacing them on) land” (Wolfe, 1999, p.1), to the point that “genocide is never far from discussions of settler colonialism” (Wolfe, 2006, p.387). For Indigenous people of Canada and Australia, hip hop can provide a means not just to advance civil rights agendas, but to affirm our very existence.

In Canada, the average age of the Indigenous populations are 13 years younger than the rest of Canadian society, with the median age for Indigenous peoples being 28 years of age (Statistics, 2019). In Australia the median age for Indigenous peoples is 23 which is 14.8 years younger than the general population (Statistics, 2019). These statistics are important to understand when it comes to looking at research with Indigenous peoples. Indigenous communities are younger and are becoming more technologically advanced and have become participants in the global phenomenon of social media. Hip Hop culture itself was born at a time of great technological advances and has been able to grow as a culture through the use of newer technologies and social media platforms to share their culture. In her study of Indigenous Australian hip hop, Minestrelli states:

‘Aboriginal music’ has come to represent another aspect across a spectrum where music symbolises and provides an outlet to express disparate needs. From the induced Western musical practices introduced by missionaries in the early nineteenth century to the spontaneous adoption of Western styles of music, Indigenous music has developed in ways that reflect both the history of colonialism

and a natural progression brought about by the encounter between

internal dynamics and globalizing trends (Minestrelli 2016, p 8).

To better understand Indigenous youth and their lives within the settler colonial context, this chapter research will investigate experiences Indigenous people had with Hip Hop

culture through Rap music, which is one element of the Hip Hop culture.

Origins of Hip Hop and Globalisation Rap music itself is a product of the African American experience of being disenfranchised from the dominant American society. Serrano (2015) begins the Hip Hop retrospective “The Rap Year Book” with DJ Cool Herc. Herc is seen as one of the grandfathers of Rap music in the USA. In the 1970’s disco was at the forefront of representing African American music. However disco was thought to be too “light” to represent the real lived lives of African Americans.

Hip Hop is multi-disciplinary. It integrates visual art, music, technology and physical movement, which are all distributed into the four elements: Graffiti, DJing, Breakdancing and MCing. However, there is a fifth element that is often considered the most important element and spans across all areas of Hip Hop, the element of knowledge (Clapham, 2015, p. 14).

DJs started mixing and learning new forms of working with DJing instruments. At this time MCs were brought forward to the centre of the music. MCing started off as boasting which organically started to get into rhyming with the rhythm of the DJ. Akom (2009) outlines the historical aspects of Hip Hop culture and traces its origins to Africa itself. Though the origins of the music are contested in terms of where it actually began one can see that modern forms of hip hop are imbedded from the 21st century ghettos of New York, USA in the 1970’s and credited as originating from the Bronx.

An international Indigenous voice was created through the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Peoples in the 1990’s, which coincides with the timing of the globalisation of hip hop. The United Nations (UN) declared 1993 the International Year

of the World's Indigenous People and in 1994 expanded it to the Decade of the World’s Indigenous People. In 2000 the United Nations created the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (United Nations, 2019). The globalisation and the global unity of Indigenous cultures at the UN created a stronger connection and enabled a global message of Indigenous sovereignty and self-determination. Self-determination is loaded with a lot of different forms of sovereignty and as Clapham (2015) suggests, “for many black [Indigenous] Australians, hip hop is a sovereign space”. With that, the approach of this research is based on this sovereignty, a sovereignty that has grown in the Indigenous and Hip Hop communities during the times of globalisation of people, not only through the UN, but also through technology and social media.

This chapter will demonstrate some links between the globalisation of Hip Hop and the globalisation of Indigenous peoples to showcase that Indigenous Hip Hop is a form of globalisation that that can help create understandings of the lived experience of the Indigenous youth that participate in these cultures. This idea of a more global approach is taken up by Gabriel Solis (2015). He uses the idea of the transnational multi-sited work of Nettl to showcase the vibrancy of Indigenous music from a Pacific perspective. Solis makes the argument that “multi-sited, comparative project[s]” are beneficial to researching music. He writes:

While there are considerable formal coherences among the music’s I am considering, moreover, comparison of musical elements occupies only a part of my project. Rather, I am engaged in a multi-sited, comparative project spanning two sides of Pacific for the light it sheds on transnational social formations in modernity (Solis, 2015, p. 363).

In his chapter, Solis talks about the comparative method that is used within ethnomusicology called Nettl’s Comparative (method). According to Nettl, comparison is a part of functional research approach and according to this method is needed to understand music. Solis explains that comparison is not needed, but an historical and contemporary research goal with “… study of connections-alliances and affiliations-that Indigenous artists and activist and their African diasporic counter parts have developed through music over

slightly more than the last century” (Solis, 2015, p. 355). Solis looks at the connections of Indigenous communities in the Pacific and the African and black diaspora and its influence on music. He argues that when doing multi-sited work one does not need to compare the two sites but instead to look at the relational values and also not to compare things on a universalist Western level. Similarly, Indigenous research would prioritise looking at the relationships that music has within cultures and how music helps shape a new form of community belonging, connection and modern culture. There is no need to compare two Indigenous communities but to bring forward the strengths that hip hop music has to Indigenous communities in regard to their negotiation with their settler societies.

Sujatha Fernandes (2011) also takes a global approach when explaining the history of Rap. In the Introduction to her book she writes about the globality of Hip Hop from its days in Brooklyn to the global following that started in Cuba that leads to its reach around the globe. She writes:

Hip hop was shaping a language that allowed young people to negotiate a political voice for themselves in their societies. As I learned through my travels, the genesis of hip hop in each case was highly dependent on the history, realities, and constrictions hip hoppers faced from within their own context (Fernandes, 2011, p. 4).

What Fernandes expresses here is important for this research. The history, realities and constrictions are what Indigenous hip hop negotiates with their settler states. Throughout the thesis these forms will be explored within many different contexts. She argues the origins of Rap can be seen as an expression of Identity, starting with Rapper Afrika Bambaatta in the 1980’s:

By the 1980’s the global circulation of Hip Hop through the music industry was being paralleled by the efforts of hip hop brotherhood and unity. Back in 1973 Bamabaata had founded the Universal Zulu Nation, a Bronx-based street organisation that drew on the mythology of anticolonial South African warriors to redirect the energies of inner-city gang youth (Fernandes, 2011, p.1).

Fernandes says this Hip Hop identity was global from its inception as it was a form of Indigenous expression in South Africa. She writes that is was a shared Black experience of race relations that goes beyond the Bronx to Cuba and spreads to other Latin American countries with high populations of Black and mixed people with ancestral ties to Africa.

The Asian market, through the global influence of MTV and radio, also started to be involved in Hip Hop culture. Fernandes also talks about the influence of Australian Indigenous musicians, due to their position as Black people within Australian identities, though not from the African Diaspora. There is a form of Blackness that is outside of the African American community that are represented in Australia, some examples include being Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander, South Sea Islander and from other Pacific Nations, and those from Africa and America. This form of Black identity within Australia is diverse and very multicultural. Different forms of Black identities are not dependant on Hip Hop, but it nevertheless has become part of cultural identity for people that have connections to their Indigenous cultures and also for those who do not.

Fernandes states that “gangsta rap” starts with the West Coast Hip Hop movement (2011). It changes the Rap narrative from one about identity, to one about the social position that people hold within the ghettos, this form of rap comes from the struggle of the streets. She says the West Coast rap, announced “its arrival with the defiance of NWA’s ‘Straight Outta Compton.’ But, where Public Enemy was out to fight the power, gangsta rappers were concerned with survival” (Fernandes, 2011, p. 8). It is important to note, as there is a gangsta rap within the broader hip hop community, in Indigenous rap there is a form that I will identify as warrior rap. Warrior rap is about survival and the means in which these youth have to take to survive in the settler nations built around them.

As seen through gangsta rap in the African American community, there are the same social conditions within Indigenous experiences in Canada and Australia that lead young people to pursue a criminal or gangsta lifestyle. This is from structural and other forms of racism that come with the colonial experience. I decided not to look into this side of Indigenous hip hop community as I wanted to look into strength-based stories that

showcase the strong connection that hip hop and Indigenous cultures share through their forms of self-determination. Focusing on warrior rap would require a methodology that includes concepts of race and conflict and I wanted to focus on the cultural aspects of hip hop. The artists and youth I wanted to work with are those speaking about identity, culture and spirituality; listening to the messages of their stories of passing on traditional forms of knowledge that create role models that enhance the many forms of self-determination that reflect goals of sovereignty in Indigenous communities.

Indigenous Hip Hop and Time Where does Hip Hop start within an Indigenous context? In the context of the Indigenous epistemologies set out in the methodological paradigm there is a different way of looking at time (Grieves, 2008). It has been a mission for non-Indigenous researchers in anthropology to try and fit Indigenous concepts of time into a linear model. Within the context of this research we will see the way in which references to kinship are not linear or are set in the order of western versions of time and genealogy. A biblical understanding of time suggests God made the world and all its precious beings in seven days. After these seven days we are left to our own devices on earth having inherited this space from God. A lot of Indigenous societies believe time is not so linear and that we don’t inherit the land but are a part of system of life within a bigger context. Being part of the system, we start our journey with the spiritual world. We are granted life and then return to the spiritual world. It is a cycle of life that doesn’t start or end but continues.

This ontological difference in perceptions of time is described in the writings on North American Native peoples: “Ethnomusicologist have struggled to find the right concepts to describe how song can simultaneously reference present, past, and, in some instances, future” (Diamond, 2013). Time is also presented in works from many non- Indigenous anthropologists in Australia. Hume states: “Music and dance, for the Yolngu (Northern Territory), aid in the transformation of a Dreaming event into a now event, of Dreaming ancestors into a living human descendent, the reincarnation of the never dying spirit part of the ancestors (Williams 1986, 187-88 in Hume, 2004).

This form of time within the anthropological sense is often trying to find answers to Stanner’s perceptions of the Dreaming (Stanner, 2011), in which he goes into different ideas of the Dreaming and time within the ceremonial aspects of Indigenous groups in central Australia. Indigenous Hip Hop can be seen as having a connection to the Dreaming, as some Indigenous artists are sharing their traditional knowledge through music, which is common form and part of ceremony for a lot of Indigenous and non- Indigenous groups globally. Unlike the plethora of research done with Indigenous people in remote and rural Australia, Minestrelli (2016) did her research on Indigenous Hip Hop in Australia with urban communities. She does state that “[p]lace is not only lived, but also ontological point of departure for Indigenous configurations of identity” (Minestrelli, 2016, p. 3). This frame of past, present and future, in an Indigenous form, alongside the relational concepts that shape Indigenous identities, is what ties the Indigenous Paradigm together and allows Rap songs from Indigenous artists to be seen as a contemporary form of traditional music that continues the spiritual messages of culture within the kinships systems of Indigenous nations.

Early Indigenous Hip Hop Neal Ullestad’s (1999) article titled “American Indian Rap and Reggae: Dancing ‘To the Beat of a Different Drummer’” was an early piece on Indigenous Hip Hop. His research looks at Rap and Reggae as influences of popular music in America and the connection it has within the Indigenous communities in negotiating a modern culture while maintaining their Traditional musical heritage. He says:

In the face of marginalisation by the mainstream, American Indian musicians experience two distinct poles of artistic expression: traditionalist and commercial/assimilationist. Rejecting the idea of having to choose between these two seemingly unbridgeable poles is a broad array of artists who combine two approaches, those who work within the wide “in between” category, combining elements of traditional and commercial music, as well as traditional and contemporary themes (Ullestad, 1999, p. 64).

His paper is focused on “Native Americans” with an American focus but is relatable to Indigenous Canadians and Australians as it is a settler country that was created with the same intentions of colonial domination. Ullestad’s research was done in 1999 and before the big explosion of social media. It focuses on radio, television and the sales of cassettes and the new CD as key to a process of keeping Indigenous music out of the mainstream.

My approach looks at this process but also about how sharing music has changed with the use of social media. Today even live performances are commonly becoming available to watch with the Internet. I look at social media and how it has changed how Indigenous people share their music. Fernandes (2011) writes about early Hip Hop and how access to technology was a way for Hip Hop to go global but was not always available to the youth that the music represented.

As relatively new technology outside the United States, cable television was available mostly to privileged youth. Also, those with more disposable income were the first to consume rap music, because of their access to cassettes and videos through travel or relatives who lived abroad. It was not always true that the oppositional ideas of rap spread automatically from one marginalised segment of youth to another (Fernandes, 2011).

With mobile phones being very accessible these days and social media music is shared more globally presently. TV is still used, but YouTube is more used these days to transfer music through video.

Indigenous Hip Hop in Australia George Stavrias’s article “Dropping conscious beats and flows: Aboriginal hip hop and youth identity” is referenced in many later articles. Stavria’s writes about 50 Cent, the rapper, and the bad name he created for Hip Hop in Australia. He states, “there is a diversity of hip hop forms lived and practiced in Australia, I investigate one of its forms, the self-proclaimed ‘conscious’ hip hop scene, because it is the form that is having a growing influence on Aboriginal youth” (2005, p. 44). Hip Hop is a new(ish) form of expression for Aboriginal

youth and rapping has become a major form of cultural expression with Aboriginal youth populations. Stavrias argues:

Aboriginal culture is often wrongly presented as a static culture, an opus operandum defined as ‘authentic’ or ‘inauthentic’ according to the degree to which one lives traditionally. Negotiating relations between traditional cultural practices and modernity, Aboriginal culture is actually a culture in the making and hip hop is a powerful tool in helping Aboriginal youth with this negotiation (2005, p. 52).

Stavrias did his research on the Aboriginal Hip Hop Scene in Australia. He specifically studied the raps of three Indigenous Rappers: Morganics, MC Wire and Little G. Stavrias also attended performances and researched the response to Morganic’s performances and Hip Hop workshops with youth in the Yuin communities he facilitated.

Dan Bendrups (2011) published an article on popular music and ethnomusicology in Australia. Indigenous music within the geography of Australasia has a connection of ethnomusicology and popular music studies shown through researchers’ interpretations of community connections. Bendrups states:

More recent ethnomusicological and anthropological research with Indigenous popular music groups in Arnhem Land and Central Australia has affirmed Indigenous engagement with popular music as a continuation of traditional practices. These (often long-term) ethnographic research projects have enabled researchers to gain greater understanding of how Indigenous culture bearers view the nexus between traditional and popular music (Bendrups, 2011, p. 55).

Bendrups starts with the history of musicology and ethnomusicology in Australia and the discourses that both fields researched. Musicology is viewed as being Eurocentric whereas ethnomusicology is more focused on understanding music as culture. Both were the basis for setting up popular music studies in the 1990s and were able to sustain their own identities within music studies in Australia. The form of research in the area of music studies

and anthropology connect within Indigenous music and their cultural connections to music and their understanding and grasp of popular music.

In “Blackfellas rapping, breaking and writing: A short history of Aboriginal hip hop” Tony Mitchell (2006) gives some historical sense of when and how Hip Hop culture was introduced to the Indigenous communities in Australia. Munki Mark, an Indigenous Rap artist, is credited as being one of the first Indigenous Rap artists in Sydney and on the east coast of Australia. Munki Mark is still present at events in Sydney and across Australia. Munki Mark was at the forefront of Hip Hop in Australia and worked with governments and community organisations to increase the positive knowledge that comes from Hip Hop culture for Indigenous youth. Munki Mark is known for also rapping in his traditional language of Jardwadjali of Western Victoria. I attended a political Indigenous event when I first started my studies in Glebe and Munki Mark was in attendance and got up and rapped in this language. This was a point in my research that I knew I was on the right track. Munki Mark’s states “[w]e try to go toward a corroboree sort of thing. Aboriginal language was never a written language: it’s always been an oral and visual language, stories being passed down through rituals, corroborees, song and dance” (Mitchell, 2006, p. 126).

Mitchell credits the flow of Aboriginal Hip Hop music to the Klub Kooris, Indigenous music events set up through Koori Radio, to bringing Hip Hop music and performance to the Indigenous communities of Sydney. Wire MC is another artist Mitchell interviews Wire MC being one of the first Indigenous rappers takes a similar stance in regard to Indigenous Hip Hop as Munki Mark, stating “[i]t’s still the same corroboree, still singing and dancing and telling stories about the immediate environment. It’s not a new corroboree, it’s just a modern day corroboree. It’s an old art form – for want of a better term” (Mitchell, 2006, p. 134). Mitchell writes about other artist like Local Knowledge who were the first Indigenous Hip Hop group to win a Deadly Award in 2005. This was the first time nationally in the Indigenous community that hip hop culture was shown to make an influence on the arts community. Local Knowledge broke up and now have spread out to different ventures. Last Kinection, one of the main influences for my research project, was a product of Local Knowledge as Joel Wenitong – the main rapper in Last Kinection – was one of the members of Local Knowledge.

George Morgan and Andrew Warren’s article “Aboriginal youth, hip hop and the politics of identification” (Morgan & Warren, 2011) is a study looking at Aboriginal youth in the urban centers of Sydney and Nowra (New South Wales). The focus of the research is on young men who have participated in community hip hop programs. Aboriginal hip hop is yet to claim a one-off definition, Morgan and Warren state that “[i]n common with local expressions elsewhere in the world, Aboriginal hip hop is not a singular form, but variegated in its political and social messages” (2011, p.929). They detail how Aboriginal identities cannot be seen as singular culture and bring that forward in their definition of Aboriginal hip hop. The goal of the research is to fill in some gaps that they feel are missing from the research on Indigenous youth in urban settings, the gaps being hip hop programs and culture in Indigenous youth communities.

Cameron White’s (2009) “’Rapper on a Rampage’: Theorizing the Political Significance of Aboriginal Australian Hip Hop and Reggae” starts off by stating “[t]his paper argues that Hip Hop provides Aboriginal Australians with a language for the articulation of Aboriginal identity based on the valorisation of blackness. ... Hip hop enables Aboriginal Australian to articulate resistance, identity and sense of cultural survival” (White, 2009 p. 108). White brings forward the idea that Indigenous Rap represents a conversation, and that a conversation is between two parties, the one that is speaking and the listeners. This is significant to not only my, and all research on Indigenous hip hop, but to the mainstream public. To understand the youth of today we have to start listening to their voice which is expressed through many different artforms, one medium being Hip Hop and/or Rap. As White states, “[u]nderstanding Aboriginal hip hop in this way suggests that its political significance emerges as a function of its transnationalism (rather than in spite of it)” (2009, p. 109). White writes about the importance of oral history to Aboriginal people. She states “[t]he principal element of hip hop, in this respect, is its orality, its emphasis on storytelling. This is widely seen as contagious with Aboriginal Culture” (White, 2009, p. 111). The main goal of this paper is to show the transnational identity of ‘blackness’ through hip hop and reggae. My research is in a similar format looking at the relationship of Indigenous Australians and Indigenous Canadians, not through the centrality of their ‘Blackness’ as that is not an identity in Canada, but through their Indigeneity.

McEwan, Crouch, Robertson, and Fagan (2013) look at the importance of using hip hop programs as a medium to share knowledge on social issues like sexual health. They describe a project which used an Indigenous Hip Hop Project troupe, who have extensive experience working with Indigenous youth on social issues using Indigenous Hip Hop culture as the bridge to these social messages. The goals were to convey healthy sexuality messages to the youth and to look at best practice models for youth programs. The conclusion of the paper is that using Indigenous hip hop as a medium to deliver health messages to Indigenous youth is successful and that there needs to be more evidenced based programs like this one delivered to youth.

Hip-Hop Pedagogy Thus far the researchers set out in this literature review have put forward arguments that Indigenous youth in Canada and Australia have taken the form of rap music to tell the story of their daily lives, a story of overcoming marginality and of sharing the resilience of Indigenous youth today (Warren & Evitt, 2010; Brooks et al., 2015). Another academic, Charity Marsh (2012), states that Hip Hop programs for Indigenous youth challenge racial stereotypes that the dominant media portrays about Indigenous youth and Hip Hop culture. Marsh’s Indigenous research into Hip Hop music has looked at different pedagogies of learning like that of the form of Hip Hop pedagogy created through educational theories. These newer forms of research are exploring ways to research and analyse data from these communities that are more relevant at a community level. Community research is the praxis of community goals with academic theories and methods. This helps me form a better idea on how I can create my methods of research to stay relevant to the Indigenous Hip Hop community through an Indigenous research method to create balance of the community and academic research agenda.

Hip-hop, since its beginning stages, has been influencing Indigenous youth globally. This is the pedagogy that hip-hop follows. Akom (2009) argues that “the use of hip hop as a liberatory practice is rooted in the long history of the Black freedom struggle and the quest for self-determination for oppressed communities around the world” (2009, p 53). The relationship for self-determination is very relational to the concepts that come

from Indigenous voices around the world, using the praxis of self-determination assists Indigenous youth and youth globally to feel empowered and lead to more self and community awareness.

Stovall (2006) focuses her methodology on the relationality of Hip Hop culture and youth culture in the global contexts. Like Akom, she uses a praxis of critical learning, thinking and doing. The goal is to help bring forward a way for youth to bring forward a critical consciousness that comes from Hip Hop culture and is practiced through forms like rapping. Stovall uses her research which mirrors this research in that the research will focus on what is known as ‘Underground Rap’ and not that of ‘Gangsta’ or ‘Thugged Out’ rap. As the focus of the research is to understand Indigenous Hip Hop and the meaning it has with its artist, community and youth Stovall’s focus is not so relevant.

Charity Marsh (2012) also thinks about Hip Hop in terms of a methodology and as “ways of Knowing”. She did research in Saskatchewan with Indigenous youth in Saskatoon. Marsh did her research into Indigenous Hip Hop through Interactive Media Performance (IMP) labs in Saskatchewan. She brings forward a Community Based Research methodology to research Hip Hop and Indigenous cultures through her program. Her methodology creates a new way of doing research with Indigenous Youth when using Hip Hop as the medium to do the research. She writes:

Based on my experiences during these hip hop projects, I argue that, in spite of the problematic, often racialised and gendered representations associated with hip hop culture (Rose 1994, 2008), hip hop programs have the potential to illustrate and facilitate the creative, thoughtful, and artistic subjectivities of Indigenous youth, and, importantly, to challenge the dominant racialised and racist frameworks on which the media so often relies when presenting stories on hip hop culture and Indigenous youth in Canada (Marsh 2012, p. 194).

In this paper, Marsh starts off with a list of questions in order to set out her research. She does not answer her questions but strays off to look at the program specifically and not the overall research questions, as she wants to stick with looking at the methodology of Indigenous Hip Hop programs. I found Marsh’s Community Arts Based approach

interesting . It is with some of her questions that I looked at my research. One of her questions is “What role does hip hop play in narrating settler/colonialism on the prairies or in the north?” This assisted me with my overall question for this research “How does Hip Hop culture and Indigenous cultures allow for a modern narrative of the Indigenous Youth experience?”

Marsh also recounts her experiences in working within the Interactive Media and Performance labs in Saskatchewan. While working with these labs she also did her community-based research project on the role Hip Hop plays in the narration of settler/colonial relationships with Indigenous Youth. She argues that Hip Hop brings forward a sense of place, connection to the global world which helps create a sense of space for Indigenous youth to express their experiences outside of the colonial/settler framework (Marsh, 2012, p. 194.) The program she worked for promoted the artistic endeavors of Emceeing, Bboying, graffiti, and DJing through workshops with Indigenous youth. The project talks about creating a gender balance of male and female leaders in the program to assist in more young girls to embrace the program: “These women resist and challenge hegemonic ideas around the gendering of hip hop and its associated technologies (McCartney, 2003; Marsh, 2007; Rodgers 2010 in Marsh 2012, p. 197). The research and the project are focused on high school students and their success in education through offering access to Hip Hop programs in the schools to assist with increasing attendance and completion of secondary school. There are many great outcomes of this project, the one that pertains most to my research relates to how the youth are more aware of their political and social voice and the world around them:

It is significant that through the Hip Hop Project, the participants are engaging in dialogue about the world around them, and where they see themselves fitting in or not fitting in. Through their raps, beats, graffiti, and dance the students are telling stories – to each other, to their peers, to their families, and to their communities – about how they understand their own politics, acts of resistance and compliance, fears, anxieties, dreams celebrations, identity, and culture. In doing so they are investing in a global hip hop dialogue that encourages youth expression and activism in spite of media representations of capitalistic

narratives of excess, hyper masculinity, and hegemonic norms (Marsh, 2012, p. 201).

This article helps bring forward an idea about the need for more programs that include Hip Hop culture in the educational system to assist Indigenous youth to relate more with the Educational system. Like the implementation of Indigenous cultural programs to assist with increasing secondary completion for Indigenous youth, Hip Hop can be used as a medium for Indigenous youth success with education. Marsh did her research on programs for at risk youth. She also writes about Hip Hop becoming a way to explore Indigenous youth identity and place more generally. She says that Hip Hop is a way where Indigenous youth can find their place in society by using the global form of Hip Hop culture.

Identity and Space in Australia George Morgan (2012 ) writes in this article about the transition of Indigenous cultures to the urban setting. His argument, like Stavrias’, focuses on the contemporary Indigenous identity in the urban context, that is, in relation to research with Indigenous communities in remote communities. He said:

Most young people are less interested in such forms of expression than they are in global cultures/subcultures. It is through these forms that they express their Aboriginality and they are as much a part of Aboriginal culture as traditional dot paintings or Dreaming stories. Such activities are resistant: they express social alienation and are not easily assimilable in the cultural economy (Morgan 2012, p. 227).

Morgan brings forth his argument that the urban culture of Indigenous people in the Redfern-Waterloo area is a type of resistance to “conventional touristic visions of indigenous, with all of its exotic implications” (Morgan, 2012, p. 208). And he states that this new subculture of urban Indigenous identity conflicts with urban planning that is dependent on symbols of traditional Indigenous past and does not resemble the present Indigenous identity in those communities. He says that communities like Redfern in urban places can be contested spaces for Indigenous sovereignty.

The main discourse of the paper looks into Indigeneity in urban settings that conflicts with the “ghettos” that are being gentrified. The code of gentrification is that it still wants to keep reference to the past working-class community that were in the neighbourhoods before the changes of modern urban development. Morgan asks how do Indigenous people fit within this urban identity of gentrification, as this Indigenous community was not one nation of traditional peoples, but an urban community made up from many nations. Morgan writes about the relationship of settler society with the Indigenous youth in Redfern-Waterloo as seen through racial identifiers and how they are linked to gang culture, through their connection with Hip Hop. This has created “zero tolerance policing – as a long-term strategy to clean up” the area. He puts forward that the Redfern-Waterloo’s non-Indigenous community attitudes towards Indigenous people and Hip Hop culture pushed many Aboriginal youth to embrace American hip-hop (Morgan 2012). I do find that Morgan puts more emphasis on Hip-Hop culture as a big influence to their identities, as he seems to suggest that a US style Hip-Hop forms their identities over their Indigenous identities.

Space and place are also brought forward by Morgan when he states that up to the 1960’s the Aborigines Welfare Board of NSW classified those living in urban settings as people who assimilated to the mainstream culture. But due to the migration of Indigenous people to the cities and the connection of family that kept an Indigenous identity in Redfern-Waterloo. Morgan writes that:

The coming together of indigenous [sic] peoples from different regions in the city laid the foundations for a larger post colonial consciences and indigenous solidarity that transcended the particularities of place of origin. Redfern-Waterloo was the site in which stories were exchanged of common experiences of racism at the hands of the authorities. Such exchanges were the foundation for the emergence of a Pan- Aboriginal politics and culture (2012, p. 209).

My research uses these elements but has different outcomes. As there is a common thread of Indigenous identity, Aboriginal people in the Redfern-Waterloo area being very aware of

their ancestral country and recognising much of their identities as urban Indigenous people and striving their best not to bring forward their cultures as a pan-Aboriginal identity.

Extending on the idea of place, most social science research on Indigenous peoples often place Indigenous people in two spatial locations of remote or urban. In a research study on Indigenous Two Spirit people in Vancouver, Canada (Ristock et al., 2011) the authors, and I am one of them, showed that even when an Indigenous person lives within a city’s boundaries, they still connect themselves and their identities to their traditional territories. This more nuanced understanding is important as the social space of Indigenous peoples are connected not to a Western way of looking at identities and location, but to that of a spiritual and ancestral connection. Therefore, I used this in my research to ensure that I connect the Indigenous youth to home communities as well as their urban ones if they identify both. The migration of Indigenous peoples from their home communities and urban settings are high, these moves are usually out of necessity for education or health services that are not offered in their home communities.

Fernandes (2010) also writes on the space that was consumed by Hip Hop being in the ghettos of urban spaces globally. Indigenous people in both Australia and Canada can relate to this from not only their urban experience but their experiences on missions and reserves in each country. Poverty, lack of opportunity and racism shape their lives like those of African American and Latino youth living in the big cities of America. Andrew Warren and Rob Evitt (2010) show how Indigenous Hip-Hop can exist outside the boundaries of urban centres in Australia. They quote White:

The uptake of hip-hop by Indigenous Australia can also be attributed to an evolving ‘transnational black culture’ (Dubar-Hall & Gibson 2004; white 2009). While hip-hop is global language, positioned around ideas of brotherhood and resistance, it is also an open soundtrack for interpretation and ‘flushing’ by local experiences, for ‘the articulation of Aboriginal identity based on the valorisation of blackness’ (White 2009, p. 108 in Warren & Evitt 2010, p. 143)

Warren and Evitt did their research within two different rural communities in Australia and with the both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Rap groups. The research in the town of Nowra (NSW) was done using ethnographic work at a local youth center that provides technology for youth to create music. The other research was done through phone interviews with Torres Strait Islander rap artists.

In this article, I found for the first time that researchers explored the identity of Indigeneity. As said this research explores two separate Indigenous groups in Australia, one identified as Aboriginal (First Peoples on the continent of Australia) and the other as Torres Strait Islanders (Indigenous Peoples from the islands in the Torres Strait between Australia and Papua New Guinea). Warren and Evitt use some of the early work of Marcia Langton to frame their research. They state that Langton “argues that Indigeneity is a form of intersubjectivity, ‘In that it [Indigeneity] is re-made over and over in a process of dialogue, imagination, representation and interpretation’” (Langton 1993, p. 33-4 cited in Warren & Evitt, 2010 p. 144). Which is explored more in the ontological section of the methodology chapter.

The first Torres Strait Islander groups Warren and Evitt interviewed that started producing Hip Hop sounds was One Blood Hidden Image – OBHI. This group brought forward a Hip Hop style that was local in voice and global in sound. This group is no longer around but one of the members – Mau Power – is now at the forefront of Indigenous Hip Hop in 2017. In an interview, he states that:

It’s Torres Strait Island hip-hop, an Indigenous hip-hop, we incorporate our language and culture into that style, genre… We get a great response from elders cause that’s a new genre for them … (Warren & Evitt 2010, p. 148).

In here we see that Indigenous Hip Hop is located in the space that the Indigenous person or person’s original from. This quote also displays the acceptance of Hip Hop as new form of knowledge sharing through the acceptance from the Elders. Warren and Evitt (2010) go back to Nowra and meet the group Yuin Soldiers who use the services of the Nowra Youth centre to come together and create music with one

another. Like OBHI, Yuin Soldiers create their own beats and raps by using technology provided by community programs in Nowra. Different themes that come out of both groups is the overcoming of shame, confronting prejudice, Identity and culture, poverty and success through Indigenous identity. The work here showcases that Hip Hop culture within the Indigenous communities is not set to just big urban centers but is created and performed in smaller Indigenous communities and towns in Australia.

This research was useful to me as I wanted to ensure that the research I do represents urban and rural Indigenous communities as space within Hip Hop is often one of politics and place within society. Where I see the difference between my research and Warren and Evitt’s research is that instead of seeing Indigenous Hip Hop culture existing through the identity of only Blackness, a transnational Blackness, I look at Indigenous Hip Hop from its Indigeneity. It is clear that Hip Hop culture is popular or exists amongst a lot of different cultures that are not Black but identify with the experience of exclusion via colonisation. Warren and Evitt also state that Indigenous people relate to Hip Hop through experiences of poverty and struggle. For them, this is from where the Indigenous connection to Hip Hop lies, though this is a common experience for Black and Indigenous people, the research for this thesis will make more connections through cultural connections.

When discussing the raps of the regional artists, Warren and Evitt do bring up place in terms of Indigenous identity and the connection to land. Reading this article let me see where my research could start, but my choice to use an Indigenous research methodology meant I could avoid the comparison or the link between Hip Hop as a racial identity and instead see it as one that is relatable to Indigenous youth through their cultural connections and not from any race based identity. As Ministrelli states in her book “[m]usic, like law, forms a part of Aboriginal Lore, a way to give instructions as well as to replicate the social order within Indigenous communities over time. (Ministrelli, 2016, pp 6). This helps Indigenous Hip Hop be connected to the ontological aspects of music within their modern interactions with settler society.

Indigenous Hip Hop in Canada

The Indigenous Hip Hop scene has had a long history in Canada, since the inception of Hip Hop in the 1970’s and 1980’s we see a strong community of Hip Hop grow in Canada and within the Indigenous communities. Indigenous peoples’ connection to Hip Hop is influenced from different life and community experiences that are similar the themes that come from mainstream hip hop music. Research in Aboriginal Canada on Hip Hop focuses a lot on resistance to the nation state of Canada. There is a form of decolonisation that happens in rap music, thas it about a resistance to past and present colonisation. In the article “Rez Style: Themes of Resistance in Canadian Aboriginal Rap Music”, John Manzo and Jesse Potts (2013), bring forward five common themes in Indigenous Rap related to resistance in Canada. The five are: loss of land and culture, the culture of poverty, discrimination, the struggles of Aboriginal life, and last action and awareness (Manzo & Potts 2013, p. 177). Based on interviews, their research analyzes different raps by four Aboriginal rap artists in Alberta Canada. The research brings forward the five themes by using lyrics from songs and responses to questions from the interviews with the artists.

The theme of loss of land and culture captures the stories the artists tell about the process of colonization- through their ownership of Indigenous lands and culture - through their eyes. Manzo and Potts say there is a decolonial process taking place here that the rappers use to share about the loss of land and culture, not only physically, but through the education process. An example they use is in the lyrics “So Hard to Say Goodbye” by War Party. The lyrics they shared are:

This land belonged to us, not you And the history you teach in school, not true You’re tryin’ to make yourself out to be the good guys Writing lies upon lies, tell me what was civilised About the way that you took this land Stuck me on the reservation, Indian Band, Damn (Manzo & Potts, 2013 p. 177).

Their second theme culture of poverty is explained as an effect of the loss of land and culture. They argue land is the basis of wealth in western societies, which in turn puts Indigenous peoples at a real disadvantage when trying to accrue wealth from their lands. The culture of poverty is one that is very relatable to Hip Hop culture. Looking at anomie in strain theory it is possible to see how Hip Hop culture and Indigenous cultures relate to this theoretical approach. Given Rap is an expression of lived experiences, and given that the originators of Hip Hop are people of African American and Latino descent as well as Indigenous youth living lives disenfranchised from the western dream of wealth, we see that there is a perception of crime and deviance in Hip Hop culture and from rappers themselves. In Manzo and Potts’ article, there is a strong belief from the artists interviewed that they do not relate themselves to popular gangsta rap and commercial rap, as they think both promote crime to get out of poverty. Where for them, Indigenous rap is about resistance and resurgence. The final three themes discrimination, the struggles of Aboriginal life, and action and awareness are about the treatment, experiences and struggles Aboriginal youth face when trying to bring forward their voice about the colonial experience, experiences they are still living in present day Canada. When writing about a rap by War party the authors state “The excerpt seems to express not only feelings about the way that Aboriginal People were treated in the past, but the lasting effect this has had on their people, in the form of continued struggles and ongoing segregation” (Manzo and Potts, 2013, p. 183).

Another article that was important in framing my work is Bonar Buffam’s “Can’t hold us back! Hip-hop and the racial mobility of Aboriginal bodies in urban spaces” (2011). The reader is taken to Edmonton, Alberta where Buffam did his fieldwork with Indigenous youth at a drop-in center in the inner city. In his article, he says that “…I document how urban indigenous youth negotiate and transgress these immobilizing racisms through their practice of a distinctly aboriginal hip hop” (Buffam, 2011, p. 337). Buffam brings forward the idea that because of racism the Indigenous population in Canada are given an “anachronistic space” in society; a space that keeps their identities and themselves as people and cultures of the past (2011, p. 338). He argues that it is through this lack of control over their identities that Hip Hop allows the youth to bring forward a voice that keeps their cultures

intact or alive for them. With Hip Hop being a modern form, it enables them to express their lived experiences in “modern” societies. Buffam’s (2011) ethnographic work was in the inner city of Edmonton where there was a Hip Hop program running. The program was for youth between the ages of 7-17 years of age and was taught by other Aboriginal youth who ranged in age from 19-28 (Buffam, 2011 p. 338). The instructors taught Hip Hop from a personal experience and used their passion for Hip Hop, with their knowledge as Indigenous people, to bring forward a form of Indigenous Hip Hop. The authors wrote:

The instructors regularly characterised hip-hop as an artistic medium through which their ‘selves’ could be explored, recreated and transformed … For these Aboriginal youth, the daily beatboxing, writing rhymes and innovating breakdance steps all helped create an intensified relationship between practitioner of hip-hop and their “self” (Buffam, 2011, p. 342).

This article was useful as it brought forward an Indigenous identity that was no longer being controlled by non-Indigenous society’s view of Indigenous peoples’ identities being of the past. It also explains how Hip Hop has been a form of expression that allows Indigenous youth to navigate, negotiate and create “modern” identities.

The journal article “First Nations youth redefine resilience: listening to artistic production of ‘thug life’ and hip hop” (Brooks et al., 2015), focuses on their research with First Nations youth in six First Nations in Saskatchewan. They use a community-based research methodology with a resilience research theoretical approach. Through this process, the research tries to bring forward a process of looking at “at risk” youth who are not in school or employed, and who follow the “thug life” mentality that the writers frame comes from the rapper Tupac. The research is problematic from the start. The research is supposed to be resilience-based research, but they authors look at the most “problematic” youth. I suggest that this enhances the correlation between Hip Hop and crime. At risk youth are complicated to look at when researching youth. According to Riele:

the OECD (1995) lists the following factors in its review of the concept of ‘at risk’ as used in the OECD countries: poverty, ethnic minority status and aboriginality, family issues, poor knowledge of the majority language, type of school, geographic isolation and community factors (2006, p.134).

Based on these criteria for being at risk, all youth in these Saskatchewan nations would be “at risk”. Given the authors used a community-based process it was the advisory committee that chose to just use youth who were not in school or working as their “at risk” population. My approach is that resilience research should be based on the positive aspects of the culture being studied and designed to find how the youth negotiate for themselves ways to be resilient and to overcome obstacles. There is little strength-based language in this research. It still holds the view that Hip Hop culture is the major influence of crime and deviance in these communities, and not that the overall situation that these youth live in is based on poor living conditions that were set up by colonial powers (through the Reservation system). As earlier mentioned, the idea of anomie, used in strain theory is the process that is actually being researched here. The strain of poverty and the over policing under colonial control through the Indian Act creates disconnections from family connections, community responsibility and can lead to the high youth crime because young people want to achieve the goals that settler society has dangled in front of them. I see very little description or analysis of resilience in this research but instead a process that seems to blame the current condition of “at risk youth” on hip hop.

Conclusion to Chapter 3 Indigenous Hip Hop lies in a crossroads of traditional and contemporary cultures of Indigenous peoples in the present. This form of identity that represents Indigeneity and urban culture is still a new way of doing research. What is important for this research project is to look at the Indigenous community that lies in this intercultural space of tradition and modernity that is called Hip Hop music and explore how it tells the story of their relationships with settler society. Indigenous Hip Hop is not a full representation of the modern Indigenous experience with settler society, as hip hop and Indigenous hip hop are

both subcultures of larger musical and cultural groups within Indigenous societies in

Australia and Canada.

Chapter 4 - Alienation - Paskepayihowin

The Ancestors Told Me …

This chapter was one that I chose to write last, but now that it has come to fruition, I think it will be what introduces the research with Indigenous youth. From an Indigenous perspective, you are led to what you teach, this leadership often comes from the ancestors. I remember as a child but even up to now, hearing elders and people in the community say “the ancestors told me” to say this or teach this. It was something as a kid I would think ‘how do they tell them what to do?’ Now I know there are signs that come your way that you need to be aware of, my awareness from the ancestors did not happen over a conversation, or one experience, but of subtle messages while on my journey in educating myself through the university, community and from family.

This chapter is led by a teaching of alienation from a Marxist view. In framing this chapter, I was thinking to myself ‘I don’t want to use a western ideology for my research analysis, it is not within my theoretical approach.’ While the thinking process for this chapter was on its way, I could not figure out how to express what the youth and music were saying me about their relationship with the nation state governments that are on their lands. I found that a lot of the experiences that were in the stories of Indigenous hip hop were not ones of personal blame directed at settlers, but about experiences they blamed on colonialism. During this thinking time I was the Student Experience Coordinator for first year sociology students, I had many young people come see me and ask me to explain what alienation was. I spent hours and hours talking to students on this concept. At this same time my sister was just finishing up her degree in English and was telling me about the song Alie Nation by A Tribe Called Red that she used in her presentation for her capstone assignment.

This was the ancestors telling me; this concept kept coming at me. It took a bit of time, a month or so before I put it all together. Using this western concept allows me to better express Indigenous youth’s experience in a way I think that settler societies may understand.

Storytelling is core to the transfer of knowledge within oral cultures. In the interviews I asked questions to the youth and artist on their connection to Hip Hop culture and rap music, how knowledge is transferred through Indigenous hip hop and their experience with Rap music. Let me just say that not every youth I interviewed knew much about Indigenous Hip Hop, but their experience with Hip Hop culture was not that different than those in the Indigenous Hip Hop movement. I found it was all about the connection to stories, the best artists are those that convey a story that others can relate too. This relationship with Artist and Listener is dependent on the story they are telling and how they express themselves while telling the story. Storytelling was mentioned in every interview. It is this synergy that is explained through storywork (Corr, 2019 ) where the one telling the story and the one listening becoming one with the story. It wasn’t the ancestors telling me anything directly here they directed me through the words of the people I listened too. It is the oral roots of our cultural values that connects Hip Hop to the people, you see this in all forms of Hip Hop culture, the words ‘ancestral knowledge’ were used a lot in the interviews as well, so they came through.

Earlier this year, January 25, 2018, I sat on a panel for Redfern Community Centre for Black Politiks, Talk on Voice, Treaty, Truth. I was invited by Lynda-June Coe, a community activist and upcoming academic. The panel was made up of younger voices, it was about bringing forward the next generation of leaders to the community. Sometimes when you sit on panels there is little accountability to what you are speaking about. At this panel there were Elders sitting in the front row, that did teachings with the panellists. If there was something that the Elders heard that was incorrect or if they had another view they would speak after we the panellists completed our answers. This was a true form of Indigenous knowledge transfer from a community level. It was through the different views of the panellists, that the formation of the chapter with the themes of Treaty, Recognition and Reconciliation come from. This is what I felt the ancestors wanted to be expressed through the research, through these discussions that came from the community level are stories within Indigenous Hip Hop music.

I hope that this chapter expresses the knowledge that the ancestors wanted me to tell in this chapter. During this time, I took the opportunity to do a painting to illustrate the message.

Overview of Chapter 4

Indigenous people and the state are often viewed as holding opposing ideologies. A key difference between these ideologies are the goals of the state which do not seek to retain Indigenous people’s values. Given this opposition this chapter depends on two important ideas – alienation and standpoint theory – to make its point. It starts from an environmental-Marxist view of Alienation, using of Vogel’s explanation on why capitalism alienates itself from the environment. This is key to the later argument I make about how Indigenous Rights are alienated within a Settler Society. Through alienating the environment and making it a product it becomes alienated from society’s humanity. Opposite to this, Indigenous knowledge systems are dependent on the direct relationship we have with our environments. Indigenous belief systems create their being through the land; how it was created, how it formed social bonds, and what it teaches about respect, responsibility and reciprocity. This is Indigenous ontology; it is our way of seeing the world.

Martin Nakata’s Indigenous Standpoint Theory (2007) is important when working in a settler colonial space. Standpoint theory explains the space that Indigenous writers and listeners to Indigenous Hip Hop sit; it is within this space that the many trajectories that this research views as Indigenous Hip Hop are identified. These trajectories are teachings that come through a form of story work that creates a form of sharing of Indigenous knowledges. It is through storytelling in Rap music that connection with individuals and communities are created. There are three stories of Indigenous Hip Hop that will be looked at in this chapter; one story is that of sovereign rights, second is an Acimowin story of Leonard Sumner’s and to end off a third story looking at reconciliation.

Alienation

To start off I would like for you to take time to listen and read A Tribe Called Red’s “Alie Nation”:

ALie Nation (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhlKs 3Srj0&t=79s) A Tribe Called Red

The Halluci Nation The human beings The people See the spiritual in the natural Through sense and feeling Everything is related All the things of earth and in the sky have spirit Everything is sacred

Confronted by the ALie Nation The subjects and the citizens See the material religions through trauma and numb Nothing is related All the things of the earth and in the sky Have energy to be exploited Even themselves, mining their spirits into souls sold Into nothing is sacred, not even their self

The ALie Nation, alienation (Red, 2016)

The song “Alie Nation” was included on A Tribe Called Red’s 2016 album “We Are the Halluci Nation’”(Red, 2016). It is about how settler societies’ ontology is based around a logic of personal ownership over the land, waters, air, and other natural resources. The album’s title sets Indigenous people as the “Halluci Nation”, the people that are created through this settler ontology and settler’s view of Indigenous people. The settler, the “Alie Nation”, is one that has little connection to the land, one that only sees the value of it through a capitalistic view. This is powerfully expressed in the words – “nothing is sacred, not even their self” (Red, 2016). The song’s lyrics describe settler society and how they alienate themselves from the land, the same land Indigenous people have ontological and epistemological connections too. This comes from the history of capitalist settler societies and how they have colonised the lands they are now calling “home”. The natural resources that are connected to the stories of creation, language, song and dance are not themselves seen as holistic connections, but ones that can be transformed into different objects. This is

what creates their alienation from the land. Volgel (1998) looks at the core of Marx’s teachings on labour and alienation. In Marx’s original writings he states that labour is what alienates us from a product as it becomes objectified and through becoming an object it becomes independent from the producer and its own entity:

The object which labor produces - labor's product - confronts it as something, alien, as a power independent of the producer.... The worker puts his life into the object; but now his life no longer belongs to him but to the object... The alienation of the worker in his product means not only that his labor becomes an object, an external existence, but that it exists outside him, independently, as something alien to him, and that it becomes a power on its own confronting him. It means that the life which he has conferred on the objects confronts him as something hostile and alien (Vogel, 1988, p. 367).

Marx’s labour critique of capitalism and how it alienates people from their work will be explored more in this chapter by drawing on Vogel’s interpretation of alienation in relation to the environment. Marxism itself is still a Western ideology so the relationship between Marxism and Indigenous ideologies is not one of complete connection but one that enables an exploration of social groups that hold the environment as key to their knowledge systems. Vogel explains it this way:

The account of alienation in Marx thus directs us to the realm of "produced objects." By making labor into the central category of both his epistemology and his social theory, Marx draws our attention to the fact that most of what we call the "objective world," the world of objects, is in fact a world of human objects, objects produced by humans through labor. We are alienated from this world when we fail to recognise its humanity, when we are unable to see it as our world, our product, and when it accordingly begins to appear as an alien power over and again (1988, p. 369)

This “humanity” is what is key for Indigenous peoples and their connection to the environment. The human quality of the environment is key. An example of this human/environment link is provided by an object made by the Yolngu people of Northern Australia. When you visit the Australian Parliament, you can view the 1963 Yirrkala Bark Petition (O'Brien, 2018). Written in an attempt to halt mining on their land, this petition was written in English, with the two creation stories of their moieties Dhuwa and Yirritja. The people used their traditional bark paintings to show the connection of the people with the land, their spiritual connection with the land, and their history with the land. This sharing of their ontology did not stop the train of capitalism in its pursuit of natural resources. But like the song “Alie Nation” I argue it explores the message around the ontology of settler societies greed for natural resources.

The song “The Water” on the Snotty Nose Rez Kids album the “Average Savage” (Kids, 2017), expresses this Indigenous view on connection to the land, as well as sending words of healing for our earth. This healing is a call for us to take care of the water through the care we take with our mothers and future mothers. Again, I suggest this action is ontological and epistemological as women within the Indigenous view are life givers like the earth (our creator), and epistemologically the way we bond together to protect the land is the way we need to come together to protect our women.

‘The Water’ Snotty Noze Rez Kids

Yeah. Before I go in, I got a question … where would we be without our matriarchs? Dear mama, you gave me light and you gave me life you gave me dreams to get me through the night You told me not to follow Christ that the Creator needs no sacrifice, thanks for all the good advice misdemeanours full life lessons if you wanna live, moderation is the essence

And I’ve never felt hunger pains, you’ve always kept me fed but f this my last supper man, I’ll take seconds I’m sorry that human nature man, we full of greed no matter if we full or not we look for more to eat And I’m grounded now mama but I refuse to shed my feathers ‘cuz that’s not the way you taught me, no I know better But mama I gotta’ thank you for everything ‘cuz even though you’re sick you still provide us with our medicine You never once complained, I’m forever grateful you provided us a home, our conduct is shameful Mama! We need you now more than ever I can’t believe the way we treated you, better late than never I’ve taken you for granted but from here on out ill cherish you and this my open letter to show the pain that I share with you you’ve given us life, my brothers make you hurt but all they see is dollar signs while out your purse man the’ve never taken the time to see for what you’re really worth but the damage done is permanent, it can’t be reversed So mama… you really raised some shady people you’ve given them the world but like the sun you see no evil my mama’o was my teacher but she gone now I know where I belong now, my mother’s keeper so mama, I refuse to see you die this way I’ll take your pain to fuel my flame to fight the game another day its oil mines and pipelines, show me what the cancer is injected in your veins, I’ll tell you what the answer is Mama! Mama! Mama! Mama! Mama! Mama … [Young Dj] Yeah, I know you’re not the type to complain but mama, I’m a youngin’ that’s got something to say uh dear mama lately I’ve been bothered, I’m surrounded by this constant drama it bugs me mama… and its causing problems but im death before dishonour, so ear me out mama

I realised that beautiful smile that shines so bright gives me the light and lets me know that we gon’ be alright I know those tears fall down from time to time but who am I to blame you mama? It’s okay to cry I finally understand your history exactly what’s been causing misery and one gives sympathy I’m pissed off at who did this to you mama it’s starting to get the best of me I never knew a man could leave you scarred and ripped apart that leaves a mark right on your heart and leaves you out there stranded forever damaged … from those that took advantaged of you mama … defenceless, you have the disadvantage and it hurts to see you bleed mama especially when the whole nation sees adding insult to the injury when no one does a thing so we start protecting ‘cuz its just what we believe mama and they can never break it mama can no longer fake it, I can’t shake it mama you keep on taking hits and I can’t take it the man is always harming you and I hate it mama! and I'm sorry for this attitude but you’re the one thing in this life I can’t afford lose I can never imagine being in your shoes so I’m dedicating this to you … singin (Kids, 2017)

This heartfelt song is about the relationship we all have with of our mother, Mother Earth. One can see how rapping can connect the ontological with the everyday concerns people are facing in our societies. Global warming is the heated debate of our time. By not understanding their connection to the earth, non-Indigenous peoples make the earth an object to sell and trade. To recognise that deep care and connection is an aspect of Indigenous identity is hard for settler societies as their relationship with Mother Earth is one

of taking and not one of reciprocity. In my interview with Brent, he talks about this connection and how song can be a form of reciprocation with the land.

um, yeah it helps share a lot of traditional knowledge, um yeah, just even, um, music and the beat of the drum, the beat of the music in the background, it is all messages to the spirits, the Creator, that’s how we can communicate with the creator and the great spirit and all the other spirits, even our grandmothers, even trees. If I want to take some roots, or medicine from the tree, I don’t just leave tobacco, or even if I don’t have tobacco, I just sing it a song, or tell it a monologue or something. But music is very traditional, and we definitely share that and along with messages in the lyrics as well. (Brent L’hirondelle, Cree/Métis 21)

Brent describes his relation to the environment using words such as “communicate” and “telling it a monologue”. Brent makes it clear that spirituality and music are important for Indigenous people who participate in the Indigenous Hip Hop movement. His quote demonstrates this when he talks about leaving tobacco or talking. It is important to show respect to the ancestors, who have become the land around us. As the connection he makes between grandmothers, spirits and nature illustrates, Brent understands, as do many Indigenous peoples, that bodies at the end become one with the environment and their spirit stays alive in the land and in our spirituality. Lastly, Brent’s quote illustrates the connection that music plays for Indigenous people as one that keeps the spirit alive through oral connections. His phrase that music “helps share a lot of traditional knowledge” explains that stories teach us who we are and how to live good lives in balance with one another, the land, the spirits and the cosmos.

Cultural Interface and Indigenous Standpoint Theory

The idea of a cultural interface sets Indigenous issues and people in a space that is not only about people of tradition and custom but also people who play a role within the many facets of “mainstream” society. Indigenous people are no longer controlled and forced to be

on the outskirts of society but are a part of the today’s societies. The cultural Interface concept sets the stage for Standpoint Theory; it allows Indigenous people to not only be in the past but also to be within the present and to have a goal to be included into the future. This interface is usually observed through Indigenous and non-Indigenous understandings and becomes the meeting spot to engage this knowledge base. For this research I use the idea of the cultural interface to look into Indigenous knowledges and the complexity of the Indigenous Hip Hop community as a place for people who create an intercultural space through being Indigenous and living in settler/colonial spaces.

Nakata explains that Standpoint Theory is not new in academia as it was a main theory in the feminist movement within the 1970’s and 1980’s (Nakata, 2007). However, his Indigenous Standpoint Theory extends on this original concept and looks at the position that Indigenous people occupy within the framework of a society; and how knowledge is organised given the position that Indigenous people have in society. It looks at the social constructions of Indigenous peoples within a society, whether it is at the local, national or the international level. He writes:

An Indigenous standpoint, therefore, has to be produced. It is not a simple reflection of experience and it does not pre-exist in the everyday waiting to be brought to light. It is not any sort of hidden wisdom that Indigenous people possess. It is a distinct form of analysis and is itself both a discursive construction and an intellectual device to persuade others and elevate what might not have been a focus of attention by others (Nakata, 2007, p. 348).

Nakata creates a position for Indigenous people to be seen as rational and logical beings in modern societies. It levels out the position granted them in western theories as being less “evolved” and brings Indigenous people on to a level playing field. It also, and importantly, brings forth the experiential and everyday life of Indigenous peoples and sets the stage for this knowledge to be drawn on to undertake critical analysis. Standpoint Theory is used to create a position in the space of the Cultural Interface because for Nakata

the Cultural Interface sits at the intersection of the many dimensions and trajectories of the Indigenous experience:

The Cultural Interface is constituted by points of intersecting trajectories. It is multilayered and multi-dimensional space of dynamic relations constituted by the intersections of time, place, distance, different systems of thought, competing and contesting discourses within and between different knowledge tradition, and different systems of social, economic and political organisation” (Nakata, 2007, p. 199).

The Indigenous Hip Hop movement is one that is conscious of tradition with an expression that is modern. The story is the central goal for the listener of this music. There is this connection that the youth feel when they are listening to the stories of the artists in Hip Hop, the message is key to having people listen to different Hip Hop artists. This point of intersecting trajectories of traditional knowledge and modern forms of expression create a Cultural Interface that showcases the modern lived experience of Indigenous identities, cultures, languages, relationships and true resilience. Artists draw on past lived experiences of our ancestors and their own lived experiences that were influenced from previous generations. Nakata explains this best in his book:

In this terrain we developed reading of ourselves at the interface of colliding trajectories: we continue to maintain our values as people of tradition; we have actively shaped new practices and adapted our own to deal with the encroaching elements; we are fighting against the odds; and we are making and re-making ourselves in every day. My proposition also draws into view that we have some agency in history (2007, p. 197).

This form of sharing stories is not new to the Indigenous experience but has adapted itself to a form that can be shared with present and future generations. This can be viewed through everyday experiences of Indigenous youth. These experiences allow the youth to

locate a position for their identity by connecting traditional oral cultures to their experience with Hip Hop. This is also shown through relationships with other people and with settler society as seen through the expression of the many raps and interviews provided within this project. The storytelling of the everyday life of Indigenous people is not about fixing the problem or about decolonizing the past, it is in the present. This connection to Hip Hop’s storytelling is why Indigenous youth relate to the music. The stories of the modern-day struggles that appear in hip hop connect the youth with rap music. It is this connection that creates a space for the modern Indigenous experience.

I was able to sit and talk with Shonae and Cade Moffatt in Brisbane. Both had little knowledge of Indigenous Hip Hop but both were into Hip Hop music and culture. In the interview Shonae talks about this connection through her experience of listening to a lot of Hip Hop as a teenager, and how the music created a space for her to “escape”.

I tend to listen to all types of music, but mostly when I growing up as a teenager I used to listen to a lot of Hip Hop/Rap. I guess it’s kinda like the style of the music as well, and what they would actually talk about in the music, the actual meaning behind it as well. So, like a lot of the times a rap artist would talk about their struggles, and that you might identify with some aspects of their life as well, their connection and what they’re trying to portray, so yeah music is my escape and I like listening to music (Shonae Moffat, Wakka Wakka, 23).

Shonae’s connection comes to her through experiences she has faced with settlers that also relate to the experiences of the artist she is listening to. This is the connection to the messages or as Nakata calls them trajectories. These different forms of relationality from artist to listener is a synergy that happens when both people are relating to one another. I have since created a relationship with this family through my connections with their Aunty Lindy who I met and became friends with when we both worked at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies – AIATSIS. The following Christmas I was

invited back to spend a few days with the family, and through this research I have gained a little more family that live in Brisbane. The experience of these two young people is not isolated. I had a few interviews with Indigenous youth who are into Hip Hop but are not a part of the Indigenous Hip Hop movement. These connections were great, as throughout the interviews they would have that ‘light bulb’ moment when they would connect the two cultures together and see the relationship both have to each other culturally.

When I met with Alliyah, on the University of Sydney campus she talked about her connections to Hip Hop music through storytelling, and how it is this authentic way of telling stories from a hip hop style that allows her to connect to the music. She also talked about how it relates to herself in her family’s traditions of orality. I know Alliyah as my adopted family here in Australia. Her grandmother is my Mamma Lydia, Mamma Lydia took me in when I was doing my masters in Canberra at the Australian National University. One day she stopped by my university for lunch, that day I was lonely and missing home, missing my mother and grandmother. That day she held my hand and said ‘you are now my son, I will take care of you for your mother and grandmother’. It was this form of adoption you know our ancestors did in the past. It is this relationship with Mamma Lydia that also gave me another two sisters in Australia and four nieces, Alliyah being the oldest.

There is something about Aussie rap that is a little stuck in my mind. I like some of it, like I like Jimbla (he’s family) but I like the way he can break down music and have a story with it. He is sort of similar to these boys from Glebe, they are called HorrorShow, they are an Aussie rap group. They are real good at storytelling so it could be a simple story about walking down Redfern, or like, just being with family. And it’s that sorta thing that’s the storytelling that I really like, cause somehow it really reminds me of growing up and listing to your aunties, and uncles telling stories. That’s what I like about Aussie hip hop it’s more of a storytelling perspective. Indigenous Rap it does that a lot, they are mainly storytellers (Alliyah 22, Larakia/Torres Strait Islander).

Alliyah’s story demonstrates again that it is everyday experience that allows youth to express themselves in their music and their connection to Hip Hop music. She notes the everyday and familial dimension of the experience of hip hop when she tells me she ‘like[s] Jimbla (he’s family)’ and that their raps are about ‘just being with family’. Alliyah was able to talk about the importance of storytelling and talked about the group HorrorShow, as an example, HorrorShow is not an Indigenous Hip Hop group, but uses storytelling through the Hip Hop movement as their backdrop to share their messages. This is what Hip Hop and Indigenous Hip Hop does for Alliyah. The experience of struggle seems to connect the youth and encourage them to build a more resilient community. It is through the intercultural aspect that you get a view of the experience of Indigenous identity within the modern world.

As explained earlier, the cultural interface is the understanding of the Indigenous community from where they are within the present society. It emphasises looking at the many cultural spaces Indigenous people hold and are placed within in the present society, while also linking to a view of the past to studying the present. This is where the ontological and epistemological aspects of my research framework, of relating to their Indigenous identities and also looking at the experiences of Indigenous elders and ancestors to build strength for the present generation is important. This is especially useful when thinking about the youth’s identities in relation to experiences of Indigenous elders and ancestors to build strength for the present generation. When I met with Donovan in Saskatoon, he explained that he thought the Hip Hop culture and Indigenous cultures can be used to continue the practice of orality as this is the most important structure that keeps the cultures alive. Donavon’s ideas show how Hip Hop and traditional cultures can create a cultural interface and I argue this experience fits into the epistemological aspects of traditional knowledge being shared with one another. Donavon said:

for example, oral history has always been a part of Indigenous culture, and just like telling a story, it like, it’s a different story being told. The stories told through Hip Hop today are not the stories of you know, Like, your ancestors riding horses you know, from the south, that kind of thing and

trading with different tribes and stuff. Those are oral histories, that’s the kind of culture that I think has transitioned too, like that type of telling the story, telling your story of your life, I absolutely do that every day, and some people have that to stay sane, or even like, uh, you know, just kinda express themselves in a way that they aren’t hurting somebody right. It’s not like, uh, I feel like that type of culture, cultures is definitely passed through Hip Hop. Always no matter where, no matter where, including where it is coming from. Because an Indigenous person, maybe an Indigenous emcee, you know a rapper, comes at like with a different perspective then somebody who has grown up in the Bronx their whole life (Donovan, Cree 20).

Nakata’s interface can be seen through Donovan’s story of his relation to his ancestral knowledge and how it has now “transitioned” into a form that is able to be shared through Hip Hop culture, rap specifically. The interface here is based on the trajectories of traditional knowledge of the ancestors and the lived experience of the youth and artists. This is shared through the orality of the Indigenous rapper sending the message of their experiences to connect with the listener. These two trajectories are large ones that hold many different experiences of the ancestors and the lived generation today.

When I was driving through Winnipeg back west from Toronto, I was able to connect with Strife, an Indigenous Hip Hop artist and a university student. Strife talked to me about how being an emcee helped with getting more in touch with his Anishanaabe roots. Strife went back to university to gain more knowledge on the Anishanaabe language and culture, as well as to better understand government and Indigenous relations. In this extract from his interview Strife brings forward the everyday through looking at the past and thinking about how it has affected the present. In his story, Strife relates the experiences of Black communities and Indigenous communities, the history of colonisation and its effects:

I see it as we adopted Hip Hop as our culture because, just like with the Black People they adopted Hip hop, or they created Hip Hop as their culture because their culture was stolen through assimilation and colonial process like that. So, they created this new culture they didn’t have no choice cause they were sectioned off into this tiny spot, just like the reserves are and subsidy housing and places like that. So, we’ve adopted Hip Hop into our culture as well because Natives have been victims of assimilation and colonialism just the same, it stripped us of our culture, so we adopted Hip Hop because that is the lifestyle, the consequences of colonialism. The consequence is we are living in the streets and we’re hood, we are born into very troubled lifestyles and our parents are holding all this weight from residential schools and all this, so we adopt Hip Hop as it is all we got really. We got these people, we got our words, if we don’t got money, if we don’t got food to eat or we don’t have a happy family, we got Hip Hop, we got words we can put together, we got beats we can bump and pass time and feel certain ways (Strife Akwesasne 29, Anishanabe).

The idea of the Cultural Interface used for this research helps clarify the complex world Strife explains. Strife is describing and has been living at the intersection of ‘different systems of social, economic and political organisations’ (Nakata, 2008). Strife’s experience of growing up in poor conditions in an urban setting are linked to his parent’s generation dealing with assimilation tactics like Residential Schools that left generations of Indigenous people on the fringes of society in poverty. Strife makes a temporal and spatial connection between reserves and Black neighbourhoods. He explains that even when facing hard times Hip Hop allows the days of struggle to be vindicated through making raps about the experience. It is their story of everyday struggle that Indigenous Hip Hop artists share and that the people listening to and relate to that creates a synergy of shared knowledges and experiences. The art of Rap is to bring forward your story to share and educate others on lessons in your life journey thus far.

The Cultural Interface helps me look at and understand the relations that Indigenous peoples have with settler society. It is about considering how Indigenous people understand

themselves in the everyday world, looking at Indigenous people not as the other but one with the rest of society and having agency within society. Indigenous peoples today live in the cities, towns and villages with other cultures and ways of thinking. Indigenous people’s adaptation to their surroundings does not come with a deficit but the positive outcome of cultural diversity and it shows the great reflexivity and resilience that Indigenous people have. Drawing on Nakata’s Indigenous Standpoint theory (2007) enables me to demonstrate what is happening in the broader context of the Indigenous Hip Hop movement. I argue it is the Indigenous youth who are exploring their own identities from their familial and community ‘standpoints’ or understandings – where this understanding is knowledge and is linked to relationships created through music internationally. The idea of the cultural interface enables me to make a detailed reading of what is happening.

Me: How does rap music influence your life?

Alliyah: In general, it’s pretty much shaped all my like political views and just how I see different social classes and stuff like that. How I view myself in the big hierarchy of things. This person I particularly like, her name is Princess Nokia, and she’s Indigenous, she is from the Arawak people in Puerto Rico, and I like how she influences a lot of her Rap music with her feminist ideals and her spiritual ideals. That is something you don’t really find in a genre of Hip Hop or branch of Hip Hop, it’s the way Indigenous people put their political and spiritual views into their music. That is what I like, it is what I take with me, yeah I am a strong Indigenous Women. (Alliyah 22, Larakia/Torres Strait Islander)

Thinking about Nakata’s idea of the intersections of time, space in the cultural interface, it is possible to see that how and why Alliyah brought forward so many different forms of connection to Hip Hop and Indigenous ways of seeing the world. Hip Hop as a space of cultural interface allows her to shape her views on politics and gain perspectives from other people around the world. Alliyah talks about Princess Nokia who is an artist that who has made significant strides for Indigenous people in America. She is not Native American herself but kept her Indigenous identity strong while growing up and living in America.

Alliyah, also talks about how Indigenous Hip Hop allows her to relate to her womanhood through the connection she feels with strong Indigenous women in Hip Hop; which she sees as creating a space for female empowerment and a form of sisterhood internationally. When I was in Toronto, I went to RPM’s concert night. RPM is run by Jarrett Martineau a PhD graduate from University of Victoria. This concert series took place across Canada and was designed to promote Indigenous artists and Indigenous music. The one I attended in Toronto was actually a rock concert, that promoted Indigenous language use in rock music. Before attending I did not even know that there were rock songs that promoted Indigenous language use. At this concert I heard Princess Nokia playing before and in between the bands playing. My introduction to her was in the interview with Alliyah at the University of Sydney and within a few months I was hearing Princess Nokia being played in Toronto at an Indigenous concert series. Alliyah’s interview and my experience of hearing Princess Nokia in Toronto shows this international connection of Indigenous Hip Hop artists that relate to storytelling and the sharing of modern stories of the Indigenous experience.

When I was in Perth I had the opportunity to meet with Djnaya at a coffee shop in the city centre. Djnaya is a young Ngunnuwal woman who recently moved west with her father. Her experience with Hip Hop is one that is intergenerational. She talked to me about growing up hearing Hip Hop all the time through her mother’s connection to the music. She relates her mother’s upbringing to the music and talks about her connection to Hip Hop.

Djnaya: My Mother grew me up on hip hop and rap music, it's something I think she could really relate too, you know, cause like I said, I am not an expert on it but, the lyrics, if you just get past the music, the lyrics are just so beautiful and they tell stories that people, mostly like in poverty, in ghettos I guess you would call them can like relate too. You know with Mum not growing up in the best of circumstances you know I think that was music that helped her get through a lot of things, and you know she could relate to it, I guess.

Me: How does it influence you?

Djnaya: How does it influence me? I guess it influences me because it just kind if brings me down to earth and makes me, reminds me of what is important. I feel like sometimes you can get lost in this busy place and focus on things that are not important or focus on people that are not important but listening to rap music really brings me back to earth, and reminds me of my culture and where I am from, where my parents came from and what my Mum had to go through, my Nin had to go through it influences me in the way of I guess that, if it makes sense (Djnaya Fraser, 18 Ngunnuwal).

Reading Djnaya’s story in terms of a Cultural Interface I argue that thru Djnaya’s family connection to Hip Hop that this music brings a form of comfort. It is a connection forged through her mother’s experiences of the music that connects her to her culture. Here in Australia the musicians Baker Boy and Tasman Keith also show the intergenerational connections in Hip Hop. Both of these young artist’s fathers were in Hip Hop groups in the early 2000’s. Baker Boy actually gets his name from his father’s group called “The Baker Boys,” which he features in his video Marryuna (Baker, 2017), that is performed in his language of Ylongu and English.

Another anecdote that demonstrates the complexity the Cultural Interface in which Hip Hop takes place, and which we were all located in, took place in western Canada. Nite Sun, also known as Elizabeth Potskin, is a young artist I was able to interview in Calgary, Alberta. Her connection to Hip Hop started at a young age, as her father, my brother, is into Hip Hop. Brent, her father, introduced both of us to Hip Hop. I shared a room with him, I remember, when I was around eleven and he was fourteen he started getting really into hip hop music and not only did his wardrobe change to tracksuits and high-top shoes, so did mine, as he was at that time my role model. His side of the room was full of posters of Ice-T and Ice Cube and other artists; his wardrobe was full of tracksuits and all night long he would play rap music. It is through him that I was introduced to Hip Hop and for Nite Sun it was also her immersion into this culture. Now she is a young Hip Hop artist making her way through life and sharing the experiences she faces on the everyday and political level.

Nite Sun: I also am a Female Emcee - Nite Sun, my songs, my stories are about my journey, my personal truth, my understandings of the way I live my life, and the way I see the world.

Me: How does rap music influence your life?

Nite Sun: To me rap music is very much like poetry, and when I write music it makes me feel very empowered. And when I find artists and usually, I stumble upon them or I have friends that tell me about them, it’s not that I look for artists that are popular or trending and stuff. Its more I try my best to focus on the message they are trying to convey. I am inspired by a few artists, one is Lauryn Hill another is Kendrick Lamar, they both speak about their spiritual journeys and their relationship with colonialism and politics and religion, their culture their ethnicity, their race and their gender. I really respect artist[s] that are able to speak that truth, not matter how hard or controversial it may be, and I feel like rap really opens up that portal for storytelling, were as singing does help tell stories in a very melodic way, but it kind of limits what you want to say, whereas rap you can say as much as you want, just as long as it goes with the beat and as long as people can understand it.” (Nite Sun, 23 Cree/Métis)

Nite Sun’s talk highlights many different trajectories of the Hip Hop Cultural Interface . As with Alliyah, gender is part of the Cultural Interface for Nite Sun. Though, different to Alliyah, Nite Sun uses being a female emcee as a part of her truth and the lived experience that comes through in her music. Her songs are an expression of a modern Indigenous female experience and it shapes her view of the world. Nite Sun brings up the issue of connection as central to Hip Hop when she explains that she tries not to only listen to artists that are trending, but also those that tell a good story. Here she references Lauryn Hill, the first female emcee to win a Grammy, and Kendrik Lamar. These musical connections, again, because Strife and Alliyah made a similar point, show the common bond of the colonial experience of the Black North American and the First Peoples of the America’s and Australia as integral to the Hip Hop cultural interface. It is the truth telling aspect that connects Nite

100

Sun with Hip Hop culture and also is the way she expresses herself through her Hip Hop music.

The idea of the Cultural Interface makes it possible to observe from many trajectories, at this moment in time the ways Indigenous people who participate with Indigenous hip hop experience modern living within settler/colonial countries. This research viewed the commonality of modern Indigenous identities Hip Hop and Indigenous Hip Hop that unwraps the space to interpret these trajectories that Indigenous people face today that participate in these cultures. The Cultural Interface is expressed through Rap music and creates relationships with the listeners on their common experiences, which for this research is Indigenous Hip Hop.

This section has explored Indigenous Hip Hop identity using the idea of the cultural interface to show the intersections of the different trajectories that create this culture as one that continues tradition in the modern times. This section has explored the form of Alienation that settler/colonial states produce with Indigenous people through their lack of understanding about the type of relationship that humans and the environment need to take. This comes through the relationships that settler society has with Indigenous peoples and their ontological and epistemological connections to their lands. Using Nakata’s concept of the cultural interface I was able to showcase –using the stories of participants – some of the many trajectories of Indigenous culture and settler cultures that create the modern Indigenous Hip Hop movement. To move forward in this chapter and to build on these previous findings this chapter will now explore one part of the seven teachings of Storywork, that is Synergy.

Synergy

At the tail end of this degree I was introduced to a method called “Storywork”. This happened when I was invited to the launch of the book “Decolonizing Research: Indigenous Storywork as Methodology” edited by Jo-Ann Archibald, Jenny Lee-Morgan and Jason De Santolo (2019). Jo-Ann Archibald developed the idea of storywork over many years (See

101

Archibald 1997). In this book my friend Evelyn Araluen Corr (2019) writes a chapter on decolonising literary theory, which from what I read sounds similar to approaches to theory as taken in the social sciences. Evelyn and I became friends as Indigenous PhD students at the University of Sydney, her mob being Bundjalung People (from North of Sydney). Before July 3, 2019 I have never heard this concept of synergy, but at the book launch I was able to listen to the writers of several of the chapters and really saw the connection of my research and writing being within this methodology. After attending this event I was able to have a Facebook conversation with Evelyn and talk about her chapter, as this book was not available in the library at this time. She shared with me her chapter called “Storywork in Storytelling: Indigenous Knowledges as Literary Theory” (Corr, 2019). The methodology entails a decolonial process, a process that Indigenous people globally face within the structure of theory. In her work she states that storywork :

generally refers to the development and application of Indigenous story for educational purposes but can be structured around localised and culturally specific protocols for a range of projects and outcomes (Corr, 2019).

As Corr states this form of storytelling is based on “culturally specific protocols” this meant that I was able to use it in my methodology, including it under axiology.

Synergy is one of the seven teachings presented in Jo-Ann Archibald and Amy Parent’s “Hand’s back, hands forward” methodology (2019). The seven are: respect, reverence, responsibility, reciprocity, holism, interconnectedness and synergy. This idea of synergy was only briefly spoken about but really resonated with my research conceptual framework because synergy is about interrelatedness. I found it was this form of storytelling in Hip Hop that created this synergy of the artist and the listener, and that this creates the relationship that needed to be engaged with. On July 15, 2019 I had a Facebook Messenger chat with Evelyn, asking her opinion about me engaging with this form of method so late in my thesis. We chatted about synergy within storytelling and the importance of this idea of connection that makes change. Synergy for my purposes in this thesis is me keeping my

102

voice throughout as a storyteller, synergy for the research also comes in the lyrics of the songs and how they relate to the listener. This “Hands Back, Hands Forward” method is relevant to the research. Since there is little physicality within the sharing of music online connection is dependent on synergy through the way the story is told and the non-physical connection that comes from listening and applying the concept of Ngara. Synergy is the relational tool that is dependent on the sense of hearing which means that Ngara becomes central to the process of understanding Indigenous Hip Hop.

Adding this to the existing framework provided by the methodology in Chapter 2, the Indigenous Hip Hop Cultural Interface this next section will demonstrate that it is its synergetic nature that gives life to this music and creates the emotive aspects that come from sharing a story. Interviewing the youth and the artists helped me understand the importance of storytelling. When talking about Hip Hop they don’t talk about one specific song, but about the whole genre as a way to connect to their lived experience. Honouring the past, telling the story of the present and the hope for the future, is what associates some Indigenous peoples to Hip Hop and Indigenous Hip Hop. What is traditional music and dancing to us now, was once the way our ancestors shared stories of their lives to others in their community, to others outside of their cultures at gatherings. This is known to us today as pow-wows and corroborees. Hip Hop creates a modern communication interface for sharing the lives of Indigenous peoples as they face living within their nation states.

The Story of Sovereignty in Rap

This section is a demonstration of the experience of sovereignty that came through the interviews with the youth and artists. This experience is a form of synergy visible or audible from the way storytelling is expressed in Indigenous Hip Hop; and the creation of unity between the artist and the song. My research into Indigenous Rap in this chapter relates the music to messages of alienation (as was described earlier in this chapter). This alienation discourse is mainly what is expressed in the songs I shared. In this section, I analyse alienation as it is represented through idea of Indigenous sovereignty in Indigenous Hip

103

Hop. This combination of alienation and sovereignty can be heard in songs that are based on, or mention, Treaty as a theme.

In nation states understood as settler societies, the settler colonial community is regarded as one sovereign entity, which ignores First Nation sovereignty. For Indigenous peoples this makes no sense. They are also another sovereign entity that has to be recognised by their nation state and also globally. Most settler governments do not recognise Indigenous sovereignty. In Indigenous communities/nations sovereignty is something that can be individual and community based, depending on the topic and the person’s standpoint within Indigenous discourses. The call for the settler government to make a Treaty with Indigenous Peoples in Australia and the recognition of signed treaties in Canada are at the core of the sovereignty struggle.

In the Canadian context we have had treaties since the 15th century, beginning just after contact. When learning in school about treaties in Canada we are referred to the Two Row Wampum Treaty of 1613. This treaty was with the Dutch and the Haudenosaunee. The treaty is explained as the first recorded treaty made between the Indigenous peoples of Turtle Island and the settlers coming from Europe. Wampum’s are belts that are beaded with white and purple shells. This was the way the Haudenosaunee recorded their history. The Two Row Wampum Belt referred to in the 1613 Treaty tells the story of two sovereign nations that agree to respect each other’s laws and cultures. Visually it is two lines that run parallel with one another, representing two canoes or two nations that will never cross each other’s paths; but still recognizing each other’s sovereignty and a principle of non- interference. (Hallenbeck, 2015), This treaty became the base treaty for all later treaties with First Nations in the territories now known as the United States of America and Canada.

I belong to a community that is known as the numbered treaties in Western Canada. I am from Treaty 8 Territory. Treaty 8 was signed in 1899, t286 years after the Two Row Wampum Treaty. The numbered treaties were undertaken after the 1867 confederation of Canada. The new Canadian government were now opening the West for settlement and

104

bought land from the North West Company, who had proclaimed ownership of what is now known as western Canada. This act of terra nullius (land of no one) is still not brought forward in Canadian history.

The Dominion Government of Canada established the Treaty 8 Commission in 1899, led by the Honourable David Laird, to extinguish Aboriginal title to the lands of the Athabasca and Mackenzie Districts, comprising what is now northern Alberta, north western British Columbia and much of the southern extent of the Northwest Territories (NWT). The express purpose of the treaty was to secure the region as Crown space and to open up the territory for ‘settlement, immigration, trade, travel, mining, lumbering and such other purposes as to Her Majesty may seem meet (Maher, 2011).

When they were opening the west of Turtle Island, the federal government decided to proceed with treaties in order to push the Indians onto reserves and away from the developing settler/colonial nation. Most of these treaties were forced on First Nations communities by the government through different genocidal tactics like chemical warfare— gifting small pox infected blankets—wars, such as the North West Rebellion in 1885, and the mass killing of the Buffalo, the one animal that was at the core of Plain’s people’s spirituality, sociality and daily living. The nation state used the treaty process in my time to move the Indigenous people away from settler communities and onto reserves where they could be socially, culturally and politically alienated from non-Indigenous Canadian Society (Wiseman, 2015).

In Australia there are no recognised nation state treaties with Indigenous peoples to date. Treaty has been a main focus of Indigenous peoples’ rights claims since the settlers created their governance structure on this continent. For this thesis I will focus on the more recent promise for a Treaty with Indigenous peoples in 1988 by the Government led by Prime Minister Bob Hawke. Nineteen eighty-eight was the bicentenary of the English first fleet arriving on the shores of what is now known as Australia, and the start of the settler

105

narrative of this country being terra nullius (land of no one). The 1788-1988 celebration represented something different to Indigenous Peoples. For the 1788 was the start of their sovereignty being encroached upon, and the start of many different forms of genocides enacted upon them. In 1988, the then Prime Minister Bob Hawke visited the Barunga Nation at the Barunga Festival. At the event the Prime Minister was given the Barunga Statement (2008). This was a call to the Australian Government to respect and acknowledge Indigenous Rights in Australia. Prime Minister Hawke responded to this statement with plans to negotiate a Treaty with Indigenous Peoples. As the Prime Minister left the bush and went back to his home, at The Lodge in Canberra, the plan changed and the Treaty promise disappeared at the national political level, as this heartfelt promise was not in line with the settler/colonial goals of taking natural resources from the lands that belonged to no one.

Music and Hip Hop have played a key role in the everyday story of sovereignty. In 1991 the Yolngu band Yothu Yindi and Australian singer songwriter Paul Kelly joined together to bring Prime Minister Hawke’s promise back to national attention by writing and producing a song called “Treaty” (Yothu Yindi, 1991). The ARIA charts state the song became a #1 single in Australia in September of 1991 and the dance mix was number 29 for the year’s top 50 songs. This song is still played, at what I will call, hipster bars across Australia. The longevity of this song’s popularity shows that music can transcend generations and keep the message of sovereignty alive.

In 2018 Baker Boy and Dallas Woods joined together with Yothu Yindi to bring the message of Treaty to a new generation of Indigenous and non-Indigenous people across Australia, and to recognise the Barunga Statement’s 30th year anniversary. As explained earlier, Baker Boy, also known as Danzel Baker, is from Milingimbi community in North- Eastern Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory. He is a second-generation Hip Hop artist. He grew up with a dad and uncles who made up a group called ‘The Baker Boys’. The words changed between the original song “Treaty” and “Treaty ‘18” (Danzal Baker, 2018) but the message is the same in both. “Treaty ’18” has transformed the lyrical messages of the original rock song into Rap music rhymes that allows the message to be culturally transformed to make the story more relevant to the current generation. What Baker Boy

106

and Dallas have done here is the praxis of Indigenous storytelling method, that is, the words in the story can change but the foundational teachings need to stay that same. (This is the reason I give you all the lyrics, as raps are long and hold many messages, I cannot tell their stories without providing their key foundations, so I left the full lyrics in this thesis.) Please take the time to watch this video, for this one is a lyrical video, so you will not need to read the lyrics on this page.

Treaty '18 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZafP2DD8lpc) ft Baker Boy - Yothu Yindi & Gavin Campbell, Yothu Yindi

Nhima gayakaya nhe gaya' nhe (You improvise, you improvise) Nhe gaya' nhe marrtjini walangwalang nhe ya (You improvise, you keep going, you're better) Nhima djatpa nhe walang (You dance djatpangarri, that's good) Gumurr-djararrk yawirriny' (My dear young men) Treaty treaty Nhe gaya' nhe marrtjini gaya' nhe marrtjini (You improvise, you keep improvising, you keep going) Gayakaya nhe gaya' nhe marrtjini walangwalang (Improvise, you improvise, you keep going, that's better)

Baker Boy Torres Strait, Aboriginal People, Yolngu, Balanda Munupun’mirr, standing in equal All the Elders talking Treaty On the microphone, lethal Baker Boy next episode ‘o’ the sequel.

We need to find a way to be really proud Spiritually loud End up high in a cloud I’m like a bird looking down

107

Every woman, every man Nhama mgarra ga, repu-mala clan (looking at the different clans) Connected to the land Limurr treaty djama, dhuwal nhaburrung, wanga (Lets work for treaty) Dhuwal nhumalung wanga nhaburr dal’dhirr dharra dhiyak wangaw (this is your home, let’s stand strong for this home) Respect to the elders that passed on Left us a legacy a song to carry on let’s make a treaty, let’s get it on, follow the old man, keep the fire burning strong

Well I heard it on the radio And I saw it on the television Back in 1988, all those talking politicians Treaty yeah, treaty now, treaty, yeah treaty

Yothu Yindi Mhaburr Munupun’ Mirrnha, Mirrnha (Let’s all come together, together, together) Mhaburr Munupun’ Mirrnha, Mirrnha (Let’s all come together, together, together) Treaty yeah treaty now treaty yeah treaty Mhaburr Munupun’ Mirrnha, Mirrnha (Let’s all come together, together, together) Mhaburr Munupun’ Mirrnha, Mirrnha (Let’s all come together, together, together)

Baker Boy Nhaburr warrpum munupun’mirr take a stand All languages, tribes, lores and clans Two moieties just like ying and yang Promises can disappear into the sand We gotta put all differences aside Forty thousand years we have survived

108

Through the forced assimilation And the genocide Can’t cry anymore cause our tears are dry

All clans side by side, it’s so critical People say this would take a miracle Way to political Parties all cynical It’s about something more spiritual

Dharruwa Yolngu malale end up jailngur walu marrtji repu-dhirrnha (The sun time is not changing) nahburrmarrtji repu-dhirrnha (we are changing) youthu’ngur ngarra nhangal marrma olman nha mandany gan marri dhiyak wangaw (when I was a kid I saw old man fighting for his homeland)

Yothu Yindi Words are easy, words are cheap Much cheaper than our priceless land But promises can disappear, like writing in the sand Treaty yeah treaty now treaty yeah treaty Mhaburr Munupun’ Mirrnha, Mirrnha (Let’s all come together, together, together) Mhaburr Munupun’ Mirrnha, Mirrnha (Let’s all come together, together, together) Treaty yeah treaty now treaty yeah treaty

Nhima gayakaya nhe gaya' nhe (You improvise, you improvise) Nhe gaya' nhe marrtjini walangwalang nhe ya (You improvise, you keep going, you're better)

109

Nhima djatpa nhe walang (You dance djatpangarri, that's good) Gumurr-djararrk yawirriny' (My dear young men) Treaty treaty Nhima gayakaya nhe gaya' nhe (You improvise, you improvise) Nhe gaya' nhe marrtjini walangwalang nhe ya (You improvise, you keep going, you're better) Nhima djatpa nhe walang (You dance djatpangarri, that's good) Gumurr-djararrk yawirriny' (My dear young men) Treaty treaty

Dallas Woods Yo, if the world was colour blind My enemy would be a friend of mine Yelling Treaty! need an agreement, no secret This time let’s do it right And make sure we keep it Can’t change the past But we can stem the bleeding equality Acknowledgement is all we are seeking One land, one mob that’s all we believe in This needs to happen now Do we really need a reason?

Not here to take over Or here to take back Written all over your face Brother man face the facts for centuries my people felt trapped and to think a piece of paper could’ve changed all that but as it stands the paper’s blank

110

it’s not ok to be with that let’s rewrite history, spirit, mental and physically still no treaty, it’s killing me

Yothu Yindi Treaty yeah treaty now treaty yeah treaty Mhaburr Munupun’ Mirrnha, Mirrnha (Let’s all come together, together, together) Mhaburr Munupun’ Mirrnha, Mirrnha (Let’s all come together, together, together) Treaty yeah treaty now treaty yeah treaty

Mhaburr Munupun’ Mirrnha, Mirrnha (Let’s all come together, together, together) Mhaburr Munupun’ Mirrnha, Mirrnha (Let’s all come together, together, together)

Dhapanbal Yunupingu My dad wrote this song 25 years ago, Treaty. Yet still we are waiting for our treaty. Where is our treaty? We want our Treaty Now! (Danzal Baker, 2018)

This song is the story of a people that are wanting a treaty in order to create a partnership, in order to move forward as nations. Like the Two Row Wampum Treaty the call for treaty here is for the recognition of Indigenous sovereignty from first contact and up to the present. In the new 2018 version this song represents a new voice, a new generation of people who are continuing this battle for Treaty or Treaties to be signed with Indigenous peoples and the nation state:

Torres Strait, Aboriginal People, Yolngu, Balanda Munupun’mirr, standing in equal All the Elders talking Treaty

111

On the microphone, lethal Baker Boy next episode ‘o’ the sequel.

Baker Boy’s version of the song makes it clear that keeping the Treaty movement alive is crucial for Indigenous agency within the settler/colonial narrative. He calls on all people including ‘Balanda (white people) to continue to fight for this sovereignty.

As a child I remember my mother teaching us what rights we had through our Treaty, I cannot list them all here but she would always say to us “As long as the grass grows, the water flows and the sun shines our treaties will be recognised”. As the treaty I am under in Canada was signed 120 years ago most Canadians, even those living in my Treaty Territory have no, or very little, knowledge about the details of the Treaty I belong to or other treaties with nations across Canada. As well there are parts of Canada that have not signed Treaties and are negotiating modern day treaties. Songs like “Treaty ’18” keep the Indigenous treaty narrative alive in the Australian national consciousness and keep the message of Indigenous Rights at the forefront of the Indigenous discourse with their settler societies.

News - Acimowin

Leonard Sumner, an Anishanaabe Singer/Songwriter, Rapper and Storyteller is from the Little Saskatchewan First Nation in Manitoba. I was introduced to Leonard’s music very early in my research. I just started my Doctoral program and saw that A Tribe Called Red was going to be performing in Sydney. I invited my supervisors for this research to come with me to watch A Tribe Called Red to get a bit of understanding of the music I was wanting to research. We met up at The Factory, a music venue, in Marrickville and while we were waiting around people started to enter the concert room as the opening act was starting. When we went in this song was just beginning, I remember hearing the words being rapped:

Sometimes it hurts to be Indigenous

112

Born in this nation, not enough to talk about decolonisation

In the battles with myself,

I am continually facing, feel the stress

all the world on my shoulders and fading. (Sumner, 2013)

All I could think is I want to interview this guy, as he was rapping and entertaining us with Indigenous rap. I realised he was Indigenous from Turtle Island as he proclaims his identity in the song as “being Anishanaabe from the land.” This was an amazing thing to happen, it was ancestral. I had just started my research to connect Indigenous Hip Hop from Canada to Australia and here it was happening in front of mine and my supervisor’s faces. Let’s take the time now to listen and learn from Leonard:

Leonard Sumner

Rez Poetry (2013) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tigPjVhMjs

They say they wounded my soul

They say this land is their home

Dig up my ancestor’s bones

But they can’t silence my song

No, they can’t silence my song

Sometimes it hurts to be Indigenous

Born in this nation, not enough to talk about decolonisation

In the battles with myself,

I am continually facing, feel the stress

all the world on my shoulders and fading

But I going out yet

113

cause this is just the outset

Not making change if we are rapping about an outfit

Unless it’s that camo

Intelligence is ammo

Modern day warrior, just call me Rambo

Not trying to be deceitful, mostly I am peaceful

But getting sick and tired of being seeing as unequal

So I wait for the pitch, as I am steppin to the plate

They say that we bitch, but we living second rate

Well, they don’t like the truth so that is what I am coming with

Reppin’ for the youth yeah, that is who I am running with

Represent our leadership, or represent empowerment

Working on the ground as I have issue with the government

Who issue out apologies, but sticking to the policy

Will definite and probably keeping us in poverty

Want to tell me how to live and how to react

The devastation of my culture, trying to keep it intact

While living on the rules of the Indian Act

Indian agents were racist, I am just stating the facts

They took my identity, I’m taking it back

I am Anishanabe I belong to the land

114

I don’t belong to the Queen

So as long as I dream

There isn’t sleep where for the song that will forever be sung from the heart, so whenever I speak the truth comes out and its setting me free

I don’t belong to the Queen

So as long as I dream

There isn’t sleep where for the song that will forever will be sung from the heart, so whenever I speak the truth comes out and its setting me free

There is a lot that I am carrying

So much I want to bury

Sometimes I wonder to myself, why can’t I just be happy?

I am living with the memories that is running in my blood

Loaded in my bones, buried in the mud

Music is my medicine

My life is the evidence

I realised that ever since my people called it reverence

I come from the rezy rez, with words of intelligence

And if I wasn’t hell bound, they might say I was heaven sent

115

They say they wounded my soul

They say this land is their home

Dig up my ancestors bones

But they can’t silence my song

No they can’t silence my song.(Sumner, 2013)

This song has meant a lot to me personally, seeing Leonard perform in Australia and seeing his message being spread to Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples at the concert made my heart feel good and created a sense of “I am on the right track” for this research. I expressed this pride in my very first blog post:

After the traditional dancers were done, we went into the venue to watch a First Nations Artist from Winnipeg, Canada Leonard Sumner, a wonderful Rap Artist and Singer. I wasn’t expecting to hear such strong lyrics this evening on the events and policies that affect us as FN [First Nation] People in Canada. His song “They Say” has become a very influential song to me and to this research.

I think these words hit me because I wish I would have wrote this. It is the truth of our people and expresses it through music. I loved seeing him live and hearing him in person. His spirit is true and out there when he is performing. I was able to talk with him briefly after he was done his set. I am going to contact him in the future to do an interview on his music (Potskin, 2017-2019).

In August 2017, while I was travelling through Saskatchewan, I messaged Leonard to see if he had time in the next few days to meet up. He told me to message him when I was a few hours outside the city. When I did message him he invited me to a studio he was at where he was working on his new album. He invited me in to see the process, at this time the drummer was in the studio doing his thing, when I looked in I saw my mate from Sydney

116

Julian Bel-Bachir who is Indigenous from Morocco and who I met in the Indigenous community in Sydney. It was nice to have these connections. Leonard and I went outside and had a great conversation about his way of storytelling through his music. Like earlier I wanted to know more about the song They Say and Leonard was happy to give me his story on this song:

Leonard: I try to tell stories that are significant, that make people feel something, about the Indigenous … a lot of people are indifferent, they don’t care whether it is good or bad, they don’t give a shit. So like when I go up on stage and I know I’m front of these people that may not necessary care, my job I feel like is to make them feel something, whether that is empathy, sympathy or even like anger or hate, you know like, I know I done my job, so at least they feel something now. Right? That’s what I do through my music. I try to make justice for like the stories I tell too. I just don’t say things to say things, I try to have personal connection to what I am speaking about. And when I include personal connection in between the songs, then it can make people understand what I am saying and where I am coming from. I think that is the job of a storyteller to make people feel a connection. That is part of what I do. I don’t know how I got that gift but it is there now.

Me: I think the song is called They Say…

Leonard: They Say … I was living, I was living in a hotel room when I wrote it. My reserve flooded in 2011. I was an evacuee and I am still an evacuee. I am living in a house now, but I was living in a hotel room for three years, and uh, part of that was like you know? Moving to the city and adjusting to living in the city and having a place to stay was nice but understanding that my community kinda like crumbling too. I started learning more about Indigenous peoples, cause I started to work for the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs and started going to Elder’s Gatherings and Youth gatherings listening. I would go and listen to old people tell their stories, I would listen to young people tell their story. I know like a little of the history but in 2012 I started understanding more of the relationship with Canada and the Indigenous Peoples.

117

I remember I was reading this book called ‘Taking Our Spirits Back’ by Jo-Ann Episkenew and then I was also listening to Elder’s speak and they talked, some people talked about residential school experiences, them wounding their spirits, wounding their soul and like I thought that was very powerful imagery and like that is where the first line comes ‘They say wounded my soul’. Like, they hurt you so bad, it is greater than language, greater than body, greater than spirit or you know? It’s part of the spirit they attacked. But the resilience of some of the Elder’s still having their language and like trying to teach it to younger people even though they were taught it was so bad. I was working in youth suicide prevention and I wanted to give something that was like honest of what we been through, but also to display the resilience of us too. Like when I say ‘I don’t belong to the Queen so as long as I dream that means I speak with the song that forever will be, sung from the heart so whenever I speak the truth comes out and it’s setting me free’ like me being a storyteller telling like, that we’re not property of anybody. If anything, like, they all say we belong to the land so ‘I am Anishanaabe, I belong to the land’ is another one of those lyrics. I wanted to plant those seeds so then young people that hear that and there going be like ‘I’m Anishanaabek too’ you know, or like ‘I am Nêhiyawik’ or whatever … like the Blackfoot, they are going to identify with that and have a young person being proud of who they are.

Telling the truth and saying, like you know that your ideology of me does not represent me, that is your projection of what I am, and I know who I really am and what I am capable of. So it is about inspiring, but also understanding that we come from ‘sometimes it hurts to be Indigenous born in this nation, not enough to talk about decolonisation’ those are all like lyrics in that song. So for me I was saying, yeah it is not enough to say or have a shirt that says decolonise, you also have to learn to learn how to introduce yourself in your language, it is also about helping out and learning the ideologies of us as opposed to like always trying to like figure out what is good, like I need to have an education, you get this diploma, I need to get a masters, you can do all these things equivalent to that in your own home too. That’s

118

what that song entails, talking about the dark history but turning and showing the reflection of our power and strength as well. And that’s what I, different people will get different things from it, cause that’s the way music works, you tell a story and people relate to it in the way they know how but that was a part of the intention to be like I am going to show our strength and our resilience through these lyrics and this music. (Sumner Anishanaabe, 2017)

The song shows the connection of racial policies of the past and how they affect Indigenous peoples today. Earlier in this chapter I used the idea of the cultural interface and trajectories to explain the position Indigenous peoples are in today. Racial policies of the past and present also help create the voice that comes through in Indigenous Hip Hop music. Leonard’s experience has been as an evacuee. This is something that is becoming common for Indigenous peoples in Canada in the last few years, with the reserve lands that most First Nations are situated on being flooded or burned due to the global warming crisis. This is another trajectory that Indigenous people face in settler colonies today.

It was in this section that I was going to introduce a more cohesive voice about Indigenous and civil rights through some initiatives like those of Treaty or Reconciliation. But when it comes to the inequality that Indigenous Peoples face within settler societies the problems are very layered, complex and ongoing so it is hard to put these problems and solutions down to one initiative that comes from the community or settler governments. Rather it is different forms of injustices that fragment Indigenous Identities from their settler societies when it comes to forming a national identity that includes Indigenous Peoples. Leonard and his song ‘They say’ demonstrates the many trajectories that are held in the Indigenous space and that Indigenous people hold today. Through songs like Leonard’s and those of a lot of the artists in this thesis, the intercultural space of settler and Indigenous peoples can be observed through subcultures like Indigenous Hip Hop and the voice of Indigenous youth that participate in Hip Hop.

The Story of Reconciliation in Indigenous Rap

119

Reconciliation is where most of the Indigenous discourse about settler/First Nations relations sits at this moment in time, in both Australia and Canada. After the 1988 Treaty promise went quiet in Australia the government moved into a reconciliation movement in 1991, with the creation of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation. In 2000 during the final public plenary for Reconciliation — Corrobboree 2000 —there was a walk for reconciliation across the Sydney Harbour Bridge in which around 40 000 people participated (Langton, 2001). The bridge walk was a symbolic gesture to show the two communities coming together.

On February 13, 2008 the Australian Government led by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd issued an Apology to the Stolen Generations, a group of Indigenous peoples created through an assimilation policy that took Aboriginal children from their parents and forced them into western institutions of education and forms slavery (Hastie and Augoustinos, 2012). In Canada Reconciliation started on June 11, 2008, a few months after Australia and with an Apology (King, 2003) from Prime Minister Stephen Harper for the Residential School policy. In a similar way to Australia, the Canadian state took Indigenous children from their parents and had them raised in western education institutions. Like the Stolen Generations they faced the brutal force of assimilation from the state. The children in both countries faced cultural genocide, sexual abuse, physical abuses, starvation and most of all lack of cultural and familial knowledge systems (Truth and Canada, 2015). The apology from the Canadian Prime Minister was one that was forced upon the government as they had lost a class action lawsuit filed by survivors from the Residential School system:

The legal settlement included a ‘Common Experience Payment’ ($1.9 billion); an independent assessment process for individual claims ($1.7 billion); health and healing services ($125 million); the establishment of a TRC ($60 million); commemoration ($20 million); and the creation of a residential school archive, which was established in 2015 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, to house the proceedings of the Commission.” (Eisenberg, 2018)

120

So, because the court mandated the government to do so they established the Truth and Reconciliation Commission with a five-year mandate to work with survivors and their descendants to establish hearings across the country (TRCC, 2015). The Commission hosted its final gathering in June 2015 in Ottawa Ontario. It was at this gathering that there was a walk for Reconciliation from Gatineau, Quebec to Ottawa in which thousands of people walked between the two cities that are joined by a bridge. Like the year 2000 walk in Australia, they used the bridge as a symbol of reconciliation.

When I went back to Canada for my research in 2017, I was surprised to see all the Canadian flags when I arrived in Vancouver. I had to think and remember that we were days away from celebrating Canada as a nation. As I started to read the message on my Tim Horton’s coffee cup, I couldn’t believe I had arrived during Canada’s 150th celebration. As the phrase “Canada 150” was posted all over the place, I don’t know how I was not aware of this. On July 1, 2017 it was officially Canada’s 150th Birthday. I was in Edmonton and my niece invited me to an event led by Indigenous youth called "Decolonise 150”. This made me proud to see the next generation of leaders representing the Indigenous Movement. There were youth from all backgrounds there and they just had an open mic where people came forward and sang and read poetry about their experiences with settler society, and their goals for bringing back their Indigenous languages. There were also traditional performers from Metis, Inuit and First Nations groups representing their traditions. It was a very enlightening day for me and created a fresh view from which to get into my research.

For this section I wanted to highlight the song “300 (Reconciliation)” (Bounce, 2017) by Cody Coyote featuring Mob Bounce as the story to lead this ideal of reconciliation. As reconciliation is a theory and a movement, I wanted to focus most of the work here on the story that Cody Coyote and Mob Bounce produce in this song.

300 (Reconciliation) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEKFxrGqBuo Cody Coyote

121

150 years full of genocide 150 years that our people cried 150 years try to kill our pride 150 years that our people died

1876 - Indian Act Changing the ways the Indians act Eliminate or eradicate all the Indian pacts Take the land and create an Indian tax Assimilate never bringing Indians back Murder and rape generations of them 1763 proclamation began Now we celebrate and do it over again Neglecting to help the needy Taking the land cause they are greedy Broken the treaties Brainwashing you all through a TV Dividing us all, cause they’re sneaky I need them to free me

150 years no celebration If you Inuit, Métis and the First Nation We need to show love through education The future is here, reconciliation x 5

Mob Bounce We need to reconcile today Let’s get it done affiliate With all the history in these states All the misery that builds me with hate It kills me to date Same way killed the ancestors back in the day

122

This intergenerational the trauma, the drama But where were going is the knowing there were hardships It will haunt you, write and wrong you This is what karma puts on you What happened is not kind, it’s still going on, hittin on you Been a long one but we are young once, spittin on you Watching skill, trippin on you we been carrying that weight for too long bro

We don’t want your sympathy we want your empathy cause your apathy is getting to me if the roots is on me is why I don’t mind that your stepping to me and I’m letting it be we are setting it free say we don’t care if we get heavenly our history is not separately this final plea a 150 years later this shit is happening finally (If another person asks me about 150, some shift) (Bounce, 2017)

Cody is a 27-year-old man who is Anishanaabe living in Ottawa, Canada’s capital, in which gives him an experience of Indigenous identity at the centre of Canada’s political climate, which gives Cody a lived experience in the middle of Canadian politics. This song is a form of decolonisation and a call for a future that can reconcile past treatments of Indigenous peoples in Canada so we can move forward together. It works by Cody, who is from Ottawa, looking at the history of Canadian Indigenous discourses. He shows the impacts of past policies on Indigenous peoples:

123

1876 - Indian Act

Changing the ways the Indians act

Eliminate or eradicate all the Indian pacts

Take the land and create an Indian tax(Bounce, 2017)

This type of political lyric focused on policy adds to the complexity of the Cultural Interface of Indigenous Hip Hop. Mob Bounce continues this message. Mob Bounce is an Indigenous Hip Hop duo from western Canada, it makes up of Craig Frank Edes aka The Northwest Kid (Gitxsan) and Travis Hebert aka EarthChild (Cree/Metis). They rap about the intergenerational trauma that the present generation is facing due to past policies, like the Residential Schools. It is these trajectories of past policies that lead to a lot of the social conditions Indigenous people face in Canada and is similar to what Indigenous people have faced in Australia.

So why is this song called “300 (Reconciliation)” if it is mainly talking about Canada 150 and decolonising the past? In an interview with the blog Digital Drum Cody Coyote explains it is about the future, with Canada 150 being a point in time to start to Reconcile:

The title “300 (Reconciliation)” was chosen because we want to see the Canadian government and the descendants of settlers work together in a good way with Indigenous people through understanding, love and true reconciliation for the next 150 years (Drum, 2017).

I think this is a very hopeful song that looks to the past to educate the present and create reconciliation for the future. For example, in the lines “we don’t want your sympathy/ we want your empathy/cause your apathy is getting to me”, Mob Bounce is suggesting here that Indigenous people need true relationships built for the future, at times there is support

124

for Indigenous people’s movements for social justice, but these partnerships usually come from a sympathetic heart that at times creates friction within these partnerships.

This section of the chapter is one of the main focuses of research within the academy presently within Sociology. This section deals with civil rights of Indigenous peoples through classism and racism. It is these two discourses that create a disharmony of Settler and Indigenous relations, though from an Indigenous standpoint the ignorance of Indigenous sovereignty is at play here, from the non-Indigenous point of view it is their ancestral racism that locks Indigenous peoples systematically into fringes of society. Since 1901 in Australia and 1867 in Canada when the settler states confederate that we start to see nationalistic organised forms of racial policies that start to affect the daily lives of Indigenous peoples that are still imposed in today’s policies and attitudes of settler societies. The start of Reservations in both Canada and Australia are implemented as well as mission organised communities in Australia. These policies are enacted to control the Indigenous bodies and to control the nations narrative of being more civilised than the Indigenous peoples. This form of civilisation, or what is called white privilege in today’s societies, were to keep Indigenous people’s identity of lesser humanness to keep their narrative as the saviour intact. The effects of these policies lead to generational abnormal views of Indigenous peoples from settler society that create racist ideologies, leading to many forms of disadvantage within modern societies.

Conclusion to Chapter 4

The ancestors guided me through this chapter by introducing the concept of Alienation to me in the many forms discussed in my story at the beginning of this chapter. This topic allowed me to explore ideas of the cultural interface with the experiences of the youth and artist I was able to meet with, as well as through the songs of Indigenous Hip Hop artists. The method of storywork was introduced as a form of theory that allows an Indigenous voice to be central within research looking at writings from Indigenous peoples, for this chapter I focused on one aspect of this method, synergy. Synergy is central to observing the relationship that is created when Indigenous youth listen to Hip Hop and in this case

125

Indigenous Hip Hop. With synergetic energy we can see that the messages that Indigenous hip hop artist use come from the artist experience as an Indigenous person, this creating a bond to Indigenous youth that connect to the story presented. Treaty and reconciliation are only two of many concerns and movements that come out of Hip Hop culture. Throughout this thesis the youth, Indigenous Hip Hop artist, Indigenous academics and the ancestors led me to explore these topics.

126

Chapter 5 - Decolonisation - Kasispowicikew5

Kohkom

My grandparents all played a central role in my upbringing. My father’s parents were proud Métis people who raised their family in the city of Edmonton, this is my Donald family. My grandmother worked for the Canadian Native Friendship Centre, which is an Indigenous meeting place in the city of Edmonton. When I was growing up it was the centre of Indigenous urban politics. My grandfather was a Métis dancer and through him most of us grandchildren became Métis dancers. My Mother’s parents were also very important to me, most of my Nehiyaw knowledge comes from my grandfather, even though he passed away when I was a toddler. My mother shared stories about his teachings on traditional knowledges and we smudged to him and all of our ancestors for their teachings.

But this story is about Nohkom. She was my last surviving Grandparent, and in my mid 30’s and her early 90’s we became the best of friends. We were always close. She always called me her Godson and would do special things for me, like save dried moose meat in her room, and when I would come visit she would bring it out. We would have tea and she would pull out the butter and we would catch-up. When I completed my Master’s, I moved back to our nation to get grounded and to spend time with her. It was this form of decolonisation I needed after being in an intense institutional space. Different family members were taking care of my grandmother as she was not in her best shape. When I arrived, I was asked to take care of her during the day and drive her around town to go to different appointments. Her and I spent day after day talking laughing and sharing some experiences we faced as children, I think my stories were hard for her to hear, as sometimes she would say “Sorry I wasn’t there for you my boy”. We talked a lot about what things were like when she was young and her lived experience as an Indigenous girl who grew up in a residential school called the Youville Mission, just outside the city of Edmonton. This place was run by the Grey Nuns and was not a place of love but a place of work. She talked about how on most days they were out in the fields doing all the farming without proper gloves or winter coats when

5 Kasispowicikew ᑲᓯᐢᐳᐃᐧᒋᑫᐤ VTI S/he brings us through the past to the future. (AE) (www.cree.dictionary).

127

it was cold. There were many atrocious stories she has from her experience there, but she has some good childhood moments as well. Her mother died and it was then, when she was youn,g that her and her little sister and brother were taken to Youville. This residential school would allow kids to go home to their communities a couple times during the year. Because my grandmother and her siblings were orphans a First Nation family, the Newborn’s, adopted them, and helped raise them. It is here that my grandmother creates a strong relationship with her Kohkom Elizabeth. She taught her the Nehiyaw language and also about different bush knowledges that she would need to know to be a good wife and mother. My grandmother shared this knowledge with me throughout our years together.

When she was 16, she started nursing school in Edmonton. She did one semester before she was arranged to be married to my grandfather. She literally was at work in this café, she got off work at 9pm and when she got picked up by her father, she was told she was getting married, and by midnight she was marrying my grandfather. His first wife and two boys had all died of influenza while he was on the trapline that winter. So, when he got back he needed a wife. Her Kohkom Elizabeth arranged this marriage as my grandfather was Elizabeth’s nephew. So, my grandmother went from being her adopted granddaughter to becoming her niece. She enjoyed her life with my grandfather, I remember her saying “I didn’t love him when I married him, cause I didn’t really know him, but after time together we loved each other”. He was 22 years older than her, but she said he treated her with respect and never hit her, which I guess for an arranged marriage those are things you must think about. My grandmother told me this story the first time when I was 12 and again many times after. Though this is a simple version of her life, I really loved her for her strength in raising her biological and adopted children. I think officially she had around 20 children she raised, too many grandchildren, and great grandchildren to name here. She was raising children into her 90’s.

But with all those great things she did she also felt constricted in life; everything was decided for her. When my grandfather passed away, she was in her 60’s and she was dating a man. I knew him as a child as Grumpy. It was her love story, she met someone and fell in love, not because she was forced too, but because it happened naturally. She kept a picture of him in her wallet until the day she passed on. One thing that bothered her, she told me, was that she never finished nursing school. She watched her children, grandchildren and

128

great-grandchildren go to school, get diplomas and degrees, she tried her best to make everyone’s graduations, as our success was hers too. But one day we were driving, and she told me she was jealous of me sometimes, I asked why? She responded “I sometimes get jealous you lived overseas and got a Masters, and I get mad at myself for that”. I pulled over to the side of the highway and told her that everything I do is because of her. It was her lived experience that gives me strength. Her generation faced the hard assimilation policies from the government, even when she married my grandfather, their first two houses, they built from scratch. My grandmother used to be able to go out for the day and come back with a skinned moose, with all the parts packed up, on her back. She was strong. Her stability created a home for many people including me. When I decided to do this PhD, it was for her, this is to honour her, and I am happy to share a little with you about her, if you ever met her you would have known she loved being honoured and spoken about in this way.

129

Overview of Chapter 5

Decolonisation is a word, a term, a movement, an academic conundrum and a goal for Indigenous peoples around the world. To decolonise is to go back to traditional laws, values, sociality, and ways of being that Indigenous people have been practicing since time immemorial. To decolonise is about connecting us back to our social, spiritual, emotional, and physical interactions as humans with each other through the spirits, cosmos, the animals and the land. The decolonial process is a global one, that is at the forefront of different groups of people within the academic, political, social environmental spheres and many more. Using Aileen Moreton-Robinson’s form of feminism, based on “life writings” this chapter has a focus on the “Indigenous feminist” movement as the main frame for examining what decolonisation looks like within the Indigenous Hip Hop community. Misogyny and violence are often the first thoughts that come to peoples’ minds when ‘Hip Hop’ is mentioned. This view itself needs to be decolonised, to allow more women to be accepted in the mainstream movement of Hip Hop. As Indigenous peoples strive to live in better conditions in our nation states, we need to first empower, respect and acknowledge the strong roles our women play in keeping our communities together. Part of the assimilation process was to disempower our women in terms of their roles, with their partners, their children and with each other, within our communities.

This chapter first explores ways that Indigenous Hip Hop brings forward a community voice that represents the experience Indigenous peoples face in their countries. This call for decolonisation is at the heart of the symbolic and structural inequalities that Indigenous people endure with their Nation States. This chapter uses Eve Tuck’s and Wayne Yang’s method of inquiry of internal and external decolonisation and applies it to the experiences and writings of Indigenous Hip Hop artists. The chapter then delves into Indigenous feminism as an example and focus of a decolonial practice that Hip Hop artists are supporting through their messages.

A Theory of Decolonisation

130

Tuck and Yang’s theory of decolonisation (Tuck & Yang, 2012) looks at the practice of colonial governments and how they use their colonial powers to control Indigenous identities and practice their privilege through structural colonial violence. The concept of decolonisation as a metaphor that is used by colonial academic institutions to critique settler violence does not give a complete understanding of the praxis of theory to different social movements within Indigenous societies. Instead they are often overlooked by the settler societies. Decolonisation has different meanings and associations to many movements. The concept that Tuck and Yang bring to us through their writings is looking at this difference through what they see as two forms of colonisation that keep Indigenous people and their societies controlled. I do keep the writings in this chapter focused and so don’t use the entire paper for reference. But their ideas for exploring these forms of colonisation and to understand how Indigenous artists express their knowledges through lived experiences are important for this thesis.

External Decolonisation

Tuck and Yang (2012) distinguish between two forms of decolonisation – external and internal - that affect Indigenous peoples today. External Colonialism theorises the beginning and or historical stages of colonialism that still linger today and have helped maintain a global view of the disadvantaged, and privilege the ‘hard’ work of the coloniser. This global context can be viewed through looking at historical forms of imperialism and colonisation what is called globalisation today. Tuck and Yang explain Indigenous decolonisation is not a ‘metaphor’ to soften the blow of the Indigenous experience with settler society, it is an action that can be used to assist our communities to reclaim their sovereignty, with the end goal being the returning of stolen lands.

External colonialism (also called exogenous or exploitation colonisation) denotes the expropriation of fragments of Indigenous worlds, animals, plants and human beings, extracting them in order to transport them to - and build the wealth, the privilege, or feed the appetites of - the colonisers, who get marked as the first world (Tuck & Yang, 2012 p. 4).

131

This type of external colonialism lingers in the daily lives of Indigenous people, where Indigenous communities are living in third world conditions while the settlers living around them are considered and do live in first world conditions. It is also seen in today’s nation states through the ‘appropriation’ of lands. The ‘appropriation’ of lands is often seen from the perspective of the coloniser as just, as the coloniser believes that the lands were not owned previous to their arrival. This form of terra nullius happened in both North America and Australia.

However, the two states acted in different ways in relation to the original idea of terra nullius. In Canada, the Indian Act (1876) was created for dealing with ‘Indian lands’ and in Australia it was the Native Title Act (1993). In Australian, in 1993, the federal government passed legislation setting out how it would govern the ways the nation state would recognise, control and possess Indigenous lands through policy (or what was known as the ’10 Point Plan’).This legislation had many requirements on the Indigenous communities to show their continued connection to land. This process, especially the requirement of ongoig connection, ignored the 200 years of genocide and forced assimilation policies of the governments to disconnect people from their families and land. In Canada, the lands that were set aside for First Nations — which are called reserves— are actually held in trust by the Monarch of England. This process took place through what is known as the Indian Act first created in 1876 and is still enforced on First Nations today. This act allowed the government to not only control the people through controlling land tenure their control also encompassed the daily lives of our ancestors, and to this day still controls the people that still live on these tracts of land.

This form of land tenure is how Indigenous peoples in Canada are kept in these third world conditions:

Canada’s First Nations are no exception: reserve land is not owned by individuals but held in trust for the benefit of band members, and many observers have pointed to

132

the communal nature of reserve land as a major contributor to the economic challenges faced by First Nation communities (Aragon & Kessler, 2018).

It is this control that starts with land that ‘dominos’ into creating problems or control around other issues that Indigenous people face within their settler societies. This form of estrangement from the land ownership on First Nations and the continued appropriation of lands outside those boundaries is what allows the colonial narrative and practice of terra nullius to continue to this generation of settlers and this will continue until there is form of decoloniality that promotes Indigenous sovereignty.

Indigenous people have been fighting with nation states and colonisers since their ancestor’s arrival hundreds of years ago, and this resistance is still happening today. One example of this decolonisation and resistance in hip hop is the ‘pipeline protests’. In the autumn of 2018, in Canada the trans mountain pipeline was stalled due to the fact the companies driving the project had not obtained ‘free, prior and informed consent.’ In retaliation, the Canadian government bought the pipeline and has made it a national issue and now demonises Indigenous peoples who protest and curtail their rights. Indigenous Hip Hop is telling a story of these community calls to action. They first came in the form of words and now a movement called Skoden (‘let’s go then’). The story coming through rap on the issue of Indigenous sovereignty can be appreciated through the rap and the Snotty Nose Rexz Kids video and song ‘Skoden’:

Skoden by the Snotty Nose Rez Kids.

Skoden (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUG8oEuCl0E) By: Snotty Nose Rez Kids

[Intro: Yung Trybez] Picture me rollin', bitch I go Skoden Picture me rollin', bitch I go Skoden

133

Picture me rollin', bitch I go Skoden Picture me rollin, yah yah

[Verse 1: Yung Trybez] Big chief's in the building, homie pipe down Middle fingers up from my hometown From underground Chiefs to the Braves to the Briefs Look who got my back when it goes down On the outside, I'm meta-world peace I'm the malice in the palace, inside I'm a beast

Put a fist in the sky for the Sioux Tribe Middle fingers up to the pipelines Shoutout to the red-skinned blood hounds Holdin' down for the red camp right now My people getting mauled getting put on by the dogs And we're still being cuffed like outlaws Resurrecting the indigenous, black snake killas We got every other village out here fighting like guerrillas And were here to take the power from depletist egomaniacs Our voice is a weapon and its powerful And I'm spittin' ammunition, Rambo Coming out the shadow, no camo No Tar Heels here, no more land to steal Don't fuck with me, I got Hands bro For standing rock, I stand Lelu's voice I am We deploy the braves 'fore ya destroy the land 'Bout to take it all back, we them village boys, let's go

134

[Chorus: Young D & Yung Trybez] Still we all gon' rise, they don't enjoy us We on that ride or die, 'cause we warriors And that's word to the wise, fuck 'em vultures We stay loyal to the soil, y'all can't beat us, might as well join us Or bitch we go skoden, skoden, skoden! Bitch we go skoden, skoden, skoden! Bitch we go skoden, skoden, skoden! Bitch we go skoden, skoden, skoden!

[Verse 2: Drezus] We might go skoden Tryna get buckwild in the open C'mon, let's go then Took a ride on the rez road Goin' way too fast, slow down like "holy" Heard you might be my cousin (no way) Fried bread with fried bologna Cracklin' on the stove on a cold day While my heart like kokum with the [?] Yeah let's skoden for all my veterans All the women makin' all of us better men Gettin' ready for the war, just sent us in All my people at the gate, gotta let 'em in Gettin' worse with the thirst should be focusin' I'ma hit 'em with my vision 'cause I dream big Made peace with the tribe in a teepee Stay woke to see what the dream is

[Chorus: Young D & Yung Trybez] Still we all gon' rise, they don't enjoy us

135

We on that ride or die, 'cause we warriors And that's word to the wise, fuck 'em vultures We stay loyal to the soil, y'all can't beat us, might as well join us Or bitch we go skoden, skoden, skoden! Bitch we go skoden, skoden, skoden! Bitch we go skoden, skoden, skoden! Bitch we go skoden, skoden, skoden!

[Verse 3: Young D] Look, ever since I was a little k-I-d, I’ve been feeling like my d-a-d Every time he’s around the RCMP, man I'm ready to fight cause it’s we not me Man I guess the apple didn't fall far from the tree when a goon squad abuse their authority I'm a snow goon Man I bring the D like Richard Sherman and the L-O-B, boom! Wanna talk about the who's who? You ain't got a Blue's clue We don't fit the same shoes, okay, old news The land is all we got and we refuse to lose So we final go (Skoden!), Jordin Tootoo Talk about BUFU, "By Us, Fuck You" We stand with Standing Rock and the Lelu Middle fingers to the sky like the boys in Haida Gwaii We gon' start a picket line and we’ll be Saints if we die (that’s so true) Cypress Hill, homie lets be real, okay here's the deal My shit ain't never stank if you thank that tank ain't never gonna spill Get the message that I sen-dog? It ain't really that hard to comprehend, dog I'm screaming "fuck you" till my skin turn blue Like Sonic The Hedgehog

136

Chorus: Young D & Yung Trybez] Still we all gon' rise, they don't enjoy us We on that ride or die, 'cause we warriors And that’s word to the wise, fuck 'em vultures We stay loyal to the soil, y'all can't beat us, might as well join us Or bitch we go skoden, skoden, skoden! Bitch we go skoden, skoden, skoden! Bitch we go skoden, skoden, skoden! Bitch we go skoden, skoden, skoden!

[Outro: Beau Dick]

When we broke our coppers at the legislature building and the Parliament building here in Canada, we broke a spell of false dominance and control. The true custodians of mother earth. We the tribal people have standing, and it is up to the people to uphold justice. That means that law enforcement and the military's first responsibility is to protect the tribal people of this land. And we want to remind you American and Canadian citizens that you are still our guests here and we are still your hosts (Kids, 2017)

This rap and its video examine the external colonial experience in the modern form of settler and colonial relationships. The rap situates the Indigenous peoples as custodians of the land trying to protect it from the colonial machine called capitalism. Early on in the rap the audience hears: “We deploy the braves 'fore ya destroy the land”. Our lands as Indigenous people are not separate from our being, though this type of relationship is stated in non-Indigenous external colonialism. The ‘braves’ are described as the able-bodied people, who are at the frontlines of these movements against the destruction of the land. In the rap Snotty Nose Rez Kids use the phrase “Resurrecting the Indigenous, black snake killa”. This refers to the people on the frontlines fighting against the pipelines (the “black snake”). The rap about the resurrection of the “black snake killas” is also a reference to a traditional prophecy that predicts a black snake will engulf Turtle Island. In this context that prophecy of the black snake references the problem of the oil pipelines that are already

137

built, and still being built, on Turtle Island’s back, and that run through protected territories based on treaties signed by past governments. This an example of a rap with Indigenous traditional knowledge in the lyrics of Indigenous rap music. One can see that this rap is not just about the position of protecting the land, it is also about protecting our culture.

The rap also sees the experience of the people on the frontlines, protecting our people, as “still being” abused by the nation state’s police, armies and private security. The first verse of the rap shares the difficult experience Indigenous people are facing when they are protecting the land from capitalism: “My people getting mauled getting put on by the dogs, and we're still being cuffed like outlaws”. The lyrics align the modern experiences of violence faced by Indigenous people with their settler society. This violence is often blamed on Indigenous people’s lack of positive participation in the colonial regime, that is dependent on the natural resources of the lands the coloniser’s stole.

The last verse is still about the land and how the government treats Indigenous people. The lyrics say: “Wanna talk about the who’s who?/ You ain't got a Blue's clue/ We don't fit the same shoes, okay, old news/ The land is all we got and we refuse to lose” (Kids, 2017). This also displays tension within the Indigenous communities in terms of who can make decisions to let our lands be destroyed for the global markets. This really is an example of a modern form of external colonisation, as the oil production in Canada is generally for foreign countries. At this moment on the west coast the fight against the pipelines is about oil for the Asian market. The benefit for Canada comes from being a part of the global economy. The new form of colonial thought links with institutions like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

A lack of Indigenous sovereignty is at the heart of the mistreatment of the people and the lands. The external decolonial project is to decolonise the globalisation process that validates the theft of Indigenous peoples lands through global dependency on natural resources. The methodology chapter’s section on axiology is relevant here. The teachings of the three R’s of respect, reciprocity and responsibility apply to our relationships with the

138

land,. This system of belief is what is at the heart of this Indigenous sovereignty, as the colonial global world is about taking from the earth without thinking of the consequences it has with our relationship as humans with the earth.

Internal Decolonisation

Tuck and Yang (2012) refer to the second form of colonisation as internal. This would be more of the settler control of Indigenous people and land. This happens with formal passing of the baton from the colonised country to the settlers who continue the ownership of lands that were claimed through the rule of terra nullius. Forming the nation state is about the maintenance of the colonial project of capitalism.

The other form of colonialism that is attended to by postcolonial theories and theories of coloniality is internal colonialism, the biopolitical and geopolitical management of people, land, flora and fauna within the “domestic” borders of the imperial nation. This involves the use of particularised modes of control – prisons, ghettos, minoritizing, schooling, policing – to ensure the ascendancy of a nation and

its white3 elite. These modes of control, imprisonment, and involuntary transport of the human beings across borders – ghettos, their policing, their economic divestiture, and their dislocatability – are at work to authorise the metropole and conscribe her periphery. Strategies of internal colonialism, such as segregation, divestment, surveillance, and criminalisation, are both structural and interpersonal (Tuck & Yang, 2012 p. 4).

In Australia and in Canada Indigenous people face the types of actions described by Tuck and Yang on a daily basis. In Australia, there has been the movement to investigate deaths in custody from the 1980’s. Some of these deaths were formally investigated with a Royal Commission into Deaths in Custody in 1988 (with a report released in 1991. See: Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths 1991). Since this time there have been many reported Indigenous deaths in custody. Most recently Indigenous youth in custody who face abuse has been gained media attention. The abuse of an Indigenous youth, Dylan Voller, at the

139

Don Dale Youth Detention Centre in Darwin has raised a lot of concerns for the safety of Indigenous youth when in custody in Australia. On June 26, 2018 The Guardian (Allam, 2018) reported that in the Northern Territory Indigenous youth make up 100 percent of youth in detention centres. At the same time a photo of Dylan, shackled to a chair with a hood over his head, gained media and human rights national and international attention. This story brought attention to the widespread abuses that were taking place at this detention centre.

Many Australian Indigenous rappers have engaged with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander deaths in custody. Though Dylan’s example is not a ‘death’ in custody —as he was fortunate enough to make it through his torture—it is still an abuse while under government custody. In February 2017, I went to a Baker Boy concert at the Lansdowne Hotel in Sydney. His opening act was a man named Dallas Woods. Dallas is a Noongar man who grew up in the East Kimberleys in Western Australia. In his rap “9 times out of 10” we learn more about his daily lived experience of growing up in North West Australia and how the police controlled the town. As Dylan’s story was still fresh in the nation’s memory, during his set Dallas used a lot of references in his video to this experience at Don Dale. While I was at this concert, as I was watching Dallas, I realised that Dylan was actually standing beside me. I did not speak with Dylan, but noticed he was there with Dallas and Baker Boy. From my observation this was a form of mentorship from Dallas and Baker Boy to Dylan, trying to help heal the scars of this form of internal colonisation he faced in detention. Please take the time to watch Dallas’ video, and also to read his lyrics to understand his lived experience with internal colonialism.

“9 times out of 10” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGenI2mYmwc)

Dallas Woods

I'm really not that scared of nothing But if police roll up then I'm running 'Cos 9 times out of 10 I'm up to something man

140

I blame it on the town that I grew up in Blame it on the town that I grew up in (That's the E.K., the E.K.) Police, the police, they police themselves Even with your hands up that don't mean they gon' help If you young black and gifted they reach for the belt If you young black and gifted you going to jail

My mama raised me well Considering I was raised in hell Raise the issue that most of these kids are raised in jail No help, they had to raise themselves Role model non-existent Usin' survival instincts Trying to revive my history Trying to give life to this albeit suicidal system Feeling trapped [?] prison self-inflicted Time is ticking They need to make a decision whether it's going to be cemetery's or finding religion If you're pigment is different You fit the description Then shift off to prison That's how we livin'

141

Even with your hands up that don't mean they gon' help If you young black and gifted they reach for the belt If you young black and gifted you going to jail

We used to play cops and robbers Now we hate cops and doge 'em Like excuse me Mr. Officer With that gun and badge you seem to be Mr. Popular I talk to you and your hands straight to where your pockets are Locked and loaded Man only fear jail 'cos I'm claustrophobic Other than that talk smack and get your dome split Mother's gone away calling him like every day So for them I got to make it and let nothing get in my way I see fellow Aboriginals You see felons and criminals Breaking stigmas political I'm just painting the visual

I'm really not that scared of nothing But if police roll up then I'm running 'Cos 9 times out of 10 I'm up to something man I blame it on the town that I grew up in Blame it on the town that I grew up in (That's the E.K., the E.K.) Police, the police, they police themselves Even with your hands up that don't mean they gon' help If you young black and gifted they reach for the belt If you young black and gifted you going to jail

That's how we live it Tha-That's how we live it

142

Shift off to prison That's how we live it Tha-That's how we live it Shift off to prison

Role model non-existent Usin' survival instincts Role model non-existent Usin' survival instincts Role model non-existent Usin' survival instincts Role model non-existent Role model non-existent

A drug that saves lives Black excellence But the drugs in the street That's black preference I really prefer excellence For real

Man if the truth hurts I'mma watch and burn I stay lit brother watch and learn Uh Yeah Brother watch and learn I stay lit brother watch and learn Man if the truth hurts I'mma watch and burn I stay lit brother watch and learn Brother, brother, brother watch and learn Mr. Woods at the spit come and watch and learn (Woods, 2018).

143

Here Woods describes the situation youth are put into in Northern Australia, and how it is the surveillance of them that leads them to being put into detention centres: ‘Even with your hands up that don't mean they gon' help/If you young black and gifted they reach for the belt’. He then raps: “Raise the issue that most of these kids are raised in jail, No help, they had to raise themselves, Role model non-existent”. This part of the rap raises the important issues that we need to see that these youths are being raised without role models and without proper family and community knowledge, making the relationship between Woods and Dylan even more important. . In the last verse of “9 times out of 10” Dallas also writes about the situation that of surveillance: “I see fellow Aboriginals, you see felons and criminals, Breaking stigmas political, I'm just painting the visual”. What Dallas brings forward is a few of the internal decolonial processes that Indigenous people face through social control of Indigenous people, the high levels of imprisonment of Indigenous youth, the ghettos Indigenous people are forced to live in, and their dislocation from their communities and families while they are imprisoned.

Dallas Woods is an example of the way rap performance works to enact decolonisation. He is a passionate artist who wears his heart on his sleeve. He says: ‘I stay lit brother watch and learn … Brother, brother, brother watch and learn’. His performances showcase his knowledge—which comes from an Indigenous perspective—of what is happening within Indigenous communities in Australia. His performance showed the cycle of what internal colonisation looks like within Indigenous communities. The state is in control of the daily lives of Indigenous people, through surveillance and by prosecuting a type of criminality which stems from poverty. This poverty is a product of the lack of sovereignty Indigenous people have, having little control over their environments and economies from the local to the global communities. This creates a cycle of poverty that leads to higher chance of being in custody, that then reinforces the control of Indigenous lands because Indigenous bodies and lives are being controlled through internal and external colonisation.

144

Indigenous Feminism – Iyinitowiyinew iskwêwak kiskeyihtamowin6

My research process into Indigenous feminism within Indigenous Hip Hop was organic and evolved throughout the research process in interviews and through analysis of the music. My gaze when starting my research into Indigenous Hip Hop actually had little to do with looking at the role Hip Hop culture takes with its treatment towards women. Through the use of an Indigenous Methodology my research placed women equal to men. I did want to ensure I had an equal or close to equal number of men and women in the research, so my only thought was to ensure that I had a balance of women in the interviews and artists I researched. This of course did not include all the genders across the spectrum that is ever flowing. My initial idea was that I was going to get in and get out without too much focus on gender, or so I thought.

In the first six months of my research I was invited to sit on a panel for the University of Sydney called – “Why is my Curriculum so White?: Hip Hop Remixing the Curriculum 2016”. This was organised by a friend Dr Omid Tofighian. It was at this daylong workshop and I learned a lot from Dr Frederick Gooding Jr and other panellists. It was in the afternoon that a question came up and was directed to Dr Gooding Jr about the representation of women in Hip Hop. His answer to this was basically that there is always a white woman who wants to bring up the issue of the misogyny within hip hop. His argument was that though this question is valid it usually comes with the baggage of racism at the core, and it demonises the Black man. Gourdine and Lemmons describe this type of “racialised misogyny as a part of America’s consciousness” (Gourdine & Lemmons, 2011). These authors suggest that this ideology has a profound effect on the inner psyche of African Americans as it feeds off not only hatred of women but hatred toward Blackness, which serves as a two-edged sword. So, I tread my feet softly in this section of the thesis, to not misrepresent women or Indigenous men. Returning to the workshop, one of the youths, who is also an Indigenous artist, Dobby, was in the room and brought up a point that within Indigenous Hip Hop, perhaps it could be useful to see it as a form of Women’s and Men’s Business. This got me thinking: was there a gender issue within Indigenous Hip Hop? I

6 Iyinitowiyinew iskwêwak kiskeyihtamowin – Indigenous Women’s Knowledge – I created this term with help from Neal Mcleod and Arok Wolvengrey’s “100 days of Cree” and my own knowledge.

145

brought this into my interview schedule through the addition of one question. I asked, “Do you think Hip Hop is a male space?” I also focused more attention on any female Indigenous Hip Hop artists that were out there. I was able to interview female artists and also watch and learn from videos on YouTube and listen on SoundCloud to artists.

Because of this shift, I went back to the drawing table and had to go back to writings on Indigenous feminism. I started with Aileen Moreton-Robinson’s (2000) book “Talkin’ up to White Woman”. In the next section I introduce the first of two sections on women and Hip Hop, both of which are developed using Moreton-Robinson’s work. This first section on Indigenous women’s life writings is important to set the stage on the process I looked at when listening too and writing about Indigenous feminism writings in Rap.

Life Writings

Talkin’ Up to White Women (2000) was written 20 years prior to me writing this and I think Moreton-Robinson would be pleased to see the progress that has been made for Indigenous women since this book was written but might still be annoyed on how slow progress is taking. I feel this book should have more attention as it was a great learning tool for me as a male to understand and have true respect for all the Indigenous women in my life. Moreton-Robinson starts her book looking at the ‘life writings’ of Indigenous women: “Indigenous women’s life writings are based on the collective memories of intergenerational relationships between predominantly Indigenous women, extended families and communities …” (Moretone-Robinson, 2000 p. 1). These writings are often seen as too political, and Moreton-Robinson argues that when settlers edit the life writings, they take the politics out of Indigenous writings and make it more scholastic.

Using Moreton-Robinson’s ideas I suggest that Indigenous Rap is a form of life writings for Indigenous women in today’s societies; it is created and owned by the writer and is the voice of Indigenous women. The tension internal colonisation has created leads to settler and Indigenous experiences being different because of different lived experiences, is also what Moreton-Robinson writes about from an Indigenous women’s perspective. This tension and difference can be witnessed through Naomi Wenitong’s words in the song by

146

The Last Kinection “Black and Deadly”. The Last Kinection is a brother sister duo from New South Wales who both had minor careers before joining together. Naomi was a part of a pop group called Shakaya that was signed with Sony records, and Joel was a part of a Hip Hop Group called Local Knowledge that had a hit song in the Indigenous community called “Blackfellas” that is still widely used as a representation of Indigenous Hip Hop in Australia. The song “Black and Deadly” contains both the feminist view from Naomi, but also the male decolonial view from Joel, similar to what I previously described in relation to Dallas Woods’ music. This song is a therefore a combination of stories about the impact of the internal colonisation process as well, as the life writings of an Indigenous woman in Australia.

Black and Deadly (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3x5JKZkeZ4&feature=youtu.be) The Last Kinection

[Scratches: Jayteehazard] "I'm black and deadly" "I'm black and deadly" "I'm black and deadly" "I'm black and deadly"

[Chorus: Naomi] When you see us on the street you don't really wanna Speak to us, you don't know we're black 'n' deadly When you see us at a show, oh Now you wanna know us, 'cause you know we're black 'n' deadly When you see us in the car you don't know who we are It don't matter, 'cause we black 'n' deadly When you hear us on the radio Now you really wanna know us cause we're "black and deadly"

[Verse 1: Naomi] You act like you've never seen an Aboriginal before

147

Like you're not happy for me now I got my foot in the door They don't wanna see me do it, they'd rather hand me a beer So I can go mess my head up and forget a career Oh there you g-go stutter like the DJ scratches I'm like a jerry can and a box of matches Explosive, it won't take long until you know this My royalty cheques are the proof I wrote this You give me dirty looks like you wanna fight me Now your daughter wants to grow up to be just like me *Laughs* I bet you hate me now 'Cause your boys and your brothers wanna date me now I'm block 'n deadly yeah you know what I mean If you don't believe me bring your crew, bring your team 'Cause you think it's just a show, cut the lights, close the curtain You're trying to shut us down but it's just not working

[Verse 2: Weno] I see them looking down on me like I'm nothing but trouble So I pull 'em up, attack, and give it back on double And they putting us away like any minority But if you know the prison system we're the living majority If survival of the fittest, we the cream of the crop

148

From planting the hard seeds to the time that were lopped We under standing trees while they choking my knees An invasion of weeds who only want to be trees Introduced renties, mixing up the species Good way, we say I'm a bunch of mixies I'm French, German, Nepalese, Kanakon, Kabi Kabi The French don’t recognise me, the Germans don't know me Kanakans recognise me and say 'aye he's a Murri' Can anyone tell me what it is to be an Aussie? 'Cause all I'm hearing is what an Aussie isn't Lucky country for some but for others it isn't We died for our country, we fight for our country Now the flag of our country represents another country Religion, flags, people is only second hand And they don't mean shit if there is no land We don't own the land 'cause the land owns us We would drown without it, it does fine without us The values of this country is the land itself And we selling it out for a false sense of wealth

149

[Outro: Naomi] You can see it in our walk You can hear the way we talk You know that we are black 'n' deadly You know we are so black 'n' deadly You can hear it in our talk You can see it in our walk You know that we are black 'n' deadly You know we are so black 'n' deadly (Kinection, 2008)

In Naomi’s verse - which begins “You act like you've never seen an Aboriginal before/ Like you're not happy for me now I got my foot in the door” - we see the standpoint she takes as an Indigenous woman. When she starts the verse about not being liked in the social space of someone who is making it in the world, and how these people would rather see her as a drunk than a successful woman she is, to use Moreton Robinson’s words, “Talkin’ Back” to society and to “other” women. The two lines are: “They don't wanna see me do it, they'd rather hand me a beer/ So I can go mess my head up and forget a career.” Naomi refers to the white perception that all Aboriginal people are drunks and responds by rapping about how The Last Kinection’s success counters this stereotype of Aboriginal peoples.

This is a perfect connection to the life writings that are a part of the Indigenous feminist movement, and if you question Naomi she states that “My royalty cheques are the proof I wrote this”. This line in the song really takes it back to ownership and to Indigenous women’s experience of being questioned on their abilities as writers. Indigenous women’s life writings are important to creating a narrative that shows the distinctiveness of their experiences with themselves, their families, their experiences with Indigenous men and also with settler/colonial society. Indigenous Hip Hop allows Indigenous women to have a voice and space that is often ignored or not seen in outside views of Hip Hop culture in general. Life writings by Indigenous women in Hip Hop are in their infancy at this moment, but we are now seeing Indigenous female performances no longer taking a backseat. This form of life writing, as part of an Indigenous feminist movement, has a theory behind it. It is best

150

described using Moreton-Robinson’s 2013 paper on Australian Indigenous Feminist Standpoint.

Indigenous Women and their Standpoint

Where is the line in the sand for what is feminist? And what is Indigenous Feminism? Is it about the difference of racial experiences within the nation state? Or something else? What Moreton-Robinson sets out as the answer, in “What is Australian Indigenous Feminist Stand point theory?” (Moreton-Robinson, 2013), is the genealogy of the feminist movement. Moreton-Robinson writes that it is by thinking about the methodological perspective that enables Indigenous women to brings forward the ways in which they need to imagine or place themselves with their traditional cultural and land-based knowledge systems at the centre of their research. Moreton-Robinson offers a critique of the leader of Indigenous Stand Point theory, Martin Nakata. Moreton-Robinson states that:

Nakata does not experience the world as Indigenous women. He cannot ‘know’ nor investigate from within the frame of this experience, just as I cannot ‘know’ as an Indigenous man (Moreton-Robinson, 2013).

Ironically by omitting gender from his standpoint theory Nakata universalises Indigenous men’s experience according to Moreton-Robinson. Thus, Moreton-Robinson argues he is producing an Indigenous form of patriarchal knowledge that mimics the kind of patriarchal knowledge production feminist standpoint theorists have critiqued. I am pleased to see this critique as an Indigenous male. In this research, I do take this into my head and heart and walk softly within this framework and to try my best to decolonise my own self from any male toxicity that I may have lingering in and from my lived experiences. I, as a male, have assessed my actions and intentions in writing this chapter as one of storyteller and not one who writes from direct experience; but as someone with whom stories have been shared to retell with as much accuracy as possible and proper intention, like our oral traditional knowledge teaches us.

151

After her genealogy, Moreton-Robinson creates her version of an Indigenous feminist standpoint. Connecting feminism and Nakata’s Indigenous Standpoint Theory, Moreton- Robinson goes through the process of her methods that mirror the methodology for this thesis. For example, she centres Indigenous women’s knowledge base, which comes from the land, as an axiology that is parallel to the framework created in my methods chapter. This she states is one of the points of contrast to feminist standpoint theory:

As a first-world feminist paradigm, feminist standpoint theory is predicated on a body/earth split discursively positioning women as female humans above other non-human living things through making gender/sex the epistemological a priori within analyses of women’s lived experiences and socially situated knowledges. If we consider Hartsock’s sexual division of labour that produces and reproduces women’s epistemology in certain ways then this way of knowing is inextricably tied to capitalism. The female-gendered subject within standpoint theory is privileged both ontologically and epistemologically while being configured through the logic of capital in her everyday life including her relations to land as private property and the nation’s sovereignty (Moreton-Robinson, 2013).

So, by centring Indigenous Women’s knowledge in her methodological paradigm she changes the goals of feminist theory out of an individualistic feminism that comes from economic structural change, to an Indigenous feminism and Indigenous Women’s Standpoint that centres women with the land and within the creation stories that are community based. This standpoint is what creates the Indigenous voice through a feminist position. Recreating this traditional space for Indigenous women in the “modern” world. I see that Indigenous feminism is about a resurgence of traditional knowledges and roles that Indigenous women held being brought to the forefront when dealing with Indigenous issues. The standpoint is that of traditional knowledges and rebuilding relationships or creating relationships from here.

152

All of this can be read in a rap called “Most Unprotected Girl” (Lady, 2019) by JB the First Lady. JB the First Lady is a stage name for Jerilynn Snuxyaltwa Webster who is an Indigenous Hip Hop artist based out of Vancouver, British Columbia. JB is becoming a voice for Indigenous Hip Hop in Canada and has been very influential in bringing forward a strong female voice to the Indigenous Hip Hop scene. I was not able to interview her for this research. Though we were in contact when I was in Vancouver, timing was not my friend in meeting with her. She was gracious in her messages to me and was full of encouragement. Her position as an Indigenous female, and as a writer using her lived experience her music brings forth the life writings of the Indigenous feminist movement. Through her music, she is able to create a standpoint for Indigenous women. An example is this song ‘The Most Unprotected Girl’.

The Most Unprotected Girl (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y asvn9xReI) JB The First Lady

The most unprotected girl (X 4)

It’s the girl who created the world She fell from the sky Everyone watched her, natural high Cranes in the sky, connected to say hi On turtle’s back

Single mother, singing songs Creating creators, singing songs (x2) Creating creators, The most unprotected girl (x4)

Works with beads and fabric Grande entry is the weekend habit Dances with colours, they love her The most unprotected girl Loves her men, and the waters

153

Stands with her drum, and daughters With her voice, asking ancestors with stand with her The most unprotected girl (x4)

Makes dinner for her little wolf cubs Alone, but not alone Father is gone, but not wrong The most unprotected girl (x3)

Sitting at her desk getting good grades Speaking for all her people writing and writing, debating - debating explaining, explaining The most unprotected girl

Speaks the truth from her roots Community asked her to lead But doesn’t know her needs Needs for safety Needs for support Needs for safety Needs for support The most unprotected girl (x4)

It’s the girl who created the world She fell from the sky Everyone watched her, natural high Cranes in the sky, connected to say hi On turtle’s back

Single mother, singing songs Creating creators, singing songs (x2) Creating creators, The most unprotected girl (x4)

154

Sky women, Mother Earth (x4) (2018) (Lady, 2019)

First using the Indigenous Research Method created for this research has allowed me to interpret the song from the ontological positioning set out in the beginning of the song. The rapper, JB, says:

It’s the girl who created the world/ She fell from the sky/ Everyone watched her, natural high/ Cranes in the sky, connected to say hi, On turtle’s back. (Lady, 2019)

This reflects the idea in my framework that Indigenous knowledges are at the centre. Through this centering of knowledges this song puts the girl who “fell from the sky” as central to our creation and at the centre of knowledge systems for people and communities that believe in this creation. JB brings forth a form of Indigenous resurgence by conveying traditional stories of creation in her music. This ontological approach, that makes creation key to this standpoint is also about an Indigenous woman’s standpoint and is what Moreton-Robinson describes in her paper:

An Indigenous women’s standpoint is ascribed through inheritance and achieved through struggle. It is constituted by our sovereignty and constitutive of the interconnectedness of our ontology (our way of being); our epistemology (our way of knowing) and our axiology (our way of doing). It generates its problematics through Indigenous women’s knowledges and experiences acknowledging that intersecting oppressions will situate us in different power relations and affect our different individual experiences under social, political, historical and material conditions that we share either consciously or unconsciously (2013).

Moreton-Robinson brings forward the epistemological portion of the Indigenous methodological framework, that is, of the way Indigenous women know their knowledge. By

155

JB sharing her lived experiences through rap music an Indigenous feminist epistemology and axiology are produced. In JB’s second verse, where she raps about the traditional ways of women beading, attending ceremony, their love of men, family and the land, she explains how through different daily experiences women help create this relationality.

The Indigenous feminist or standpoint axiology is set out or visible in the lines where JB writes about the experience of the mother feeding her “cubs”, the everyday struggle of being an Indigenous mother, the way they are living their lives in the modern world as single mothers like the women who fell out of the sky: “Single mother, singing songs/ Creating creators, singing songs” (Lady, 2019). JB has another verse on the women who are in school, representing these young women as the new leaders coming up. But she questions if there are proper supports for these women who are now and those who in the future will be working for Indigenous communities and peoples: “Speaks the truth from her roots Community asked her to lead, but doesn’t know her needs.” This line is a call for the decolonisation of patriarchal systems to support our present and future female leaders. We need to look at present structures set up in our communities and asses the environment for any lingering patriarchal policies and laws that do not support having female leaders.

This is happening. In Canada, we see an uprising of female Chiefs and Councillors on First Nations. But these women are stuck with the barriers of the Indian Act, that mainly honoured the male leadership and voice. The political systems that are recognised by settler society were set up at the time of white male dominance within the settler/colonial sphere. It is these systems that Indigenous peoples need to decolonise themselves to give proper support to the leadership that is coming up. Indigenous feminism is a very important movement for Indigenous peoples and for all peoples. With the full participation of Indigenous women, and with them leading in the community their influence will trickle down for the next generation so they do not have to decolonise the system, but can fully Indigenise our structures. When drawing on the theoretical approaches of external and internal decolonisation I looked into experiences of Indigenous peoples today, and I saw that forms of Indigenous feminism and standpoint are very central to looking at contemporary forms of Indigeneity.

156

In an earlier example of the effects of external colonialism I discussed the appropriation of lands and waters by settlers. Indigenous rights to land and water are at the core of the Indigenous feminist movement, as our women are represented as givers of life like the earth. The impact of the external colonial approach on understandings of Indigenous women and Indigenous cultures can be viewed through Moreton-Robinson’s standpoint theory. She argues that women are not separated from the earth but are one, whereas western feminism, especially through their part in the colonial process of expropriation for capital gain, has itself separated women and earth. But like I wrote earlier Indigenous women still are working with non-Indigenous women in the decolonial process of changing the white male patriarchal systems that linger in our societies today.

Internal colonial process is experienced through the daily relations of Indigenous women and citizens, policies and laws of the nation state. This is best viewed through the life writings of Indigenous women in the Hip Hop scene. Indigenous feminism within Hip Hop culture is about bringing forward the strong voice of Indigenous women in their daily struggles within their societies. In the song “Black and Deadly” Naomi raps about her experiences of being an Indigenous woman who has “made it”. She calls out her non- Indigenous disbelievers by referencing that fact that their children and community are accepting her through her music and not through stereotypes of Indigenous people that are out there.

Indigenous feminism is not just in the raps from women in Hip Hop. It can be viewed in songs written by men, like those of the Snotty Nose Rez Kids. Their song “The Water” talks about the respect for women through the teachings of the land and recognises our women as creators of the world. The first verse goes:

Yeah. Before I go in, I got a question…

where would we be without our matriarchs?

Dear mama, you gave me light and you gave me life

157

you gave me dreams to get me through the night

You told me not to follow Christ

that the Creator needs no sacrifice, thanks for all the good advice

misdemeanours full life lessons. (Kids, 2017)

The song is an ode to “mamas”. Snotty Nose Rez Kids ask: “where would we be without our matriarchs?” This view demonstrates that Indigenous feminism in Hip Hop is not just represented by the women rappers and their music, but you can see this form in raps written by men. In my interview with Dobby, an Indigenous artist in Australia, he also brings this idea forward, when he repeats the message from another artist Brother Black:

There is a quote from, I think it’s Brother Black, the same person who says we don’t say bitch umm “we don’t say bitch because that’s our Mothers country, that’s our Grandmother, that’s our Aunty” so he links it up to this idea of you know this Indigenous family values and the idea that the community is based on family and family is something you have to respect, even in the Hip Hop realm. Which is a beautiful way that Hip Hop has been adapted to Indigenous values. We try our best to not disrespect women, with that being said we need more Indigenous women who are rapping, because I definitely do believe there is an imbalance. (Dobby, 24 Murrawarri)

Just like Snotty Nose Rez Kids in Canada Dobby makes the point that the connection of country and the women is viewed as sacred. He refers to “country” aligning it with mothers, grandmothers and aunties. In the last part of this quote Dobby calls for more women to be a part of the Indigenous Hip Hop movement.

Indigenous Hip Hop is not the only Hip Hop movement that shows appreciation and respect for women, but these lyrics and interviews suggest that respect for the land and in essence our women is at the core of Indigenous identity. As I was writing this chapter the

158

2019 Grammy Awards were taking place and that year Cardi B, one of the newest women in Hip Hop just won Best Rap Album. She is the first woman to win this award, which demonstrates that mainstream Hip Hop is changing and bringing forward and supporting women in Hip Hop.

“Masculindians” – Indigenous Men and Decolonisation

As I said at the beginning of this chapter the aim of this research was to present the view of Indigenous women and men, so to follow the feminist research I also did some research in masculinity to see how Indigenous men are viewed and how they are recreating and decolonising their identities. “Masculindians” is a term created by Sam McKegney (2014) as a way to see how the masculinity of Indigenous men in North America has been portrayed. The goal of this research is a decolonial one that looks at the role of Indigenous men within an Indigenous context. In his writings, McKegney asks should masculinity be studied? The many Indigenous people he spoke to responded, like Dobby didearlier, by saying that there is Women’s and Men’s Business and this needs to be respected. So, this part of the research is still very new research and I take caution to not bring forward the view of the colonial view of Indigenous men, like the one Dr Gooding discussed about Black men. McKegney states that:

Rather, the emphasis must be on exploring sources of wisdom, strength, and possibility within Indigenous cultures, stories, and lived experiences and creatively mobilizing of that knowledge in processes of empowerment and decolonisation (McKegney 2014).

This is where McKegney’s research is very similar to that of the Indigenous feminist research, as it is about the lived experience of Indigenous men who need to be the main voice within the research and writing. The main role of this section is to explore the Indigenous male experience in and through Hip Hop and to discuss when and how it promotes men to live in balance with women. It explores the different impact of the imposition of western patriarchal gender roles on Indigenous men.

159

In colonial Australia and Canada the relationships that were originally created with Indigenous groups were based on the Eurocentric view that men are the ones to make decisions on behalf of their communities. A lot of Indigenous communities in Canada and Australia were matriarchal at the time of contact and had a balance of powers. Many important stories of our women are passed down in ceremony and community events. The Indigenous and settler relations created through the nation state gave unauthorised power to Indigenous men to make decisions for their communities, some of them were against some teachings of various Indigenous societies. Indigenous men became the actors within the patriarchal system through their participation in the positions of “Chiefs’” and “CEOs” of Reserves, Indigenous political organisations, Land Councils and so on. It is not that men in traditional societies weren’t leaders, but they were not the only decision makers in communities as was the case for men from European backgrounds at the time of contact.

Also, Indigenous men were given identities that were created through the written works of European men. For example, as Barney (2010) looks into the strong stoic Indian in Canada was created by Europeans, and that controlled the identity of Indigenous men. This has created a static hyper-masculine image of Indigenous men:

The “arbitrary process” of masculinity is, of course, complicated in contemporary Indigenous contexts by the layering of racialised, patriarchal gender systems over pre-existing, tribally specific cosmologies of gender—impositions conducted through colonial technologies like the residential and boarding school systems, legislative alterations to Indigenous structures of governance by the Indian Act in Canada and the Bureau of Indian Affairs in the U.S., and the forced removal of Indigenous communities from traditional hunting and fishing grounds to reserves and reservations (Barney, 2010 p. 2).

This passing on of the system of patriarchy is called “patriarchal dividends” (Connell, 1998). “Patriarchal dividends” are the passing of power from one male to another. When governments created “Acts” to civilise the Indigenous peoples in Canada and Australia one

160

can see—through the examples given earlier of political powers created for Indigenous men in the nation state systems— they left out the voice and “power” of Indigenous women.

Writing on the term “Aboriginalism” Barney (2010) describes this worldview as created through the early, male dominated study of Anthropology of Indigenous communities, at a time when non-Indigenous women were still seen as the “property of men”.

In this Aboriginalist and patriarchal framework Aboriginal women are viewed in the following way—"Aboriginals = animals; women = domestic property of men; therefore Aboriginal women= domestic property of men who can be treated like animals” (Barney, 2010 p.217).

This way of seeing Indigenous peoples allowed for the women to be dehumanised and to also be seen as being owned by men. This passing of the baton of power was not one that automatically gave Indigenous men power when the nation states where dealing with Indigenous peoples. As we can see as much as women were seen by Anthropologists and other as property of Indigenous men and men in general, Indigenous men were not given the same position of power within the colonial system, as non-Indigenous men. They were still seen as animals or less intelligent than white males or one can even say lesser than anyone in white society in general (including women and children.) As Connell (1998) points out, this power generates the unequal sets of dividends given to men of different communities. This passing on of patriarchal dividends has created an unequal playing field for Indigenous women and for their voices within community politics and has helped set up a hyper-masculine role for Indigenous men. Colonial interference has created a lack of balance, in both traditional and contemporary relationships, between Indigenous men and women, where the roles of the men have been aligned with the hypermasculine approach McKegney (2014) writes about, and has, thus, created an Indigenous patriarchal mode, that tries to mirror that of the non-Indigenous nation state.

161

Indigenous men in Hip Hop are at the forefront of creating a new Indigenous male identity that is in harmony with women, and men’s traditional roles. This can be witnessed through watching, listening and reading the lyrics of the song “Warpath” by Drezus. Drezus also known as Jeremiah Manitopyes is an Indigenous Hip Hop artist who is based in Winnipeg Manitoba but has Nehiyaw roots in Saskatchewan. Drezus was brought forward a lot in interviews with the youth in Canada as a leader in Indigenous Hip Hop. When I was doing my research he had recently won an MTV music award for being a part of the song “#NODAPL” in which many Indigenous Hip Hop artists joined together to the call for a stop to the Dakota Access Pipeline.

“Warpath” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8Cy1Knyu6A) By Drezus

Produced by 2oolman

Album Indian Summer

[Verse 1] First You should know that I have risen through the fire in colorful buckskin The object of my desire is the color of my skin So divided are my kin Watch me turn the tables, ‘til we eatin' like some kings In beautiful headdresses, the culture is so impressive I'm just hopin' I absorb it when He passing me the message Cause baby, it's depressing livin' in this mess we call a home We should take it back to chokers restin' on the collarbone Arrowheads ride alone, the enemy like Styrofoam Piercing through the strongest armor, death and genocidal form And still I stand, a singular red man With Jupiter-sised heart, forever reppin' my clan The eagle's an old man, watchin' over my plans

162

Talking real sh, baby No fakey here for the fans I'm shoutin' out Bobby Jones, my Auntie, my Mushum George I'm drawing all of my strength from my people here before me, man

[Chorus] Big Chief in the building, everybody take your place (hooh!) Remove your feelings if you wanna ride with me (hooh!) We about to go to war right now, no petty ass beef (hooh!) And when it all go down, who's gonna ride with me? (hooh!) And when it all go down, who's gonna ride with me? (hooh!) And when it all go down, who's gonna ride with me? (hooh!) And when it all go down, who's gonna ride with me? (hooh!) And when it all go down, who's gonna ride with me?

[Verse 2] Blessed is the man with sons who walk beside him There's not enough leaders out there, we should be ridin' They left our people broken, but homie, don't play the possum Learn to grow yourself, the set 'Cause you can bet there's nothing promised They sayin' I'm a problem, they call me public enemy But they don't understand that, I hold it down for my family And I hate it when they say that I won't be sh cause I'm Native Cause in my mind we the strongest, we were built up for the ages

[Bridge] Ay, give me back mine 'fore I take that You don't want that, where my rays at? Put them up power, the blade of the sweetgrass Put a prayer up

163

If you ain't gonna ride, get back with your weak ass No room for the weak, or the type of speech that brings us down Need them soldiers to be strong, when the bad man come to town Ride out

[Chorus] Hooh! Big Chief in the building, everybody take your place (hooh!) Remove your feelings if you wanna ride with me (hooh!) We about to go to war right now, no petty ass beef (hooh!) And when it all go down, who's gonna ride with me? (hooh!) And when it all go down, who's gonna ride with me? (hooh!) And when it all go down, who's gonna ride with me? (hooh!) And when it all go down, who's gonna ride with me? (hooh!) And when it all go down, who's gonna ride with me? (Drezus, 2015)

This rap refers to a traditional masculine role - the warrior - that is still alive within the Canadian Indigenous community. The trope of the warrior is often based on a generic hyper-masculine view of Indigenous men around the world. This warrior trope is often met with great concern by Indigenous peoples, as the history books have not only represented Indigenous men as warriors, but also have them killed in the end. This concern comes back to the idea of “masculindians” (McKegeney, 2014). The warrior to the white man is both strong and vigilant, but also weak, which is seen to explain the disappearance of Indigenous people at the start of the colonial period. What Drezus does in his lyrics is to bring forward a song that empowers men:

They left our people broken, but homie, don't play the possum Learn to grow yourself, the set 'Cause you can bet there's nothing promised They sayin' I'm a problem, they call me public enemy But they don't understand that, I hold it down for my family

164

And I hate it when they say that I won't be sh cause I'm Native Cause in my mind we the strongest, we were built up for the ages

This view of Indigenous men, for example a “public enemy”, often promulgated by colonisers, has led to the destruction of their identities as men who love, share emotions and who care for one another, for women in their community and for their children as loving caring fathers. This lack of emotion that men are expected to have is only one way. The Hip Hop fan Paige views Hip Hop helping Indigenous men:

I feel like most of the space is men, I don’t think it is just meant for them. I think it is really good that men are a part of rap music, mostly because I don’t know how else they express themselves. I feel like men in relationships, when it is hard to get things out … off, most likely because they grew up certain way were self-expression wasn’t really common so they would go to rap music. But I know women are really self- expressive as well, they want to be heard, most likely cause it is a man run world right? Not a lot of our voices are being heard I do think it is meant for everybody (Paige 23, Métis/Cree).

Paige suggests Rap music can be seeing as a form of self-expression that allows men to be vulnerable, within a genre that boosts hyper-masculine images. What Paige brings forward the point that Rap is a space that allows Indigenous men to express their relationship with themselves, their communities and the nation state that allows them to be human and contemporary. As a young Indigenous woman, Paige can see the value that Rap has for these young men to express their needs in a form that allows them to go beyond the stoic Indian to an expressive man with feelings and a need to be heard.

Indigenous male Hip Hop artists do not escape their responsibility to represent woman in a respectful way. This past year Snotty Nose Rez Kids brought out a new album called “Trapline” (2019) that was met with some tension from fans. In their song “Son of a

165

Matriarch” they use the words “real women” to represent the call for women to take more leadership roles for our people. Taking responsibility came back to them through a fan who was insulted telling them that these lines were transphobic. They were also called out for their song “Crazy” as promoting an unhealthy view of mental health issues. It was these critiques of their album that had them write a long response on their Facebook page acknowledging their downfall in writing these lyrics. I will now share a section of the Facebook response that demonstrates that Indigenous Hip Hop groups like Snotty Nose Rez Kids value and uphold the values of respect, reciprocity and responsibility in their relationship with their fans and community. They wrote:

“SOAM” & “Crazy” have problematic lyrics. We see how the use of certain words have combined in our lyrics to portray a narrative that contributes to sexism, transmisogyny, ableism, and reproduces the stigma and shame surrounding mental health. We want to make a commitment to being different from mainstream rap, we will not feature demeaning portrayals of women in any of our future lyrics or albums. This is important to us as Indigenous men. Our intention was to promote the beauty of our cultures and peoples, but we failed to fully understand the impact of our lyrics. We did not represent trans women, two-spirit people, and gender non- binary/conforming people from our Indigenous community. We are grateful for the teachings and those teaching will be reflected in our actions going forward. (Facebook, Snotty Nose Rez Kids July 31, 2019)

To continue this dialogue, I now have a section specifically for the interview question I had on is Hip Hop a male space to end this chapter. The voice of the youth is important, and I wanted to try my best to showcase their voice on any gender issues they may see or feel within Hip Hop itself and within Indigenous Hip Hop particularly.

Is Hip Hop a Male Space? Decolonizing the Gaze on Hip Hop (Misogyny)

Space is something that can be viewed as physical, social, and spiritual. Here I want to think about looking at the social structures that create what can be seen as a “male space” within

166

society. Hip Hop and Rap specifically are seen as male spaces. Is this the right assumption to make? To examine this within Indigenous Hip Hop I had to go back to the roots of Hip Hop. I wanted to know how is space created and used to advantage or disadvantage people? Martina Löw’s (2006) exploration of space looks at space through the idea of exclusion. Löw (2006) argues it is examining exclusions that allows us to see the discrepancies of access within a certain space:

The synthesizing activity required here points towards the possible existence of highly diverse culture- gender- or class-specific exclusion, and thus at the same time to the possibility of spatial relevance systems. The practice of placing, in turn, itself opens our eyes to hierarchic orderings and social structuring’s (p. 120).

Through Löw’s idea we are able to look at Hip Hop and how this space has excluded the voices of women. Through examining this we can come to the root of the problems that exist within Hip Hop itself. Through my examples I show how Indigenous Hip Hop counters these exclusions within society, but as brought up before, there is resistance to finding the roots of exclusion of people that don’t fit the image of the Black male thug.

Hip Hop started in the 1970’s but in the 1980’s it hits its global beginnings, and by looking back we see that there have always been women in the scene. As Dobby states in his interview with me:

Hip Hop in America, I don’t wanna say it is, is misogynistic, but it grew to be quite misogynistic. Umm, … and then you got, rappers that are coming out of that. It was like an outwards inward outwards movement. It started out with a lot of young black males rapping, but there was some great, great female Hip Hop rappers, that are chronicled in scholarly literature. I mean you just look at Trisha Rose, she’s probably the biggest Hip Hop scholar in America, and she looks at Queen Latifah, she looks at Missy Elliot, she looks at Lauryn Hill. She looks at … umm … there are countless

167

others. About how it came about, it has become more misogynistic and male dominant (Dobby, 24 Murrawarri).

Dobby views Hip Hop’s beginning stages as being very friendly for women to participate in. Hip Hop in its infancy was full of party anthems, fun and real stories of accomplishment.

According to Toby Jenkins (2011), it is in post 1990’s that Hip Hop gets its hard tone of Gangsta rap that meets the needs of white people to “other” rappers from mainstream society. This creates a representation of a sub-culture that goes against the grain of the nation state. He uses the example of the song “The Message” by Grand Master Flash as the start of the Gangsta rap movement. He writes that this is the point that Hip Hop goes from storytelling of the lived experience to a structure that becomes what most people see as Hip Hop.

There is a strong difference between the “message” and insight that this song provided into the lived realities of urban poverty and the post-1990s “script” that followed the initial emergence of gangsta rap, where all artists (regard-less of how truthful) had to be gangstas, pimps, thugs, or millionaires (Kitwana, 2002; Watkins, 2005) (Jenkins, 2011 p. 1232).

It is in this era that Hip Hop becomes internationally renowned and the messages that come from the “script” help create the view of the genre being hard and misogynistic. It is during this time that not only does the “script” change for men in Hip Hop, buy you also see less female empowered Hip Hop coming to the forefront, as the intellectual Black women doesn’t sell to international audiences, or meet the social view created for them.

In society Hip Hop is now being measured through pop culture values. What was really being measured was monetary value, and now social media numbers are also being measured. Through this form of validation, we see that what sells is the representation

168

created for Hip Hop from the 1990’s to present day. In the interview with MC Nite Sun she reiterates this:

Hip Hop is interesting with the way it is represented because in mainstream you see mainly male vessels that are putting out their songs and really trying their best to sell their cd’s, most music videos have mostly male rappers. I find it has a lot to do with the colonialist preference towards wanting to give society what they want. And they think society would rather listen to a man and not a woman. It doesn’t matter to me, because a person is just a spirit living in a body that they have to learn to love. And that is where my understanding comes with also coming to grips with who I am as a spiritual being. I now just recently accepted myself as a queer person. I find that connection is dependent on how you relate to another spirit then relating to their body” (Nite Sun 23 Mètis/Cree).

MC Nite Sun brings forward the point that has been discussed previously and shown through representations of Indigenous male and female performers. The Aboriginalism discourse by Barney (2011) shows how our society perpetuates these attitudes by controlling who and how Indigenous performance is represented.

This research on Indigenous Hip Hop has focused on the movement of Hip Hop that has Indigenous values at the core of the music. There is still the side of Indigenous Hip Hop that has “Gangsta” values and rhymes that are harder and about the struggle of Indigenous people mainly in urban ghettos. This form of Indigenous Hip Hop - about empowerment through cultural values - is still new and comes with a warning from one of the artist interviewed that some “violent” stories are still there:

You got to be careful, a lot of Indigenous Hip Hop has been influenced by the previous Hip Hop which is like misogynistic its violent and it perpetuates addiction, all these issues and dysfunctions that the usual Hip Hop artist carry. So, you have to

169

be careful with the crowd you hang out with, as they influence you to drink more, use drugs, be part of a gang. You might do something for someone to be down. You can go about it in a good way. But you got to be careful, ‘cause right now the state that it is in, like I said the culture being spreading that positive message is in its infancy right now. So, you gotta real be careful with what fires you are feeding. It can be, like me I do it in a positive way (Strife, 30 Anishanaabe).

This truth comes from Strife who has grown up in Winnipeg, Canada in what people refer to as the “Struggle”. His lived experience, including turning his life around for a better future for himself, his family and friends, is in his actions of completing his degree as well as rapping positive messages.

This brings forward the decolonial factors that are in place within Indigenous Hip Hop, factors that give space to women to participate in the genre of Indigenous Hip Hop. In Rebollo-Gil and Mora’s (2012) paper on Black women and Black men in Hip Hop music one can see how Indigenous Hip Hop has been able to develop itself into a form that allows an Indigenous Hip Hop to exist alongside the original Hip Hop forms. They write:

Even more telling of the genre’s ever expansive reach has been its ability to cross national borders and mix and mesh with other musical styles and genres, reinventing itself in each setting to reflect the needs and desires of each community that practices it. Taking this into consideration, it would be ludicrous to reduce the music’s lyrical content to sex and violence, and this would end up negating the potential for social critique and social action the music ultimately harbors (p. 120).

Rebollo-Gil and Moras are able to connect the dots of Hip Hop as being a flowing cultural movement that is changing and being re-evaluated all the time. It is through this that one can see how Indigenous decolonisation is able to be at the forefront of Indigenous Hip Hop

170

as seen in the lyrics about cultural values, and also how it involves women in all parts of the process of this decolonisation.

However, if the Indigenous Hip Hop movement is so women friendly, why are there not many more Indigenous female rappers? In the interviews, a common idea brought forward is that of ‘confidence’. As this research has brought forward having a lack of confidence can be at the roots of many women Indigenous performers feelings in relation to mainstream society. The view of the Warrior is front and centre. This image has been passed to other forms of music that Indigenous people participate in and can be seen in Indigenous Hip Hop. The following is an excerpt from interviews that hold this view about why the space of Indigenous Hip Hop is still male dominated.

No, definitely not, it’s just not a lot of good females out there at it; I think. There is few and far between, but I mean there is not a lot into it or just goddamn shy. Especially if it is Indigenous, I was just telling my Mom today was like “awe man why do natives walk like this, like you know are we that badly damaged” like come on man, stick it out, shoulders up, chest out, stomach in you can do this. You know, do I have to tell them through the music? I definitely do not think it is about males definitely not about males. I just think there is not a lot of females doing it or pushing it; or if there is they are not recognised. But I do hear like, just cause I have a lot of friends in the Hip Hop world, they’ll be like that chick sucks or whatever, and I’m just like ‘fuck you all better not be talkin about me like that’ then they are like ‘No girl you were good’ and stuff like that. It’s a lot, there could be a lot of sexist issues going on. But at the same time, I’m a total tomboy so I’m like Fuck’em. I am just as good as the guys if not better. Fuck y’all, let’s do this battle, if we gots to, we gots to. I’m totally ‘Power to the Women’. So I am sticking out for them, like ‘hell no’ to the men. We’re here, if not we’re coming up (Pooky G, Métis).

Pooky brings forward a few good points here on women and confidence, the attitudes men in the business have, and the empowerment that comes from being an Indigenous female

171

rapper. She talks about girls being “shy” and relating it to not just Indigenous females but to Indigenous people generally. This idea of lack of confidence can be seen through her words as being about a form of intergenerational trauma that has left our people walking around looking defeated. She asks: “are we that badly damaged”. The attitudes of men in the business as seeing a woman in rap as less than men – Pooky says “they are not recognised”- can be attributed to the “patriarchal dividends” men get in Hip Hop and in Indigenous communities (Connell, 1998). Her sense of the empowerment she holds in the space of Hip Hop, is about being a woman, in her words “I’m totally ‘Power to the Women’ so I am sticking out for them, like hell no to the men. We’re here, if not we’re coming up”. Women are “coming” like a big wave. In the next few years I see the movement of women in Hip Hop as one that will be on an equal standing as men in Hip Hop. That said, there will still be ebbs and flows of gender equality within Hip Hop like there is in mainstream society.

In the interview with Paige she brings forward the idea that Indigenous Hip Hop including women, should not be seen in terms of equality but as a natural form of using Indigenous knowledges. She does state that she sees women as being “timid” when it comes to taking up space within Indigenous Hip Hop, but also does not see the barrier as being about their gender. She said:

I do believe that most of the space that is being taken up is done so by men. But most of the people I know, you know they are welcoming, these Indigenous rappers are welcoming. They want every part of Indigenous aspects to be in rap, or in what they have to say. That includes the women they are with, who like to rap. I don’t think that they think that women shouldn’t be in there. I think some women are a little bit timid to take that step into that space. Someone like my sister Elizabeth and even me we like the attention and we like to express ourselves so were just these women who want to be a part of that space either way, we want people to hear what we have to say (Paige, 22 Metis/Cree).

172

The voice of Indigenous people getting their stories out is the main concept Paige talks about. Women in her view are “timid” to take up the space but then she brings herself and her sister forward as women who are taking up space in the Indigenous Hip Hop movement. She says: “Someone like my sister Elizabeth and even me we like the attention and we like to express ourselves”. She goes on to say that people want to hear what she has to say. Confidence in having a voice is something that is a struggle within Indigenous communities, as our voices like those of our ancestors have gone on to be ignored or when heard are set out as being in opposition to the goals of the nation state. As you will see in the next chapter, it is the women in Canada that are leading social change for Indigenous women and men through the Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women’s (MMIW) movement.

The lack of voice for women in the space of Hip Hop can also be viewed through the lack of healthy sexuality being represented for Indigenous women. Indigenous women have long been seen by non-Indigenous society as animalistic property and not as human women with a sexuality, desires and the ability to give and receive love. This attitude can be viewed in the MMIW movement. This lack of sexuality is what Alliyah brings forward in her interview.

I love that kinda of sort of storytelling. You don’t hear that cause it’s not in the big focus of Indigenous Rap, especially as a woman you’ll never hear, you can hardly ever hear, an Indigenous woman talking about her femininity, because it is something that hasn’t been valued as a whole in this country. Indigenous women aren’t supposed to be feminine. They’re supposed to be hard, supposed to be a little, you know, rough or hoodlum-esque. You hear in Last Kinection and Princess Nokia talking about how they’re still going to look good, ‘they possibly take your man,’ ‘if they want too,’ because there not going to do that cause we are sisters and that kinda thing. And your like, ‘thank you for saying that’, because I am listening to that and thinking ‘I look good, I love myself, I’m hectic and I can do all this stuff’ (Alliyah, 20 Torres Strait Islander and Larakia).

173

The femininity of Indigenous women is based on the animal perspective brought forward in colonial stories. She told me: “they’re supposed to be hard, supposed to be a little, you know? Rough or hoodlum-esque”. The teachings of many societies to hold women as feminine is also to see them as precious beings, which goes against the colonial mentality of Indigenous women being hard. It is most likely this paradox of being hard and not feminine that also keeps a lot of young girls from participating in Hip Hop as they are already fighting the perception that they are not feminine. So, to harden themselves up to participate in Hip Hop culture takes that femininity away, a femininity that they are working towards regaining.

As was said at the end of Pooky’s quote, we can also see that there is a camaraderie of womanhood that comes from Hip Hop as well. In the song “For Women by Women” by T- Rhyme and Briskool, they celebrate womanhood and also counter the perceptions of women being controlled by patriarchy. This song relates directly to the words of these participants.

“For women by women” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kqUdA9IA-o&feature=youtu.be)

by Briskool and T-Rhyme

Yeah Yeah, Who are we doing this for? For women by women For women by women For women by women

Who are we doing this for? For women by women For women by women For women by women Ride or die women Stay fly and hold us high women

174

For women by women For women by women Ride or die women Stay fly and hold us high women

This is for my girls who don’t give a damn about perceptions For women by women Is in session Unapologetic, powerful and poetic And you better believe that if I want it, I can get it I apply liner slow and just so My body, my temple decorated like a pro My body, my temple, make mistakes as I go Honestly unperfect, I just love me though Fashion over function since the 90’s Impress the boys, man that stuffs behind me Sneakers on point, I just can’t miss You won’t catch me in heels until they’re genderless Relax my mid-section and eat something healthy Not trying to be somebody’s trophy or wifey

Media keeps telling me, be who you want to be And at the same time bombarding me with Patriarchal imagery Try to tell the next gen to not give a shit Plotting revolution while applying lipstick Try to tell the next gen to not give a shit While plotting revolution For women by women

Nails done; hair done everything did But sometimes I see ratchet in the cover of my crib Cause I can do anything and everything big I don’t need to compensate, for what you like, it’s your biz I say it repeatedly; I do this for the kids

175

We have to raise them up to have this knowledge in their heads Women are important, women are the world Identify your hyper inner child a little girl We living in the time puttin pressure on these queens Focus on appearance, not enough to perceive their dreams Smash the patriarchy, interfering with means It is our own duty to reclaim it into being

You can call me a bitch, a feminist I don’t care I’m too focused on my own, put my hands in the air Unless you are an ally, keep your opinions over there Cause I do what I want, Kiss my bannock derriere

Who are we doing this for? For women by women For women by women For women by women Ride or die women Stay fly and hold us high women For women by women For women by women Ride or die women Stay fly and hold us high women (repeat 4 times) (Briskool, 2019)

“For Women, By Women” is an anthem that is about the past, present and future. It is about women gaining the confidence to take up space in the world. It is bringing past cultural values to the present to ensure the future holds them as well. The video for this song was shot with Indigenous women who are healthy happy and confident. The message here is to empower women, but it also responds to men doubting them and states that they don’t care “cause I do what I want, kiss my bannock derriere.”

176

Finally, I want to end with Strife from our conversation on this topic. This message that Strife brings forward is exactly the message that is being represented in Indigenous Hip Hop. He told me:

It is definitely a male space. It is slowly changing. There are female artists that are coming out, like Snow. She is a Mexican or Spanish rapper coming out in the states. Yeah, I think there a lot more female artists that are starting gain more confidence and what not, ‘cause women are starting to take charge of their lives, as they have been suppressed for so long, and like I said, it links back to the colonialism. Cause when I did my research in university, I did my first research paper. I got an A plus on it. I fished real deep into the conquistador diaries and stuff. I found out the main source, they said the Ojibway’s were the hardest to convert, the two braided Ojibway’s. And they said that the only key to breaking that society down was to kill the matriarchal system and make sure the women were not head of the clans anymore, cause the warriors would lose their direction and stuff right. Now that, that it is coming back, we need our women to be healthy cause men can’t do it on their own. I think that it is slowly evolving into something that is going to be a regular thing (Strife, 30 Akwasesne).

The regular thing Strife brings forward is that balance of women and men that is needed and will happen in Indigenous Hip Hop. Within most Indigenous teachings in Canada and Australia women are important and vital to our survival. The references of our women as the land or in Australia as “Country” are important values that guide Indigenous Hip Hop and the Indigenous communities in their struggles with the nation state. As we will see in the next chapter, the resistance that comes from Indigenous communities comes from the lack of respect for the land, the women and cultures.

Conclusion to Chapter 5

This chapter on decolonisation has explored the settler relationships with Indigenous people and argued that these relationships need to be decolonised. The second section was based

177

on different forms of decolonisation that Indigenous women are leading for themselves, and their community, as women. It also explored briefly the stereotype that Indigenous men face and how Indigenous Hip Hop is promoting a healthier decolonial version of masculinity for future generations. It also showed how these men are being held accountable for their sexist lyrics in the music. Looking at Hip Hop itself and asking the question about whether Indigenous Hip Hop is a male space meant this research found out about a lot of the experiences and views that youth have about gender issues in Hip Hop. Their voices suggest there seems to be a movement to increase voices of women in Hip Hop, but a slow decolonial project is also happening at the same time. So, when looking into Indigenous Hip Hop there is a resurgence of traditional knowledge that is coming forward through having an Indigenous worldview at the centre of the lyrics and intentions of the music, and this worldview includes the views of Indigenous women.

178

Chapter 6 - Indigenous Resistance - Iyisâhowin7

Indigenous Resistance as a Personal Journey When I think of Indigenous resistance I think of my own self. I think about my ancestors and how they endured the darkest years of settler colonial times from contact, to the mass genocides and forced assimilation perpetrated by settlers and colonial governments. I am here, my body, my mind, my life is a reminder to the colonial regime that they failed. Resistance to the colonial project is in my blood, it is in my history, it is a part of my identity. I think this is why I relate to Indigenous Hip Hop so much. It is my story as a collective memory of others conveyed through their ancestors and their experiences and expressed in rap. How I related to the artists and the youth I interviewed is key to this research, them seeing their lives through my eyes it allows me to model another form of resistance to others. I as a Nêhiyaw man with a bachelors, masters and soon a PhD shows a path of resistance within the academic circle of life. My presence on a university campus interrupts the narrative that my people are of the past, we are savages. Instead we managed to keep the Indian in the child and grow to be ‘Indians’ in academia. When I am home with my cousins who live ‘In the struggle’ they have these interpretations that my life as a university educated person is so much more privileged than theirs, which is not true in my experiences. The physical wars they face on the street is just as daunting as the intellectual war of words faced by Indigenous academics around the globe. Though academia is changing, the base knowledges of the social sciences and research with Indigenous peoples is on one of evolutionary change. Indigenous people are still viewed as primitive. Baseline teachings of Indigenous worldviews are still framed around distance from modernity and of knowledge being located in the past and not in the current underpinnings of Indigenous peoples and their knowledges. This thesis is a form of resistance. Using the Methodology, I designed, to intentionally resist the use of the “traditional” philosophers of the ancestors of the settlers. Decolonizing through the view of Indigenous feminism has allowed the research to respect and return the original position Indigenous women held prior to and during colonisation. This chapter looks

7 iyisâhowin ᐃᔨᓵᐦᐅᐃᐧᐣ NI resistance, resisting temptation, restraint (CW), Cree dictionary

179

at some movements of Indigenous resistance at the community level and looks at the way they spread rapidly through the use of social media. Indigenous people today are very social media savvy, their engagement in these spaces mirror our existing connections, our relational ways of being and systems of kinship. These movements are resistance through the community concern that usually starts with our women, like we see with Idle No More and the anti-pipeline protest in Canada; as well as the call of mothers, sisters, wife’s and daughters keeping vigil in the Deaths in Custody movement, or the Grandmothers fighting for their families with Grandmothers Against Removals (GMAR) in Australia. It is the inherent matriarchal calls of Indigenous women that continue to lead these social media movements globally. Hip Hop itself has been a vessel in which to sustain and bring forward these messages. I will begin this chapter by honouring the spirit and story of a loved one, whose story speaks to the continued situation for murdered and missing Indigenous people globally. Social movements like the sociological imagination start from a question we have from an experience within society. July long weekend in 2012 one of my life-long friends Darlene’s daughter - Tonesha - was murdered in a home break and enter. She was 16 years-old, an athlete, a scholar, a traditional dancer. She loved beading and loved her family. Her life was full of positivity and all that knew her respected and cared for her. That particular weekend she was staying at her aunties in the city of Edmonton. Her and her father were participating as dancers at the Alexander First Nations Pow-wow. That evening they got home very late from the pow-wow and went to bed. It was suspected that she heard noise in the front room of the house, as she came out, she was attacked, and they had a scuffle but in the end the intruder killed her with his knife. I remember getting the call about what happened, I did not know what to do, I have never had to deal with a death like this so close to me. I never knew Tonesha very well, besides being the daughter of my best friend and sister in spirit, she was close to my nieces and nephews as they went to school, played sports together and had close friendships. So, the day the news got out I did not contact Darlene right away, I did not know how to be a friend in this context. I went to my dad’s house to ask him for his guidance on this, at this time one of my nieces was there, crying and in shock, not knowing how to understand how

180

this happened as her and Tonesha were just texting the evening before. All my dad said to me is contact Darlene she needs your support. The hurt and pain of my friend was unbearable at time, she wanted me by her side throughout the process of planning her daughter’s send off to the spirit world. I stayed by her side a lot at this time, she wanted me there. I remember her asking to not let anyone touch her for a while, she needed her own space and as every person came into the room for the wake they wanted to console her, but for the most part she felt she was consoling everyone else while they had their breakdowns on shoulder. Tonesha’s death brought forward a huge amount of people from all over to come and support her family. The funeral in the end had to be at the Town of Slave Lakes recreation centre as there were hundreds if not more than a thousand people who came out. Tonesha touched so many people in her life, but in the circumstances of her passing and timing, her spirit helped people in the province of Alberta to see the vulnerability of our young Indigenous women. My friend Darlene is never going to get over this, her heart is forever broken, she has found a bit of herself again with the strength of her family and friends, but she has a hard time leaving the Town of Slave Lake as that is where her daughter lies. I am happy I was living back home at this time to be there for Darlene. Her pain and grief are hidden these days through the daily grind of life, but she probably will never recover from the loss of her oldest child. But the strength that came from the Indigenous and non-Indigenous community of the province of Alberta was amazing and I think that is how Darlene was able to get through this all. I was at her side, I saw the thousands of flowers, cards and people wanting to be there to honour Tonesha and to support Darlene and Tonesha’s father. A lot of the support that came out were people that were involved with the Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women (#MMIW) movement.

181

Overview of Chapter 6 Indigenous resistance is nothing new to Indigenous people; Indigenous people at contact on the shores of the Americas and Australia all resisted the newcomers. This is told in the stories of the Beothuk in Canada and the Eora in Australia. In the 21st century we see Indigenous resistance in many forms, directed at many different forms of injustice that go back to settlers of the past and continue in the diverse present generation of settlers on Indigenous stolen lands. Indigenous resistance can be read in countless colonial journals and biographies. The learning stories of past leaders of Indigenous resistance at contact can be heard through stories of the Beothuk people of Eastern Canada. The story of Indigenous Resistance in Sydney can be showed with stories of two warriors at contact—Bennelong and Pelmuway—who both worked in resisting colonisation. Bennelong’s way of working was with the colony and Pelmuway’s way was through wars against the colony. Both the Beothuk People of Eastern Canada and the Eora People of Eastern Australia were brought to the point of extinction. Both communities are just recuperating their numbers and culture.

In today’s society one can see many forms of Indigenous resistance towards the nation state. In the Australian context, there are many movements that have brought to the fore the destructive terror of the colonial experience; Stop Black Deaths in Custody, Change the Date and Black Lives Matter are but a few examples. In Canada resistance through social movements is evidenced by the Murdered and Missing Women movement, Idle No More, anti-pipeline protests and Indigenous Lives Matter. The significance of these movements will be focused on in this chapter and the chapter will also draw links between Indigenous intergenerational resistance to issues trauma, resilience and collective healing.

The last chapter looked at decolonisation from messages coming out of the Indigenous Hip Hop movement. This chapter will look explore the connection between Indigenous resistance to the colonial governments, present and past, and to forms of assimilation and policies through the lens of Indigenous the Hip Hop movement’s 5th element. Using the idea of the 5th element the chapter explores modes of self- determination and its place within the Indigenous resistance movement. This chapter introduces Hip Hop’s 5th element and how it relates to forms of self-determination that the Indigenous communities gravitate to when speaking about their right to govern themselves

182

as peoples, communities and nations. Within the Hip-Hop cultural movement, the 5th element of Hip Hop culture is called ‘Knowledge of Self and Community’(Love, 2014). The idea of this 5th element is key when looking into how Indigenous youth take these ideas of knowledge and community to the Indigenous movement of self-determination.

When I interviewed Plex, he explained this element and others that are emerging within Hip Hop:

I mean there are so many different elements of Hip Hop. We always spoke about graffiti, dance, beat making -Djaying, MC’ing. Those are big parts of Hip Hop, but again with people like Ernie Panakoly, you’ve got photography which has been accepted as another element, but also videography, because videos are such an important part of as well. So, there are so many different things that people could tap into with hip hop. Before it was mainly just rapping. It’s not just about that anymore there is so many different elements within it, that draw youth in, draw people of all ages in. As far as the youth and self- determination, I have, I would have to say, is Hip Hop solely responsible for that? I’m not sure. But it is one thing they can use as a tool to get to that point (Plex, Métis, Artist).

This chapter uses an amalgamation of the idea of Indigenous self-determination and the 5th element of Knowledge of Self and Community as structures that enable a form Indigenous standpoint that can be understood as a form of resistance. It is through this idea of the 5th element that the various Indigenous forms of self-determination expressed in Hip Hop music can be brought forward. Hip Hop’s 5th element is what attracts Indigenous youth to Hip Hop culture, and vice versa is what attracts Indigenous youth to their cultures. Across my interviews there were three interviews I did with four youth who were into Hip Hop culture but did not listen to Indigenous Hip Hop. In interviews with youth like Dakota and artists like Leonard Sumner they expressed that their participation in their cultures came from the element of Hip Hop called the 5th element. They said that this inspired them to search their Indigenous identities. Their attraction to Hip Hop culture was connected to the 5th element. An example they gave of an artist who was a promoter of this 5th element was

183

Kendrick Lamar. The youth and artists related to his messages of community and his consciousness of his lived experiences within the American colonial regime.

Social Media in Relation to the Methodology Social Media plays an integral part in communication with present generations. Social media has been a great tool for Indigenous people. This section will look at some forms of relationality that social media provides to promote Indigenous resistance. In explaining these practises of relationality, I will use notes from my ethnographic fieldwork to illustrate how my research used social media to create relationships that follow my epistemological and axiological praxis. To end this section, I will provide an Acimowin with T-Rhyme.

Kinship Systems Kinship systems are very important to Indigenous people. Social media fosters new and past relationships with family and friends, it also allows people to connect and make new relationships. Social media played multiple roles within this research. It allowed me to identify as an Indigenous person to future participants and also allowed me to screen my participants for their Indigenous identity. Hiller and Carlson in their article ‘These are Indigenous Lands’ wrote about social media:

Users said they expressed Indigeneity through engaging in a range of online practices. Often this was achieved through openly asserting one’s heritage or kin through their social media profiles, particularly on Facebook and Twitter, where users can provide details or a brief description of ‘who they are’, including their nation/clan or country of birth (Hiller & Carlson, 2018).

Through social media I have been able to share the research throughout all steps of the process. I was able to do my recruitment for interviews through sharing posts on social media about my location and travels in Australia and Canada. In the epistemological section of the methodology I set out that a relational aspect needs to be established in a project. Because I used this this sense of relationality needed to be met before the participants were willing to meet with me. Using my personal Facebook page created a form of relationality with participants. This is because Facebook allows users to see friends you have in common.

184

When I interviewed Dyliverance and Rhythm Child in Edmonton, before we started the interview, we connected through friends we shared on Facebook, one being Nite Sun, who is my niece and is their friend from the Indigenous Hip Hop community. My website and blog page also created a form of trust, so when I would message people individually on Facebook about the research I would share the blog and the “about” page of the research to create an initial relationship of trust.

In January 2019, I was invited to speak at the Redfern Community Centre for Black Politiks on the topic of Voice. Treaty. Truth. This connection was made through Facebook, by Lynda-June Coe, the organiser of the event. Lynda-June and I never met in person, but through social media we became friends, both actively participating on each other’s pages through liking posts on our personal opinions, through memes and by sharing community information. During the event I was able to speak of my personal experiences as a First Nation’s person born into a treaty in Canada, and also speak about the messages of resurgence and resistance that have come out of my research. After our initial contact via Facebook Lynda-June and I continued using the platform to create an online friendship. Not only was social media used by me to connect with participants, it also allowed me to be involved and held accountable to the Redfern Indigenous community. This form of relationality through social media goes back to when Indigenous people used to meet initially in person. As stated in the methodology, one of the first things we communicate is who our family is and what community we come from to create an initial relationship that comes with accountability to our family and community when meeting people from new nations.

Sharing Circles/Yarning Circles Sharing circles/yarning circles are also central to Indigenous relationality. This form of sharing stories as a collective group is recognised within the academic circles:

In contemporary terms, among the more recognizable descriptions for these types of cultural mechanisms are those of the ‘Yarning Circle’ and the ‘Talking Circle’. The Yarning Circle description encompasses both modern and historic communal

185

gathering processes found amongst many Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations (Aseron et al., 2013).

Social media has become a new “circle” for sharing information on personal achievements and frustrations, family business, community events and different events that effect Indigenous peoples locally, regionally and globally. This new form allowed me as a researcher to share information to the community through social media and from the experience with Lynda-June in person. I would have not been invited to speak at the event if I wasn’t on social media and somehow I also became online friends with Lynda-June. The results of me sharing information on social media gave me the opportunity to share this research to the Redfern Community in person. This is showing that online sharing can lead to sharing at the community level and that in person accountability.

Participation in Community Participation in community is very important to Indigenous people. Social media allows people to participate in real time, allowing for a form or type of “self” determination based on their voices commenting on family, community, national and international issues. Participation in this form of resistance can be created from people globally by social media. Social media is able to reach Indigenous youth in urban settings, all the way to those living in remote communities. This can be credited to smart phones and their ability to connect to the internet in remote places.

Acting as a form of resistance, social media creates democratic engagement and conducts political participation allowing individuals to join in otherwise inaccessible conversations. Today social media gives Indigenous activists the ability to create a space for meaningful discourse. Social media also increases an individual’s agency and autonomy to participate in communication platforms (Indigenous Studies Module 11, University of Alberta, Alberta, 2016).

During my research I depended on social media to recruit people to participate in my research. In Canada I drove from Edmonton to Toronto and used social media to look up events and advertise that I was travelling through different towns and cities. While I was

186

driving back to Edmonton, I put up a post that I would be driving through Winnipeg in a couple days. I received a message from an Elder I know who lives and works in Winnipeg telling me to contact a youth for an interview. Within a few hours I organised an interview with this person, and when I got to Winnipeg, I had an interview scheduled.

Social media allowed Indigenous people to participate in this research as a participant or as a supporter through keeping active on the Indigenous Rap site on Facebook and my personal page. This creation of a community for the research through social media with the Indigenous Hip Hop community helped create a community for people who were interested in my research or just interested Indigenous Hip Hop. It also may have helped others with their identity. In Carlson’s study on Indigenous identities in social media she collected this great quote:

For some, social media also facilitated the production of a new or strengthened sense of identity. As another interviewee explained, ‘In helping to connect up with others across the country, I do get to feel more connected with my own sense of identity. It doesn’t operate by itself as an affirmation of identity, but it’s certainly an interesting space for talking about identity (male, 35–44, Redfern) (Carlson, 2016).

The point made by Carlson about social media and research is amazing as most research was dependent on location to be a constant. But as Carlson says and also my experience my locality was created through shared social media and not being in a physical place. Wherever, I was able to still communicate with multiple people and communities in Canada and Australia that identified with the research. The work was multi-cited in physicality but through the use of social media it allowed the process to run smooth in creating the relationships to conduct interviews for this research.

Social Capital Scarring and Eagle feathers are traditional forms of social capital for my people. Scaring through ceremony was important to show community members that you went through ceremony and that you had teachings that allowed you honour. Eagle feathers were a sign

187

of respect and are given when someone does a good deed for a community, in the past this was used to honour someone for a war they or their family member may have fought in. There is a movement presently to stop non-Indigenous people from wearing headdresses as these were not tokens of our identities but were tools of honour. You would start with one feather and eventually if you were a good person and had leaderships skills you would have enough to make a headdress for yourself. You knew you were talking to a respected person when they wore their headdress as each feather represented a deed they were honoured for within their community. The feathers are symbols of capital. This would be seen in western contexts as someone posting all their degrees and diplomas on their walls. The use of social media has created an environment that has seen the emergence of a form of social capital that allows Indigenous people to gain status through their connections on social media, and their honour is shown through how many friends they have on social media. By sharing stories, photos and videos of their experiences, as well as sharing information on their page, about events they are participating in or attending, they create a form of social capital that creates more friends online.

Our online identity gives us social capital both within, but also beyond our local community through the global friendships that social media creates. Marita Hefler and her co-author’s work on social capital, in relation to social media and its use within Indigenous communities in Canada and Australia, demonstrates this point: “An important finding in this study was how Facebook is used by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as a supportive online environment, which increased real-world social capital.” (Hefler et al., 2018) “Real-world” social capital is very important in Indigenous communities. What is distinct about the role of social media in this process is that being/happening in real time and being used by multiple sub-groups within the Indigenous communities social media creates a world of knowledge through the everyday sharing of information, from personal journeys to community driven programs and services As Tousignant and Sioui argue: “Social capital can be understood as the various resources within a community that need to circulate between many different groups (Women, men, grandparents, youth and children)”(cited in Molyneaux et al., 2014). The acquisition of this social capital is important at the personal level of community, with members sharing their lived experience in today’s society, but it is also important for communities to communicate to their own members

188

about services and programs as well as community level resistance actions like that of Idle No More. As Indigenous people, our communities, like most human’s communities, shape who we are and help us to create our own identities. Social media has enabled Indigenous people to connect better as communities both with their own personal communities and with other Indigenous communities. There is a form of acceptance or rejection that comes from online Indigenous communities. As previously stated, these groups create a type of kinship that would not be so easily accessible if it were not for social media. This kinship makes it possible to share information and participate in online forums and community gatherings and so to create a form of identity for the youth. The social capital helps youth form their identity through acceptance from people on their social media. This identity is important in today’s society, and within the Indigenous youth community it holds a form of respect that relates to community acknowledgement and pride. The relational values of Indigenous peoples are instilled in cultural practices and these can be viewed through the use of social media, where one’s identity online is of great status.

These forms of relationality I have illustrated – based on my methodology - will now be used in this chapter to explain their connection to social media-based forms of resistance and modern forms of human and Indigenous rights that are imposed by the nation states. This process of social media-based forms of resistance allows the youth to form what is known in Indigenous communities as self-determination. During the interviews with my participants I heard Indigenous youth and artists express, in various ways what they thought self-determination is. When I asked the question to all artists “Does Rap music bring forward a form of self-determination for Indigenous people?” I was expecting them to answer from a community level approach, that is to talk about political or legal self-determination. However, one unexpected view of self-determination from a lot of the Hip Hop artists was “self’”determination, as being enacted through a focus on themselves; and then as a result of this initial focus on the individual, to be able to transfer their own individual knowledge about self-determination as an Indigenous musician. This self is reflected in the 5th element of self and community, and shows that the cultural transfer of knowledge is one that takes on two forms of ‘self’ and self-determination.

189

This notion of ‘self’ determination is something that might seem foreign when thinking about Indigenous peoples. Indigenous people are often understood via an anthropological view that represents them as being communal in all aspects of their lives as individuals and communities. This perception often keeps Indigenous individuals from succeeding in their own aspirations, as culturally they do not want to be shamed for not being humble. Academia makes this mistake often, by viewing relationality as a totalizing identity and not giving agency to the Indigenous individuals. The forms of relationality written about earlier helps demonstrate that as much as a communal focused relationality is key to Indigenous cultures, the artists involved in my study promote themselves to have a certain amount of agency to participate in both Indigenous and Hip Hop cultures.

Smaller or Intimate Self-Determination and Resistance: A Case Study In this section, I set out in more detail the material on Indigenous Hip Hop artists and self- determination. Hip Hop itself is based on the use of newer technologies, that assist artists in their ‘self’ determination to create their music, but it could also be understood that their self-determination in the Indigenous cultural way comes through the use of social media. Every artist used the question on self-determination to share with me how writing, using technology to create beats, creating videos and sharing on online sites, such as SoundCloud and apps like Facebook and Instagram, helped them to be ‘self’ determined, to create a better future themselves and for our communities.

As part of my research I was able to visit some artists and youth in their homes. This gave me and insight into the technologies they had at their disposal. Earlier studies like that of Marsh (2005) and Warren and Evitt (2006) argue the youth didn’t have much access to technologies, which made youth centres central to Hip Hop culture. Whereas these days the youth can produce music and videos with their phones and laptops. Some of the participants have made their home storage rooms into recording studios, others have all their equipment set up on their kitchen table. In fact, only one artist I interviewed, Leonard Sumner, was using a formal recording studio, but I am sure all wish they had access to studios to produce their music. This form of “self”-determination could be seen as a form of technological engagement that increases their agency as artists along with the goal to bring community change.

190

I suggest this form of “self” determination can be better understood by returning or reflecting on the theory/method framework used for the research. At the centre of the research is Indigenous Knowledges. These artists are drawing on or creating Indigenous Knowledge. These participant stories illustrate how Indigenous Knowledge is at the centre of the culture of Indigenous Hip Hop. It is the youth and artists belief systems and their lived experiences that shape the ontological perspective of what this research calls “Indigenous Hip Hop”.

Indigenous Hip Hop allows the artist to become the storyteller and the people listening as community members to gain traditional knowledge through the synergetic nature of storytelling. It is this form of storytelling that creates a form of epistemological sharing. What is unique or new is that Indigenous Hip Hop artists are creating community connections, in new spaces such as online, at concerts and especially at community events. As a child. I remember non-Indigenous cartoons and other media portraying Indigenous North Americans as using smoke signals to communicate with one another. For today’s youth the internet and social media have become the modern-day smoke signal, a technology that allows messages and stories to travel into communities that are not easily accessible to be in person.

Acimowin To further illustrate the relational forms written about earlier and also the usage of “self” determination I would like to draw on my interview with T-Rhyme. T-Rhyme spoke about the importance of social media as a key way for sharing her personal stories and ideologies with her followers, as well as for sharing their music. But, in her interview T-Rhyme talks about the responsibilities she feels she has to her online community and how this form of social capital responsibility conflicts with her personal life. In the interview she talks about the empowerment she gained through using SoundCloud as a way of posting and sharing her music in the beginning stages of her metamorphosis from Tara Campbell to T-Rhyme. She told me this transformation started when she started posting her music under an alias that she did not disclose. Tara was surprised to receive comments on SoundCloud saying her music was “Dope”. She found this encouraging. This created for her a form of social capital.

191

She was able to gain a degree of confidence in her new identity and this enabled her to feel she could further spread her message of self-determination through Hip Hop music.

Her message as T-Rhyme is directed at young Indigenous people. After putting up her initial posts showcasing her music she decided to come out of her cocoon and become not just herself as Tara but she also created T-Rhyme to spread her message of Indigenous female empowerment through Rap music using social media as her conduit:

I am on Facebook, Twitter. I’m on Instagram. Those are like the three main ones that I do for like, my music promotions. But mostly I would say Facebook and Instagram are my two bigger ones.

T-Rhyme gained social capital not just through putting her music online but also by working in the youth communities in Edmonton, Alberta and Saskatoon in Saskatchewan to share her experiences in the hope of making life better for the next generation. She talked with great passion about her youth work and was so positive when talking about youth.

However, because social media has a real-life presence in real time there is a balance that she needed to learn. As T-Rhyme points out in her interview she struggles with the tension between her responsibilities to the community as an artist and being available to her fans, and those as a mother and partner and her everyday duties of care to her family. She said:

See me, that is where I am constantly battling myself over that, ‘cause, I wanna promote myself and put myself out there and do that, kind of stuff, but then I feel guilty all the time cause my kids are scrapping in the corner or like ‘Mom, Mom, Mom’ like all up in my face. Then my partner too, like he’ll be like ‘like hey, off your phone’, or like ‘hey you are here in the real world’ you know what I mean? I am like “You know so and so is hittin’ me up’ or you know? ‘Somebody wrote this nice thing about my work’ you know? So, it’s like a battle for me to share the two worlds all the time, ‘cause social media is important to me, cause I am an artist and its one of my

192

hugest platforms for suppling my art to the masses and stuff. It’s hard cause I have to find that balance because of my kids.

She talked about her partner and children asking her to spend more time with them when she is home, as she spends a lot of time responding to messages from community members. She talked a lot about getting messages from young girls who are inspired by her music and connect to the stories she is sharing. T-Rhyme feels that her responsibility as an artist is to show care and connect with the youth and community members that contact through social media. She sees this as pivotal to her role as an Indigenous Hip Hop artist.

Unfortunately, I get a lot of spam mail too, and as a result it is hard for me to keep up and check every single thing and reply to every single one. Because, for a while there I was doing a pretty good job of keeping up with it, but like, I am a Mom right, so at home, if I were to reply to every single one, I would be on my phone like doing that all day. So, I kinda have tried to limit it, or like send me an email instead, or you know stuff like that. But I definitely do get the odd message from the youth and they’ll be ‘Hey what’s up?’ you know? ‘How’s it going’ or ‘I saw you perform here.’ But I find a lot of times to they’ll follow me on Instagram and just comment on pictures here and there. I actually prefer that I can see it, and I can go back and comment later … cause it’s hard to keep up with messages you know what I mean?

T-Rhyme’s struggle is that social media is not a “9 to 5” job, it is always present in her life. She stated, “if I were to reply to every single one I would be on my phone like doing that all day”. This issue extends beyond T-Ryhme, whether we are on our phones, home computers, work computers and other forms of devices, this can create the feeling of a “battle” that T- Rhyme describes with her family. As a woman with a family she has her responsibilities to be a mother, a caring partner and to deal with her daily duties as a leader of a family. Her social capital using social media can become a deficit to her family if there is not a balance between the personal life of Tara and the artist called T-Rhyme. Since this interview I have seen that T-Rhyme’s performances have increased, and she brought out three new songs and two videos.

193

The next section examines social movements that were driven by the use of social media. In particular it considers how social capital works as a form of sharing the message of individual and community self-determination. The relational method of social media within the Indigenous community can be observed by T-Rhyme and others who produce, post and share their music via social media. This dissemination of their knowledge can be observed as a form of self-determination to resist settler colonial regimes. As social media campaigns gained momentum it starts to create forms of social capital for the story and storyteller(s). This social capital can generate so many links online that allow gather people physically to resist a message originally shared on social media. This is what we were seeing in North Dakota with the #NODAPL movement.

The #NODAPL hashtag went viral and that international online presence led to a physical international camp created on the frontlines of the pipeline to fight for environmental protections for this community, and others along the pipeline route, but specifically for the protection of the waterways it crossed. These examples of social movements are illustrated through Indigenous Hip Hop songs that shows how ‘self’ determination moves into ‘self determination’ for Indigenous communities.

Bigger Spaces for Self-Determination and Resistance Maggie Walter (2010) in “Market Forces and Indigenous Resistance Paradigms” writes about two paradigms that together form Indigenous resistance; the first is called the ‘Domain of Aboriginality’ and the second is ‘Resistance, Endurance and Survival’ (Walter 2010). The first paradigm, the Domain of Aboriginality, explains the control of Aboriginal identity by the nation state. Walter argues if the government controls this identity it controls the voice of Indigenous people. She states that this control of the voice of Indigenous peoples was achieved in Australia in 2005 with the closure of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC). ATSIC was an arm of the government, but was administered by a group of national Indigenous representatives elected by other Indigenous people. It worked with different agencies, Aboriginal communities and people on behalf of the federal government. It had a mandate from its members to seek self-determination for Indigenous Australians. In Canada there are several national groups that provide Indigenous voices to Government. Three key ones being the Assembly of First Nations, the Metis National Council and the

194

Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami. Like ATSIC in Australia all these national organisations in Canada are vulnerable as they depend on funding from the government and could be shut down through the termination of funding. These bodies provide a form of resistance that is needed, but there are complications that result from the fact that the groups that lobby for Indigenous Rights have to depend on federal funding.

The second paradigm Walter refers to, “Resistance, Endurance and Survival”, is the one that enables you to see the strong influence in Indigenous communities from Indigenous Hip Hop in creating resistance. Walter argues: “Neoliberalism’s incursions reinforced that our rights, recognition and sovereignty must not only be fought for, but once gained vigilantly protected and, too often, fought for again” (Walter, 2010, pp. 122). Originally, when I thought of this, a term that came into my head was the Boomerang Effect. Reflecting on why that term was in my head, because to me it is very culturally appropriate, I searched on Google and found it to be a social psychological term meaning the unintended adoption of an opposing position. In this discipline “the boomerang effect, suggests that extremely intense language or images used for purposes of persuasion can have an opposite effect upon the receiver” (Mio, 1997).

The form of resistance described by Walter’s second paradigm can be viewed especially in the grassroots movements reacting to different social issues that governments either ignore or acknowledge, but with a little support can enable community control of the issue at hand. In Canada the grass roots movement for Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women (MMIW) is a good example, where the community gathered, protested and led the sharing in non-Indigenous society the community teachings on this issue. When Justin Trudeau’s government was elected in 2015, he promised a national inquiry into MMIW. This inquiry was completed in 2019. While it was still being conducted it met Indigenous community resistance because the inquiry was controlled by the government’s processes rather than Indigenous community ones. You hear this type of criticism a lot at the community level in Australia in regard to the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody (Johnston, 1991). Maori academic Roger Maaka (2005) writing on the politics of Indigenous people from Canada and New Zealand states that the Indigenous aim in terms of commissions or inquiries is more about regaining a self-determining right to direct and

195

organise themselves and creating a path that acknowledges and enables Indigenous peoples to find solutions to these issues.

Their aim is to repatriate their spiritual, economic, and cultural homeland that has been unlawfully taken from them. A collective and inherent right to self-determining autonomy is endorsed on the basis of indigeneity (ancestral occupation) rather than need, disadvantage, or compensation (Maaka, 2005).

Putting together Maaka’s words and the second paradigm that Walter (2010) brings forward showcases how Indigenous resistance operates, and also makes clear the need for nation states to stop taking paternalistic approaches to Indigenous peoples, and to start letting them determine the agenda and have control of the exploration and analysis of different issues affecting their communities. Such an attitude will most likely see more positive outcomes for Indigenous peoples in these nation states.

Walter’s (2010) resistance paradigm also helps explore some of the different social movements that come from the community level and that Hip Hop music tells the story of. The two movements that will be showcased for this chapter are #sosblakaustralia and #idlenomore. These two movements started through social media and expanded to national and international protest in the streets of major cities as well as remote communities. As this thesis has argued, Rap music is a form of modern storytelling that allows a message to spread through the community as a call to action. The song “March” included on Jimblah’s album Phoenix 2013 is a call for people to march in the streets for Indigenous rights in Australia. Jimblah is an MC, vocalist, Larrakia man now in Adelaide. His 2013 rap illustrates the story of Walter’s (2010) Indigenous resistance paradigm in his song, though there is not a direct connection of Jimblah’s song to social movements that proceed him, it shows the connection that Indigenous Hip Hop and community initiatives meet when they resist modern nation states.

March (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZCtJfrlKEU) Jimblah (2013)

196

See I been here, born and bred thinkin' What they proud of, when our nation's how it is, we co-exist Yeah I don't think, refugees, sunken ships, we don't want them in? While parents are tryna save their kids Tell me you comprehend that While others are there too concerned for themselves An couldn't care less about anyone else I'm singing Lord save us Australia just look what we made here From slave ships to Great Britain’s, blood on their hands Understand the royal dam, flying the flag Unlawfully stands a generation unlawfully here I'm awfully scared and scarred from a past I came prepared One million here to march strong on parliament, swear This is the oath I promise for a homeless alcoholic Or for a petrol sniffing teen, our single mothers caught in the struggle Play the game it's supposed to be played I'm on fire and this here it be the anthem ball a fist and stand up

Now we march! Get ready to march Now we! March!

To put this simply This mild mannered citizen stands before you here with lights You can't envision blinded by the system this is pure untampered with Raw uncut lyricist tryna make sense of this here My comprehension skills far above average Your stereotype narrative playin fairy tales to a devil’s advocate I'm adamant, I had it with

197

These politicking larrikins ain't happenin' The strangest fatigued up on a front line

At the end of the day I watch them betray us Yo it's six o'clock again and my heart flows with mad love That is deeper than any ocean ever was, that is bigger than any mountain there mere man has stood upon For a place we could call home If it's just a dream then I'm going back to sleep And I'm hoping that when I wake up this nightmare's ended Tell me exactly what this nation represents here

Now we!(Jimblah, 2013 )

“March” was one of the first songs I listened to when I started my thesis research in 2016. The message that comes through the lyrics were on point to what was happening three years after he released this song. “March” looks into the relationship Australia has with its refugee population at the present time and compares these refugees to the original settlers and those who have come after. Jimblah’s Indigenous standpoint shared through Hip Hop is strong here. Walter’s (2010) Domain of Aboriginality paradigm also helps explains the politics of identity that Jimblah brings forward. By looking at the refugee crisis in Australia and his song brings to the fore the relationship between the representations of people fleeing their homes, with the Indigenous communities here, who face persecution and have forced on them an identity that sees all Aboriginal people as addicts. These forms of identity created by the nation state are, as Walter explains, ones that keep Indigenous people’s voices from being heard in mainstream society. The second of Walter’s (2010) paradigms – the one of resistance and representation - can be used to explain why Jimblah calls on all people to be to hit the streets and march. It is in his third verse that Jimblah brings forward his voice, as a citizen, and talks about the form of resistance that he as an Indigenous Hip Hop artist can do to make change. He sees his voice as that of the “devil’s advocate” to the voice of politicians. This allows Hip Hop itself to be a voice for change within the nation

198

state. Thinking about Walter’s idea of a resistance paradigm, Jimblah’s “March” is a precursor to the #SOSBLAKAUSTRALIA movement. But it was also a call to the greater community to get involved in issues that affect Indigenous Australians.

#SOSBLAKAUSTRALIA #SOSBLAKAUSTRALIA as a movement started on March 10, 2015 when the Prime Minister Tony Abbot agreed with the Premier of Western Australia Colin Barnett to close 150 remote Aboriginal communities (Smith, 2015). This federal government had been planning the closures for over five months. What got the attention of the nation was that Prime Minister Abbot was quoted in the media as saying that living in remote communities was a “lifestyle choice.” It was around this time that the Biendurry family, from Wangkatjungka, and other Indigenous women, from the Kimberly area of Australia, started a campaign to respond to these closures (Frazer & Carlson, 2017). To begin with, they used social media to start contacting other families and communities affected by this proposed policy. On March 12 Sam Cook, activated the Facebook account ‘Stop the Forced Closure of Aboriginal Communities’ (Carlson 2016, Carlson & Frazer 2018) with the #SOSBLAKAUSTRALIA hashtag attached. This movement then goes viral. Within seven hours it has over 2000 likes on Facebook and within 30 days has hundreds of thousand followers (Cook, 2015). Within weeks of the site being created there are protests in communities and cities across Australia. After this, on May 1, 2015, there comes an international call to support this movement. The viral spread continues. If you were on social media at this time, you could’ve seen people around the global holding signs saying to stop the closures, and in June there are international protests at Australian Embassies around the globe.

Social media played a huge part in the social movement to try to stop the forced closures. In the interview for this research with Dobby, an artist, youth and activist living in Sydney, he tells his story of #SOSBLAKAUSTRALIA:

This goes back to this idea, of how like, how instant you can talk about something. When Prime Minster Tony Abbott, when the issue of the forced closures in W.A came about so many Indigenous rappers used that platform of Hip Hop to speak about it and provide their political, um, I guess resistance and opinion through their

199

rap songs. And again, almost instant, within a week there was a song called #sosblakaustralia … but the point is that when there is something that happens in policy or government Hip Hop is right by its side, able to speak about it, ready to resist, Hip Hop becomes a tool to speak about today’s society. It’s a great device in order to produce that social commentary that speaks directly to an Aboriginal experience of that issue (Dobby, 24 Murrawarri).

As we can see through his words, Dobby sees Hip Hop as a form of “resistance and opinion” that responds to the politics and “produce[s] that social commentary that speaks directly to an Aboriginal experience”, In this case the commentary is about the right to self- determination for Indigenous people living in remote communities.

The song Dobby refers to is “Treaty 2015 #SOSBLAKAUSTRALIA” by Jimblah, and also featuring Zachariah Fielding, Yothu Yindi, Ellie Lovegrove and Nooky (Jimblah, 2015). This song is multi-layered with different messages and can also be understood in terms of the writings of Walter’s resistance paradigm. Watching the video is very insightful, as one is able to listen and view the complexities of Indigeneity in modern Australia. The start of the video features an Elder speaking about her experience of having a non-Indigenous father. While she is talking there is a person doing graffiti, which, by the end of the section, shows an image of a black and white Australian flag. Then #SOSBLAKAUSTRALIA appears on the screen (Treaty 2015 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbV1HVPydzk)

Jimblah Featuring Zaachariah Fielding, Yothu Yindi, Ellie Lovegrove & 1 more

[VERSE 1: JIMBLAH] From the top of the [?] Let me clear my throat Half of these cats ain't know ... Bred by the system to crush our hopes A young black king come and claim his throne Take what's mine to the back of boat

For real, I tried to be nice, but damn Peace spoke cuz I'm gonna take mines back

200

Save for life, for the talk and the tokenism And the politics. And the white supremacists Navigate Yeah, I heard that. Let’s be real. You hear me… See I been quiet and I been torn between both worlds And I been at war Where the front line is your picket fence Where my battlefield is your privilege

I said… If this the price of genocide Do you expect me to just walk up Live a lie Forget it all? Well our country is war torn, our all, your ore I bring them walls down like Jericho Show ‘em what we fightin’ for, I said A YO I let you hear that War Cry

Treaty (3x)

[VERSE 2: NOOKY] I just awoke from a sleep Smallpox on my sheet Took a sip from Myall creek, look at me I'm Australia's nightmare Every lie Every truth I'm the freedom I'm the news, why hide from the proof? I'm the blood The earth, sea, the fight, the fuel, the dream So who wanna Waltzing Matilda with me? Young, black and angry I dare you to doubt me Put my life on the line and pay Pemulwuy's bounty

Take a handout? I’d rather cut off both hands And let my blood flow back to the land Rejuvenate the bones upon which we stand Overthrow regime Turn castle to sand Too many promises be broken fam, and I’m fuckin’ fed up I’m sick of hearing these lies That’s why this anger inside has got me feelin’ like Crashing the Freedom Ride into the side of parliament

201

I don’t know where to start (I don’t know where to start) It’s hard to reach out (It’s hard) Coz we’re worlds apart I got a heavy heart That’s why my broken past is stuck in the dark with the Stolen children I don’t want a part of this hopeless system The beds are burning The world is turning I carry that burden ‘till the day that I die

Treaty (3x)

[VERSE 3: JIMBLAH]

From a place where the fire protects To the end of the earth, I’mma let that burn Put a system in check, that's my word See the government, schools, TV, laws All of it white, the fuck you thought they'd

Become dignified in the masses of war Corrupt unjust and leave this cause? Freedom's gone. You hear our call? That's your flesh and blood We at war

Front page now we tearin' it down Media trynna play that shit out I feed them lies to the fire inside I look to the stars and I rock smoked signs

Terra forms like that old landscape Like days before, gonna bring that change Unified, frightens us both black and white Coz we are one

[BRIDGE: ELLIE LOVEGROVE] Sing to save our soul, tomorrow came Heaven knows it's far too late If this life of mine ain't worth the price Take these chains of mine

Give it back

(Treaty 7x) (Jimblah, 2015)

202

A person who has watched the video can see that the combination of video and its words are very multilayered. This is an example of what Walter (2010) describes in the second part of her resistance paradigm, or what I called the Boomerang Effect, taking place. Then Prime Minister Abbott’s and Premier Barnett’s talks about closing remote communities not only caused a social movement that aimed to stop their closure, had the opposite affect because it also brought forward a decolonial movement. The decolonial moment involved looking at past treatment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as genocide, and from this perspective bringing forward a call for a Treaty with Indigenous peoples in Australia. The lyrics of “Treaty” refer to past social movements such as the Wave Hill Walk Off in the Northern Territory in 1966. What started out as a walk off for unpaid wages turned into a land rights case, included former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, returning the land, and ended with former Prime Minister Bob Hawke promising a Treaty with Indigenous peoples. This is recognised in a song that is etched into music history in Australia called “From Little Things Big Things Grow” by Paul Kelly (Kelly, 2008). Released in 1992, this song kept the story of Vincent Lingarri the leader of the Gurindji people, who led the walk off and negotiations with the Whitlam government in the public memory.

The difference between these two events – both connected to the rights of remote Aboriginal communities - is that social media has allowed the message around #SOS to spread much more quickly and much further, including globally, than the walk off. As Dobby states “when there is something that happens in policy or government Hip Hop is right by its side, able to speak about it, ready to resist.” As demonstrated by “Treaty 15” this form of resistance is shared through song and video on social media.

#IDLENOMORE The next example of resistance and Hip Hop takes place in Canada. In December 2012 I had just arrived back home to Edmonton, Alberta from Australia. I had just completed my Masters degree at the Australian National University and came home to an Indigenous political climate that was marked by Indigenous resistance to the Conservative Government. On December 18, 2012 I was at my sister’s and she told me to go out with her. She didn’t say much but I understood that there was going to be a flash round dance at West

203

Edmonton Mall for Indigenous rights in Canada. When we arrived, we walked around the mall, until we heard the drums and singers start. And all of the sudden there were about 100 or more people dancing together and holding hands. After a couple rounds the music stopped and the flashmob dispersed. What I did not know at the time was I was a part of a movement on social media called Idle No More. After the flash round dance, I read up on what was happening and saw that this movement had emerged in response to a

government omnibus bill that had passed through both houses of parliament. Bill C-45 was what we were marching against. This bill changed in the laws around privatizing our lakes and rivers, our water, our main source of life. Idle No More was created by or started with four women who were concerned for future generations:

In October 2012 Sheelah McLean, Sylvia McAdam, Nina Wilson and Jessica Gordon, four women from the Canadian province of Saskatchewan, protested the federal omnibus budget bills C-45 and C-31, that would substantially diminish First Nations treaty, sovereignty and land rights. Idle No More locates itself within the framework of Indigenous renaissance, decoloniality and Indigenous activism (John 2015, pp 38).

In late November of 2012 the hashtag #IdleNoMore went live on Twitter, and on January 7, 2013 it was mentioned 58 000 times (Martineau 2015, pp 238.) By this time the movement is global, I remember being on my Facebook site and seeing people posting pictures of support from people all around the world. By January 2013, you also start to see more resistance from Canadians and their institutions like that of mainstream media.

When talking about social movements in the interviews, people talk about the Idle No More and songs that have come out with that title. When I was in Calgary I was able to interview Dallas Arcand Junior, who is the son of a friend I went to school with. He talked about an artist, Relic, who was also mentioned in the interview with Plex “Relic did a song called ‘Idle No More,’ that was a real cool song, he made a video for it.” (Dallas Arcand, 24 Cree) In my interview with Strife he mentioned his song bearing the same name:

204

I can name one of mine ‘Idle No More’ I did that with my hommie Ziggy Zack, he’s a Cree from Norway House I think, no Oxford House. I flew around and stuff and did shows, like different communities. But umm, that was the first Idle No More song there was when the movement just started. It started getting momentum as the first Hip Hop song, or any song that I heard that came out about it. I had so much to say about it so put it out, it was just a mix tape remix song from Eminem and Dr. Dre song ‘Forgot about Dre.’ We were addressing Stephen Harper and all the government and the shit they do with the natives; so that was a good one (Strife Asaakeezis, Anishanabe).

There was one artist that was mentioned quite a few times, Drezus. Drezus was mentioned for different work he had done in the past, but his newer song is what I will use to highlight this #IdleNoMore movement through Hip Hop.

Drezus is a Cree Hip Hop Artist from Saskatchewan. His name is Jeremiah Manitopyes. I know his family from when I lived in Calgary. His grandmother Olive was one of my Elders and I connected with her while I was living in Blackfoot Country. I don’t know Drezus personally, but his music is making a huge impact. When talking about social movements the main song most participants mentioned to me about was “Stand Up / Stand N Rock #NoDAPL”. The #NoDAPL movement was huge and the video for “Stand Up” won an MTV Music Award the year I was in Canada. But Drezus’ song about Idle No More was a song that was mentioned throughout the interviews and as well liked in the interviews with Dakota (Rhythm Child) and Dylan (Dyliverance) and Pooky G. Rhythm Child said: “With Drezus as well, he has a song, it’s called Idol No More, by Drezus, his album is called Red Winter.” (Rhythm Child, 23 Cree). Pooky G said:

It connects Indigenous and Hip Hop in one. Then people are like, yes, yes connected. Or where artist like Drezus did the ‘Idle No More’ like that really connected to that subject. I think it’s up to the artist to keep that connection through Hip Hop to stay focused toward the youth (Pooky G, Metis).

205

This song has been shared in so many places from classrooms to community gatherings. It was posted on YouTube January 12, 2013. The song and video came out during the height of the hype of Idle No More campaign.

Drezus (2013) RED WINTER LYRICS (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEc3ZYqj5Fw)

Verse 1 [Drezus] My skin’s red, I bleed red, I’m seeing red I’m praying for my people out there who ain’t seen it yet His blood is cold, he’s living lies forever told By his ancestors 500 years ago Yeah I said it, got my peoples getting restless Making money off our land and we ain’t even on the guest list Carry on traditions of a racist ass pilgrim And I know you really love it when my people play the victim ‘Cause it makes it seem like we’re folding under pressure But we up to bat now no more playing catcher ‘Cause we see the bigger the picture that we have to capture See how quick we get together? Man, we out to get ya

Chorus You can lock us in jail and throw away the key Take away my rights but you ain’t stopping me ‘Cause I been quiet for too long it’s time to speak We got to stand for something to keep us free! I’m idle no more I’m idle no more I’m idle no more Yeah I’m idle no more

Verse 2 [Drezus]

206

I’m getting aggravated, my people saying chill I feel my heart breaking, but I don’t need your pills I need my people strong, with hearts of many men He letting women die outside of the parliament Opposition’s only siding for their benefit The only ones we really got is us and it’s so evident Before you take a stand, remember to get educated Once you understand the message go and share it with your neighbours Basically, we’re getting taken hostage for our land ‘Til we sell it out for profit now they got the upper hand But trust me we can stop it, I’m thanking the four sisters Dear Mr. Harper we all coming to get ya And we won’t stop for nothing we’re bringing all of our cousins And we’re getting educated so the fighting ain’t for nothing Stand up for your people our time for power is coming I’m a full-blooded native believe me I’m proud of it

Chorus Repeats (Drezus, 2013)

The video for this song starts at a protest in Edmonton. It features artist and writer Aaron Paquette, who after this video becomes an Edmonton City Councillor. The video then features many of the different locations of the Idle No More allies across Turtle Island (Canada and the United States.) You can see how Idle No More as a movement was made up of gatherings and protest that hit spaces as varied as city streets, community roads, shopping centres and government buildings. Drezus’ words in this song speak to the movement, the problem that arose, and the four women who started it.

This video drew on a form of self-determination that allowed for Drezus to work on the #NODAPL movement, which emerged shortly after the Idle No More movement in Canada. The video and the hashtag, both of which circulated via social media, show the different modes of resistance people took with this movement. What started with four women discussing treaty rights and rights for the environment led to a full-on movement

207

within months of the #IdleNoMore hashtag going live. Drawing on Walter’s (2010) domain of Aboriginality paradigm helps explain some aspects of the movement. As this was a movement that was not led by one person or group there was no official leader or voice for the movement. This was amazing for Indigenous people, as it was a common voice that came together, there were unofficial spokespeople that talked one radio and TV programs. This dispersed movement was a problem for the government as they wanted someone or some group to take responsibility and to negotiate with. These movements are usually not up for negotiations, the movement was for the government to repeal Bill C-45, none of the national groups were able to claim the movement which allowed the democratic system of social media work to get the word out on this bill.

#MMIWG This movement is one that captured the attention of Canadians and the Government before the 2015 Canadian elections, during the election campaign Justin Trudeau made it one of his platforms to do an inquiry into Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls. At the beginning of my studies and in my blog (Potskin, 2017-2019)I explored this topic. At the end of this blog I brought to attention the close relationship of the colonial exploitation of Indigenous women in both Canada and Australia through Amy McQuire’s (2015) article “In Canada And Australia, Aboriginal Women Reporting Disappearances Meet Entrenched Police Racism” in the New Matilda. This article starts with a story about a missing Indigenous girl from Bowraville NSW, Colleen Craig Walker. Colleen was the first of three children to be murdered at the hands of a man that to this day has not faced justice for his inhumane crimes. The police and community know who this man is, but justice failed these families: “This is an issue of colonialism, of the way we treat the lives of Aboriginal women, who are told, like our sisters over in Canada, that we simply do not matter” (2015).

The article relates the experience of Indigenous women when they go missing and how the police do not take the people reporting the person missing seriously. This experience of institutional and structural systemic racism within the police force is in both countries, a very stark reminder of that the colonial past is still in the present for Indigenous peoples. The families of the missing girls are doubly traumatised through their experiences, the first being the losing the missing family member, the second is how they are treated

208

with racism and ignorance when they go to the police to report these incidents. In this article Amy brings forward that because of a new acknowledgment from the Liberal government to have an inquiry this may lead to a national movement in Australia that could have similar results to the one in Canada. I do not know the final outcome of Amy’s story, but I do know that her reporting on this issue at this time really connected the dots for me to look at the movement of #MMIWG more within my research.

While doing my PhD the MMIWG inquiry was created, this was with a lot of tension from the government and the communities. As with most things, white institutions took over the process, i.e the government and university researchers. The communities wanted control over this process and wanted to ensure that the stories and remembrances of loved ones came from the true voice of the people. This tension is based on the structural patriarchal and racial attitudes of non-Inigenous people and institutions that Indigenous peoples cannot handle their own affairs. There were families that participated in community gatherings for the inquiry and there were some that refused as they felt their voices would not be heard.

More than 2,380 people participated in the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, some in more ways than one. Four hundred and sixty-eight family members and survivors of violence shared their experiences and recommendations at 15 Community Hearings. Over 270 family members and survivors shared their stories with us in 147 private, or in-camera, sessions. Almost 750 people shared through statement gathering, and 819 people created artistic expressions to become part of the National Inquiry’s Legacy Archive. Another 84 Expert Witnesses, Elders and Knowledge Keepers, front-line workers, and officials provided testimony in nine Institutional and Expert and Knowledge Keeper Hearings (Missing et al., 2019).

What stood out in this part of the report for the gaze of this research is that 819 people created artistic expression to be a part of the archive. These artistic expressions are not listed, but with Dobby’s quote of Hip Hop being at the side of issues like this that there would be at least one if not more Hip Hop songs in there. For this research I found a total of

209

ten songs about this movement that were raps, and that is not to say that I have found all or any that are within this legacies archive.

As I was writing the final analysis for this research the Final Report of the National Inquiry Into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women And Girls came out. This report is thousands of pages long and in three parts. The most defining part of this research is that the inquiry starts with stating that these acts towards Indigenous women is genocide. This word genocide has been used a few times in this thesis, can you remember hearing or reading them? It was in many of the lyrics of the rappers. It is a word that in the Indigenous experience is justified through our ancestral and present lived experiences. The report starts with putting forward their justification for using this term:

The truths shared in these National Inquiry hearings tell the story – or, more accurately, thousands of stories – of acts of genocide against Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people. The violence the National Inquiry heard amounts to a race-based genocide of Indigenous Peoples, including First Nations, Inuit and Métis, which especially targets women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people. This genocide has been empowered by colonial structures evidenced notably by the Indian Act, the Sixties Scoop, residential schools and breaches of human and Indigenous rights, leading directly to the current increased rates of violence, death, and suicide in Indigenous populations (NATIONAL Inquiry, 2019).

The report goes on after this to the international definitions and how the process of colonialism has had detrimental effects on the lives of Indigenous peoples. This form of genocide can be mirrored in the colonial experiences of Indigenous women, girls, and the even more hidden experiences of the 2SLGBTQQIA communities.

When I interviewed youth and artists this movement came up, especially when talking about some of the social movements within Hip Hop. At the end of the interview with Pooky G she talked about a song she did with Briskool, Bri Briskool Marie is an Indigenous Artist from Toronto, Ontario and now lives in Edmonton, Alberta. Pooky like she stated (cited earlier in this thesis) is a Métis artist who grew up and still lives in Edmonton.

210

This song called City Lights was a collaboration between the two of them and is on the subject of #MMIWG. In the interview Pooky talks about this project.

Word! And I feel like it brought together two different kind of artist, it’s like here’s Bri, like top notch social worker, and here is me ‘chick from the hood’ but she grew up in the hood too. We both know what it is, she always got a lot to say politically or socially and here is me as an artist, you can hear it in the lyrics ‘My mind is growing, feel like a bomb tick Epidemic rising’ like what the fuck? Somebody got to speak on it. And if you do people are like, YES, somebody spoke on this that is awesome. Then it gives the people more power and all the natives are sharing it, and it’s on social media pages, and it is like yes, the music sells itself, it’s what you put into it (Pooky G Metis, Artist).

I think the collaboration between these two emcees who are female shows a comradery through music. The two of them decided to write this song to relate to the social condition and social violence that happens to Indigenous women. At the end of the quote you see the importance of social media to sharing the message of the importance of the safety of Indigenous women, and to connect the message out there to a wider audience. Please take the time now to review the lyrics to this song and watch the video.

City lights (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdCL5iVzyFw) Pooky G and Briskol

Where you at? where you at? now before the sun goes down Where you at? where you at? now before you can’t be found Beyond the city lights, beyond the city lights So where you at?

Baby girl, can you handle the thought, that the world is trying to mess with everything you are You are a star sweetheart, so lead the charge And whatever happens you just got to be all that you are and go far

211

And don’t you ever let them streets rent you off Keep your head up and square up no matter the cost And don’t stop corners they warned us of the violence upon us, Its bullshit that we really want it And then they said that you’re not high enough on their priority list So we stood up and collectively raised up a fist Ad we fought for the right to spark and ignite the night And then we blessed it with love, and those street lights revealed what is really real The feminine, the light inside that no one can steal Your baby girl, we’re your vision, up lift your mission, potential is within Your very existence is resistance to this cold world and all the meanest in it

Where you at? where you at? now before the sun goes down Where you at? where you at? now before you can’t be found Beyond the city lights, beyond the city lights So where you at?

My mind is growing, feel like a bomb tic Epidemic rising, all violence Women and missing kids It’s quite primitive, we heard and have to deal with it Empower the youth with the truth, underground government I’m loving it tell me where they at now? Cause yo I’m trying to send a message to the wrong crowd Ghost town, Aboriginals put on back shelfs The facts are, we been in the thick of the background, Is that how many fall a victim to life’s trials The trivia they tell us natives all to go back, but where is nativia? I’m sick of all the talk on what we lost, yo it stops now Trying to find what we lost with our past Time to make it right, you have a choice left to choose Creator can you hear me? set a path out of the past drought

212

Only set us back, while we act out no damn doubt Time to find the stuff, so were we at yo (Briskool, 2016)

When I was leaving out the door from Pooky’s house she started to tell me the story about this video and how it was actually in a film festival. It did not win any awards, but this video was played in the short section on Indigenous women in Canada and was the conversation starter at this festival for the talks on the safety of Indigenous women in Canadian society. Indigenous Hip Hop is able to give voice and connection to the Indigenous experience. Women in society are already vulnerable bodies due to the past patriarchal attitudes and laws towards women. As discussed in the Indigenous feminism section, Indigenous women are not only seen as property of men, they are seen as less than human which allows their experiences of being murdered and missing to seem not important to police or other services when they go missing.

Conclusion to Chapter 6 I would like to end this chapter with a song. This song is called “Indigenous Resistance” by the Snotty Nose Rez Boys featuring Drezus. The video is based on the #NODAPL movement at the beginning but then it goes into other social issues like the Indian Residential schools. All the artists in this song are Indigenous Canadian. The lyrics really relate to the Indigenous social movements in Canada. The lyrics are about the different forms of resistance, from the Canadian experience of the Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women, the fight for clean water which is resisting the oil pipelines taking over the lands of Turtle Island, to the fight for Indigenous sovereignty. Enjoy this last video and lyrics.

Indigenous Resistance (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZkBMJfwLjQ) [Intro: Yung Trybez] To my natives tryna' find a way (x3)

[Verse 1: Yung Trybez] To my natives tryna' find a way but instead they getting pepper sprayed

213

Locked up behind these bars Hundred thousand-dollar bonds, tell me how do we respond? We stand strong and we carry on I stand tall and I salute you all But when you can't afford freedom, what the hell you fighting for? we're fighting for this water, so I guess my life's the price of war Are they gangsters or military? crooked cops with choppers ready to pop, Dirty Harry Cuz our buried ancestors are being fucked with tell me who to trust when they're digging up our cemeteries That's just how they treat Indigenous breaking laws and treaties and they spin it like they innocent If we the same species, why the hell we treated different? why'd you all turn your backs on our murdered and our missin' On the highway of tears, mother earth is weeping I'm a man tryna' understand the cries of a woman Man they're both life givers that can't be resurrected we gotta put it on our men cuz our men are the protectors And we flipped the flag around I ain't proud of my country, you can burn it to the ground Here's a nation in distress but it’s hard to pretend like we ain't used to this yet

[Hook: Drezus, Yung Trybez & Young D] Can the real warriors stand up? while the feds call for back up (Our women took the lead can the real men man up? our people come in peace don't shoot I got my hands up) Pure Indigenous resistance this is how to fight the system (With the patience and persistence and the world as our witness and a fist to the sky for the indigenous resistance)

214

[Verse 2: Drezus] I heard a pain in the war cry speaking tongue to the moon, yeah, true will get ya die Breast plate covers up a broken heart, from the very same folks who said they got it from the start She don't trust nobody memories are preached, throwing babies in the oven Shower with the nuns 'fore she had to cook 'em supper taking all her clothes off, cut the braids off her Systematic with the madness gives 'em false sense of status But that don't mean shit cuz when your ass die, what you gonna leave with? Let my spirit fly, brave like the Iroquois deep like the Plains Cree, nope, we ain't fearing none Put your little red fists up, tell the man you ain't fuckin' with our sisters

[Verse 3: Young D] Take a look at how the cards were dealt can’t nobody feel the pain we felt I hope that history don’t repeat itself generations that were taught to hate themselves “Give us the land that you don’t want..” that happen to ring a bell? the way we’re standing up, we got em biting nails Our land is sacred but they’re biased to making sales so they’re like "wait, let's take it back so we can increase our wealth" Who’s the real Indian giver? history books are bullshitters like ya’ll taught us thanksgiving dinner...I beg to differ They called us savages, when they were the real killers and gave us liquor to kill us quicker, as far as I remember

215

That residential fucked our mental, that shit’ll haunt ya while they fucked our sons, fucked our daughters, fucked our land, fucked our waters Understand we never faltered as they tried to kill a culture then be so quick to leave us like Ted Mosby at the alter And say “Get over it” like it’s irrelevant we never die, we multiply and this our revenant What up? we’ve been oppressed since the day before for fuckin' ever Huh? so why the hell you think we stand together?! Peaceful protectors shot and thrown in jail is what I’m seeing by disrespectful and neglectful human beings So it’s us against the world now, I’m dead serious Cuz the only time they rooted for the Indians was the World Series

Hook (Kids, 2017).

216

Chapter 7 – Conclusion

Ekosi Maka – The End Like the beginning of the research, we need to end with ceremony. When we leave ceremony we usually do a sharing circle where everyone has a chance to speak, to bring forward their healing, and to ask further questions that arose throughout the ceremony. This is a time of reflection and gratitude to our ancestors, one another and for sending off prayers for future generations. I would like to again acknowledge the Indigenous lands I was on especially to the people of the Eora Nation whose lands and territories I was able to learn on, create friendships on, and connect with Indigenous peoples from around the world. The Ngara teaching – to sit, learn and listen that was taught to me by my Bundjalung teacher Drew Roberts was central to the way you should have engaged and learned through this thesis. It is during this conclusion that you are allowed to fully participate in this thesis. This is the time to try and conclude my thoughts. I hope you learned about the Indigenous youth experience in Canada and Australia through Hip Hop culture.

This conclusion is time for reflection. Before I came to Australia to start my PhD I really thought about the goals I had for my research. The first thing was I wanted to work within an Indigenous paradigm of thought for the research using Shawn Wilson’s work. When I started I found so much more information on Indigenous Research Methods. Secondly, I wanted the research to focus on Indigenous youth empowerment within the Indigenous Hip Hop movement in Canada and Australia. These things, I am very pleased to announce, I feel I achieved, and much, much more.

I also wanted my research to reflect my journey into reading Shawn Wilson’s book “Research is Ceremony”. It was like a map for me to use to explore my ideas on how I see Indigenous Research and how it can help another person achieve their goals academically. This is what drove me ethically throughout my research, that responsibility for the future generations of Indigenous academics. I wanted to show that using these steps, with your own lived experience as an Indigenous person, you can bring forward research that is reflective of the communities’ voice. This research is not perfect, there will be critiques,

217

time will move on and attitudes towards different issues will change. But what this is … is a continuation of knowledge shared intergenerationally and cross-generationally. Sitting down with the youth from across Canada and Australia was amazing. Every interview was an experience of change, for me and for most of the youth and artists I spoke to. There was laughter, tears, times of silence and so much PRIDE. There are some interviews that did not make it in to this research. I want to thank all youth and artist who took time to meet with me. You influenced the research in so many ways, through influencing my thoughts, you were able to help me connect the dots to see the themes presented, even if your interview was not directly quoted, your knowledge is in here, in these words written.

To future researchers, I want to challenge you to critique these writings, as that is how we learn, through questioning and finding more truths. Your truth may be different than mine, and I would like to learn from others. In terms of Indigenous Hip Hop I am still at the periphery of this culture but feel so much appreciation for these artists in sharing cultural knowledge with the youth, and for the youth for sharing these messages in their own music or through social media. Stay strong, your voices are being heard and making a difference. For those future academics, move our worldviews forward so they are not lost in anthropological writings or live in museums as relics. Our cultures are alive and thriving and this study of Indigenous Hip Hop is one example of how Indigenous people are sharing their lived experiences with one another and with the world.

Part 1

The Indigenous Research Methodology I created for this research helped inform me on how to approach the research, from the way I formed the questions, to the way the research data and material was analysed. This thesis is very informal, it is meant to be that way. I tried hard to keep the concepts and language at a level so that most readers can pick up what I am saying, even if they are not 100 percent fluent in academic language. I brought forward the stories of individuals that related their stories to themes that came out of many interviews, from listening to a lot of music, watching YouTube videos and attending concerts and the Cypher in Edmonton. The Indigenous methodology I developed allowed me to

218

explore the traditional and the modern relationships that exist in the many Indigenous communities. I tried my best to tell the stories I heard in the many different interviews held in coffee shops across Canada and Australia, on the University of Sydney campus, in people’s homes, my hotel room and at a professional studio. These spaces allowed the youth and artists to be comfortable and tell me their truth. Yet this thesis has much to contribute to academia.

The research I did was twofold. The first part aimed to answer this question: “Can an Indigenous Research Methodology be used in a global context?” This research has shown that you can use an Indigenous Research Methodology in a global context. When I sat down with the people I interviewed I started by explaining the methodology I had created, going through the ontology and epistemology with them. There was a consensus among the people I did this research with that this concept worked and exemplified a position they hold about their cultures within the global framework. The methodology was designed to ensure that I was not presenting the youth and artists words and lyrics under one umbrella identity of Indigenous but was respecting their home territories as well as the ones they live on if they live outside of their own territory.

In Australia Indigenous people illustrate the concept of relational thinking with what is called “Songlines” that relates Indigenous people to each other across the continent. It is this view that I am hoping was visible as I looked at Indigenous Hip Hop, and that it respects the local Indigenous history, that is very important and also follows through to a global message. Through songs and relationality, the local community’s song (story) becomes a part of the bigger picture that goes from local, to regional to continental “songlines”. It is these national songlines that I connected to the many Indigenous communities in Canada and Australia and created a new route for the songs to continue across the ocean to Turtle Island. It is these new “songlines”, that are forming internationally between Indigenous peoples, that will allow us to connect as Indigenous people, to our lands and to protect the one Earth that we all share. I feel in Part 1 of this thesis I strongly position this ideology and show that through relational theory and Indigenous philosophies one can create a research method that is relevant to the Indigenous group being researched, in this case Indigenous youth who relate and live a Hip Hop culture along with their traditional identities.

219

As you witnessed in this thesis, the Indigenous Methodology I created was relatable to Indigenous youth in both Australia and Canada and it allowed me to relate the research to those who participated. It is on this basis that I argue this question on methodology remains relevant. This question was the base for how the questions were developed for the interviews with the youth and artists. You saw the answers for these questions revealed in the last three chapters of this thesis which I will discuss now.

Part 2 In the second part of the thesis I answered another question: “How are Indigenous youth from Canada and Australia articulating a modern narrative of settler/colonial relationships through Indigenous Rap Music?” This answer came through in the interviews, videos and songs of the people that were involved with this research. However, it was in trying to answer this question that I really felt the full lyrics of the songs needed to present in the research. It is through these lyrics and watching the artist’s videos that you can begin to understand the modern narrative of the relationship that Indigenous youth have with their settler societies. These lyrics tell the story of the call for treaties, of broken promises in treaties, the call for decolonial practices to become the standard, and the need to protect the land from capitalistic ventures that don’t live in balance with the environmental needs of the earth. There is often tension in the words, but also a lot of hope. This is especially portrayed in Cody Coyotes song “300 (Reconciliation)” with the call for a better relationship with Indigenous peoples and Canada for the next 150 years.

The chapter on Alienation used the ontology of the land to support my research on the way Indigenous youth are feeling alienated from present settler societies. Like the ideas of much Feminism, the land is central to the forms of relationality examined from an Indigenous worldview. Alienation was examined with the method of “storywork” as the praxis for sharing Indigenous knowledges and learning epistemically. The writings by Indigenous peoples, that I focused on in this chapter included one by Professor Joanne Archibald. I used parts of her storywork process, especially something called synergy. Synergy is central to observing the relationship that is created when Indigenous youth listen to Hip Hop, and in this case when they use Indigenous Hip Hop to share common experiences with settler society. This synergetic process is seen in themes such as treaty and

220

reconciliation, themes that allows their stories to become movements in Hip Hop. It is through these stories in rap music that we are allowed to witness how Indigenous youth experience the world within these nation states.

The chapter on decolonization delved into the relationships between Indigenous people and their settler societies, and the need for these to be decolonised. Decolonisation is the action that has now become the study of Indigenous resurgence. I argue it is this resurgence of cultural knowledge that holds the key to decolonisation. It is through bringing back the ontological and epistemological ideologies of Indigenous peoples into the norms and laws of settler societies that decolonisation will take place. This thesis focused this on looking at the internal and external forms of colonisation the settler states have forced upon Indigenous peoples globally.

The second section of this chapter focused on decolonisation through Indigenous Feminism. I showed the praxis of Indigenous women, who are leading their communities, through the stories of their current roles in society that is their life writings, in their raps. It is through these writings that Indigenous women are sharing knowledge with the next generation of youth, which helps form a resurgence of Indigenous knowledge. Viewing how Indigenous women’s ontology is at the centre and creates Traditional Indigenous Knowledge shared in rap music. Indigenous Hip Hop is also allowing Indigenous men to decolonise the image of the Indigenous man, breaking the stereotype that Indigenous men face with their settler society. Indigenous Hip Hop is promoting a healthier decolonial version of masculinity for future generations. Looking at Hip Hop itself and if Indigenous Hip Hop was a male space meant the research could find out about a lot of the experiences and views that the youth have about gender issues in Hip Hop; which showed that Indigenous Hip Hop has space for Indigenous Women Emcee’s. Indigenous Hip Hop is a praxis that creates community resurgence of traditional knowledge being shared through rap. Resurgence happens by having an Indigenous worldview in the centre of the lyrics and intentions of the music. My hopes for this research are that future generations of Indigenous people who may read this see the youth of today as Authentic Knowledge keepers who you can use to share our ancestral knowledge by way of their Indigenous Hip Hop music.

221

Indigenous Resistance was the final theme explored in this thesis in the last chapter. Again, the decolonial messages coming out of the Indigenous Hip Hop movement was analysed to understand and display how Indigenous Hip Hop resists settler goals of the colonial canon. Indigenous The chapter on Resistance explored the connection between Indigenous Peoples and the colonial government’s present and past assimilation policies. This was done through the lens of Indigenous the Hip Hop movement’s 5th element of ‘Knowledge of Self and Community’ (Love, 2014) and exploring how it directly relates to an Indigenous form of Self-Determination. Using the idea of the 5th element the chapter explored modes of self-determination and its place within the Indigenous resistance movement. Self Determination is at the core of Indigenous knowledges and can be used in personal, community, regional and global terms. Self-Determination allows the present generation of Indigenous peoples to use their ancestral knowledge. Through sharing knowledge, in this case Indigenous Hip Hop music, on social media the youth are able to share their traditional knowledge. Social Media is used in this chapter as a case study of the epistemological process of sharing knowledge. This medium has become the new form for youth of relating to one another in the modern world.

Contribution to Knowledge Through my auto-ethnographic voice in the thesis I feel I met and used C. Wright Mills’ idea of the “sociological imagination” as having a “vivid awareness of the relationship between personal experience and the wider society" (Mills, 1970). It was through my own experience that I was able to relate myself to creating an inclusive Indigenous methodology that explored areas that were even outside of this direct experience, like that of Indigenous feminism. Through my sociological imagination I was able to reflect and relate myself to the research in part allowing my sociological imagination to create the Methodology and the research topic of Indigenous Hip Hop. It was through my experiences of being Cree, Métis, and an Indigenous person living in Australia that allowed this research to become what it is.

222

Five years ago Aileen Moreton-Robinson (2015) put the call out to sociology to look at the sociological imagination from the worldview of the particular researcher, in this instance for me that meant working within an Indigenous worldview. This call out showed up a form of white sovereignty within academia. The different storytelling process that is privileged in this thesis allowed the research to explore sovereignty within the Indigenous Hip Hop community through their music or what I called rap. It is Indigenous sovereignty that is central to the creation and analysis of this thesis and was central to each chapter.

Limits of the Study The limits to this research reflect the fragmentation of knowledge about Indigenous research and Hip Hop research. Both knowledge sets are being studied across different disciplines and my research ventured out into Anthropology, Indigenous Studies, Urban Studies, Education, Social Work, Cultural Studies, Black Studies, Indigenous and Black Diasporic Studies and other areas that relate the Indigenous experience within research. This fragmentation is shown most clearly in the Literature Review.

Time is, I think, what limited my research the most. I travelled for five months in Canada and six in Australia. Both Countries are large and there were times I had scheduled interviews with youth and artist in different cities, but due to their or my schedule changing we could not meet. The positive is that though I wasn’t able to meet or interview some groups I was able to have contact with them on social media and was greeted with positivity and given support in the work I was doing. Money was another limit, I have to thank my Nation for supporting my education, the University of Sydney for the travel scholarship I received, my sister for lending me her van for four months so I could drive across Canada, Amiskusees Trust for travel scholarship, The Indian Brotherhood Trust, Indspire and the private donations I received on my Gofundme page. It was this help and much more from friends and family that let me stay with them in my travels. Money for Indigenous Research needs to be improved, as there are few scholarships for Indigenous Research.

Lastly Thank you for taking the time to explore this thesis. It is at this time I would like to again

223

thank everyone who participated in my research, my Supervisors, my Nation, the Indigenous communities I was able to visit especially the Indigenous community at the University of Sydney who took me in and let me be a part of their circle. My family was central to my worldview and need to fully thank them all.

224

References

BARUNGA Festival and Call for Treaty: The Barunga Festival is being attended by thousands of Indigenous people from across Arnhem Land and the Barunga Statement has been raised for a renewed call for a treaty with white Australians. 2008. RMIT Publishing, Melbourne (Vic.). AKOM, A. A. 2009. Critical Hip Hop pedagogy as a form of liberatory praxis. Equity and Excellence in Education, 42, 52-66. ALLAM, L. 2018. All children in detention in the Northern Territory are Indigenous. The Gaurdian June 26, 2018. ARAGON, F. and KESSLER, A. 2018. Property rights on First Nations' reserve land. IDEAS Working Paper Series from RePEc. ARCHIBALD, J. 1997. Coyote learns to make a storybasket: The place of First Nations stories in education. Theses (Faculty of Education)/Simon Fraser University. ARCHIBALD, J. and PARENT. A. 2019. Hands back, hands forward for Indigenous storywork as methodology. In: WINDCHIEF, S. & SAN PEDRO, T. (eds.) Applying Indigenous Research Methods Storying with Peoples and Communities New York, NY: Routledge. “ARCHIBALD, J. MORGAN J.L. and DE SANTOLO, J. (eds) 2019. Decolonizing Research: Indigenous Storywork as Methodology, London, Zed Books. ASERON, J., GREYMORNING, S. N., MILLER, A. & WILDE, S. 2013. Cultural safety circles and Indigenous Peoples' perspectives: Inclusive practices for participation in higher education. Contemporary Issues in Education Research, 6, 409. BEHRENDT, L. 1993. Aboriginal Women and the white Lies of the feminist movement: Implications for Aboriginal women in rights discourse. Australian Feminist Law Journal, 1, 27-44. BAKER, D. 2017. Marryuna featuring Yirrmal. BARNEY, K. 2010. Gendering Aboriginalism: A performative gaze on Indigenous Australian women. Cultural Studies Review, 16, 212-239. BENAQUISTO, L. & BABBIE, E. 2002. Fundamentals of social research, Scarborough, ON: Nelson Thomson Learning. BENDRUPS, D. 2011. Navegando, Navegando: Easter Island fusion and cultural Performance. The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology, 10, 115-128. BENTON-BANAI, E. and BURFIELD, G. 1988. The Mishomis book: The voice of the Ojibway, Red School House New York. BIERNACKI, P. and WALDORF, D. 1981. Snowball sampling: Problems and techniques of chain referral sampling. Sociological methods & research, 10, 141-163. BOUNCE, C. C. F. M. 2017. 300 (Reconciliation) Mamawi. BRACKNELL, C. 2015. ‘Say You’re a Nyungarmusicologist’: Indigenous research and endangered song. Musicology Australia, 37, 199-217. BRISKOOL, P. G. 2016. City Lights

225

BRISKOOL, T.-R. A. 2019. For Women by Women. BROOKS, C. M., DASCHUK, M. D., POUDRIER, J. and ALMOND, N. 2015. First Nations youth redefine resilience: listening to artistic productions of 'Thug Life' and hip-hop. Journal of Youth Studies, 18, 706-725. BUFFAM, B. 2011. Can't hold us back! Hip-hop and the racial motility of Aboriginal bodies in urban spaces. Social Identities, 17, 337-350. BURBIDGE, B. B. 2014. Contemporary Wiradjuri relatedness in Peak Hill, New South Wales. CARLSON, B. 2013. The ‘new frontier’: Emergent Indigenous identities and social media. CARLSON, B. 2016. The politics of identity: who counts as Aboriginal today?, Canberra, ACT, Aboriginal Studies Press. CARLSON, B. and FRAZER, R. 2018. Social media mob: Being Indigenous online, Sydney, Maquarie University. CENTRE, F. N. 2007. OCAP: Ownership, control, access and possession. National Aboriginal Health Organisation Ottawa. ONTARIO Federation of Indigenous Friendship Centres (OFIFC). 2012. Utility, self- voicing, access, inter-relationality (USAI) research framework. Ontario, Ontario Federation of Indigenous Friendship Centres. CHILISA, B. 2012. Indigenous research methodologies, Thousand Oaks, Calif, SAGE Publications. CLAPHAM, R. 2015. “I got the mics on, my people speak”: an investigation into the evolution of Aboriginal Hip Hop in contemporary Australia. Honours Dissertation, University of New South Wales. CONNELL, R. W. 1998. Masculinities and globalisation. Men and masculinities, 1, 3-23. CORR, E. A. 2019. Storywork in Storytelling: Indigenous Knowledges as Literary Theory. In ARCHIBALD, J. MORGAN J.L. and DE SANTOLO, J. (eds) Decolonizing Research: Indigenous Storywork as Methodology, London, ZED Books. DANZAL BAKER, D. W., YOTHU YINDI 2018. Treaty ‘18. Treaty ‘18. Razor Records. DIAMOND, B. 2013. Native American ways of (music) history. In: BOHLMAN, P. V. (ed.) The Cambridge History of World Music. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DONALD, D. 2004. Edmonton Pentimento re-reading history in the case of the Papaschase Cree. Journal of the Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies, 2, 21-53. DREZUS 2013. Red Winter. DREZUS 2015. Warpath Indian Summer. DRUM, D. 2017. Cody Coyote and Mob Bounce Sound Off on Canada 150 in New Track. Available from: http://digitaldrum.ca/cody-coyote-and-mob-bounce-sound-off-on- canada-150-in-new-track/ 2019]. DWAMENA, A. 2018. How Hip Hop lost its accent. The New Republic 8 September. Available from: https://newrepublic.com/article/136588/hip-hop-lost- accent?curator=MusicREDEF

226

EISENBERG, A. 2018. The challenges of structural injustice to reconciliation: Truth and reconciliation in Canada. Ethics & Global Politics, 11, 22-30. ELLIS, C., ADAMS, T. E. & BOCHNER, A. P. 2011. Autoethnography: an overview. Historical Social Research/Historische Sozialforschung, 36, 273-290. EVERETT, K. 2009. Welcome to Country … Not. Oceania, 79, 53-64. FERNANDES, S. 2011. Close to the edge: In search of the global hip hop generation, New York, Verso Books. FRAZER, R. and CARLSON, B. 2017. Indigenous memes and the invention of a people. Social Media + Society, 3, 1-12. GOURDINE, R. M. and LEMMONS, B. P. 2011. Perceptions of misogyny in Hip Hop and Rap: What do the youths think? Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment, 21, 57-72. GRIEVES, V. 2008. Aboriginal spirituality: a baseline for Indigenous knowledges development in Australia. Canadian Journal of Native Studies, 28, 363-398. HALLENBECK, J. 2015. Returning to the water to enact a treaty relationship: the Two Row Wampum renewal campaign. Settler Colonial Studies, 5, 350-362. HASTIE, B. and AUGOUSTINOS, M. 2012. Rudd's apology to the Stolen Generations: Challenging self-sufficient arguments in "race" dscourse. Australian Psychologist, 47, 118-126. HEFLER, M., KERRIGAN, V., HENRYKS, J., FREEMAN, B. and THOMAS, D. P. 2018. Social media and health information sharing among Australian Indigenous people. Health Promotion International. 34, 706-715. HENRY, J., DUNBAR, T., ARNOTT, A., SCRIMGEOUR, M., MATTHEWS, S., MURAKAMI-GOLD, L. and CHAMBERLAIN, A. 2002. Indigenous research reform agenda. Rethinking Research Methodologies. COOPERATIVE RESEARCH CENTRE FOR ABORIGINAL & TROPICAL HEALTH, Links Monograph Series: 5. HILLER, C. and CARLSON, E. 2018. These are Indigenous Lands: Foregrounding settler colonialism and Indigenous sovereignty as primary contexts for Canadian environmental social work. Canadian Social Work Review, 35, 45-70. HUME, L. 2004. Accessing the eternal: Dreaming "the Dreaming" and ceremonial performance. Zygon, 39, 237-258. JAMES, D. 2015. Tjukurpa time. In: McGRATH, A. and JEBB , M.A. (eds) LONG HISTORY, DEEP TIME: Deepening Histories of Place, Canberra: ANU Press, 33-45. JENKINS, T. S. 2011. A beautiful mind: Black male intellectual identity and hip-hop culture. Journal of Black Studies, 42, 1231-1251. JIMBLAH 2013 March. Phoenix. JIMBLAH, N. ELLIE LOVEGROVE, ZACHARIIAH FIELDING and YOTHU YINDI 2015. Treaty 2015. In: TRAKS, E. (ed.). JOHNSTON, E. 1991, Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, Canberra, ACT: AGPS

227

KELLY, P. 2008. Greatest hits Songs from the south volumes 1 & 2. Cremorne, N.S.W: EMI Music Australia [distributor]. KIDS, S. N. R. 2017. The Average Savage. The Average Savage. Independent KINECTION, T. L. 2008. Black and Deadly. Nutches. KINEW, W. 2015. The reason you walk: A memoir, Toronto, ON: Penguin. KING, T. 2003. The truth about stories: a native narrative, Toronto, ON, House of Anansi Press. KOVACH, M. 2009. Indigenous methodologies : characteristics, conversations and contexts, Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press. KRAL, I. 2010. Plugged in: Remote Australian Indigenous youth and digital culture. CAEPR Working Paper No. 69, 1-17. LADY, J. T. F. 2019. The Most Unprotected Girl LANGTON, M. 2001. Dominion and dishonour: A treaty between our nations? Postcolonial Studies, 4, 13-26. LOVE, B. L. 2014. Urban Storytelling: How storyboarding, moviemaking, and Hip-Hop-based education can promote students' critical voice. The English Journal, 103, 53–58. LÖW, M. 2006. The social construction of space and gender. European Journal of Women's Studies, 13, 119-133. MAAKA, R. F., AUGIE 2005. The politics of indigeneity : challenging the state in Canada and Aotearoa New Zealand., Dunedin, New Zealand, University of Otago Press. MAHER, S. K. 2011. Narrating administrative order: Treaty 8 and the geographical fashioning of the Canadian north. Postcolonial Studies, 14, 63-74. MAKOKIS, J. A. 2008a. Nehiyaw iskwew kiskinowâtasinahikewina--paminisowin namôya tipeyimisowin: Cree women learning self determination through sacred teachings of the Creator. PhD Dissertation, University of Victoria, Canada. MAKOKIS, J. A. 2008b. Nehiyaw iskwew kiskinowâtasinahikewina-paminisowin namôya tipeyimisowin: Learning self determination through the sacred. Canadian Woman Studies, 26, 39-51. MANZO, J. & POTTS, J. 2013. REZ STYLE: THEMES OF RESISTANCE IN CANADIAN ABORIGINAL RAP MUSIC. The Canadian Journal of Native Studies, 33, 169-188. MARSH, C. 2012. Hip Hop as Methodology: Ways of Knowing. Canadian Journal of Communication, 37, 193-203. MAZZUCATO, V. 2013. Transnational families, research and scholarship. The encyclopedia of global human migration. London, Wiley and Sons. MCEWAN, A., CROUCH, A., ROBERTSON, H. & FAGAN, P. 2013. The Torres Indigenous Hip Hop Project: evaluating the use of performing arts as a medium for sexual health promotion. Health Promotion Journal of Australia, 24, 132-136.

228

MCGRATH, A & STEVENSON, W. 1996. Gender, race, and policy: Aboriginal women and the state in Canada and Australia. Labour History: A Journal of Labour and Social History, 71, 37-53. MCIVOR, O. 2010. I Am my subject: Blending Indigenous research methodology and autoethnography through Integrity-based, spirit-based research. Canadian Journal of Native Education, 33, 137-151. MCKEGNEY, S. 2014. Masculindians conversations about Indigenous manhood, Winnipeg, University of Manitoba Press. MCLEOD, N. and WOLVENGREY, A. 2016. 100 days of Cree, Regina, SA, University of Regina Press. MCQUIRE, A. 2015. “In Canada And Australia, Aboriginal Women Reporting Disappearances Meet Entrenched Police Racism” New Matilda, December 15. MILLS, C. W. 1970. The sociological imagination, Harmondsworth, Penguin Books. MINESTRELLI, C. 2016. Australian Indigenous Hip Hop: The Politics of Culture, Identity, and Spirituality, London, Routledge. MITCHELL, T. 2003. Australian hip hop as a subculture. Youth Studies Australia, 22, 40-47. MITCHELL, T. 2006. Blackfellas rapping, breaking and writing: a short history of Australian hip hop. Aboriginal History Journal, 30, 124-137. MODULE 11 Indigenous Studies, 2016, University of Alberta MOLYNEAUX, H., O'DONNELL, S., KAKEKASPAN, C., WALMARK, B., BUDKA, P. & GIBSON, K. 2014. Social media in remote First Nation communities. Canadian Journal of Communication, 39, 275-288. MORETON-ROBINSON, A. 2000. Talkin' up to the white woman: aboriginal women and feminism, St Lucia, University of Queensland Press ;--Distributed in the USA and Canada by International Specialised Book Services, Inc. MORETON-ROBINSON, A. 2013. Towards an Australian Indigenous women's standpoint theory. Australian Feminist Studies, 28, 331-347. MORETON-ROBINSON, A. 2015. The white possessive: property, power, and Indigenous sovereignty, Minneapolis, Minnesota, University of Minnesota Press. MORGAN, G. 2012. Urban renewal and the creative underclass: Aboriginal youth subcultures in Sydney’s Redfern-Waterloo. Journal of Urban Affairs, 34, 207-222. MORGAN, G. & WARREN, A. 2011. Aboriginal youth, hip hop and the politics of identification. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 34, 925-947. NAKATA, M. 2007. An Indigenous Standpoint Theory, Canberra, Aboriginal Studies Press. NATIONAL Inquiry Into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls 2019. Reclaiming Power and Place: The Final Report of the National Inquiry Into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, Volume 1a, Ottawa, Ontario, National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.

229

O'BRIEN, K. 2018. Petitioning for Land : The Petitions of First Peoples of Modern British Colonies, London, Bloomsbury UK. PATRICK, S. W. J. and BIDDLE, J. L. 2018. Not just ceremony, not just dance, not just idea: Milpirri as hyperrealism, a key word discussion. Visual Anthropology Review, 34, 27- 35. PELIZZON, A. and KENNEDY, J. 2012. Welcome to country: Legal meanings and cultural implications. Australian Indigenous Law Review, 16, 58-69. UNITED NATIONS. 2019. Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Indigenous Peoples. Indigenous Peoples at the UN [Online]. Available: https://www.un.org/development/desa/indigenouspeoples/about-us.html [Accessed]. POTSKIN, J. 2017-2019. Indigenous Rap: A PhD Project. Available from: https://indigenousrap.wordpress.com/ 2019]. REBOLLO-GIL, G. and MORAS, A. 2012. Black Women and Black men in Hip Hop music: misogyny, violence and the negotiatin of (white owned) space. The Journal of Popular Culture. 45, 118-139. RED, A. T. C. 2016. We Are The Halluci Nation. We Are The Halluci Nation. RIELE, K. T. 2006. Youth 'at risk': Further marginalizing the marginalised? Journal of Education Policy, 21, 129;145;-145. RISTOCK, J. L., ZOCCOLE, A., POTSKIN, J., ABORIGINAL, T.-S., LGBTQ MIGRATION, M., HEALTH RESEARCH, P., SEXUAL, GENDER DIVERSITY, V., RESILIENCE RESEARCH, P. and CANADIAN INSTITUTES OF HEALTH, R. 2011. Aboriginal Two-Spirit and LGBTQ Migration, Mobility, and Health Research Project : Vancouver final report, Toronto, OM, 2Spirits. SERRANO, S. 2015. The Rap Year Book: The Most Important Rap Song From Every Year Since 1979, Discussed, Debated, and Deconstructed, Harry N. Abrams. SHARPE, M. C. 2013. All Yugambeh-Bundjalung Dictionary, Armidale, NSW, Margaret C. Sharpe. SMITH, K. 2015. Musos unite for SOS Blak Australia campaign. Green Left Weekly, 25. SMITH, L. T. 1999. Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples, London; New York; Dunedin, N.Z: Zed Books. SOLIS, G. 2015. Transpacific Excursions Multi-Sited Ethnomusicology, The Black Pacific, and Nettl’s Comparative (Method). In: LEVINE, V. L., BOHLMAN, P.V., NETTL, B. (ed.) This thing called music: essays in honor of Bruno Nettl. Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield. STANNER, W.E.H. 2011. The Dreaming and other Essays, Melbourne, Black Inc. STATISTICS, A. B. 2019. Estimates of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians, June 2016 [Online]. Available: https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/[email protected]/mf/3238.0.55.001 [Accessed]. STOVALL, D. 2006. We can Relate: Hip-Hop Culture, Critical Pedagogy, and the Secondary Classroom. Urban Education, 41, 585-602.

230

SUMNER, L. 2013. They Say. Rez Poetry. TRAVIS R. and MASTON, A. 2014. Hip-Hop and pedagogy, more than meets the eye. In PORFILIO, B., ROYCHOUDHURY, D., and GARDNER, L.M. (eds) See You at the Crossroads: Hip Hop Scholarship at the Intersections Dialectical Harmony, Ethics, Aesthetics, and Panoply of Voices (eds). New York: Springer TRUTH and RECONCILIATION COMMISSION of CANADA (TRCC). 2015. Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada: Honouring the Truth, Reconciling for the Future. Summary. Volume One, Ottawa, ON, James Lorimer Limited, Publishers. TUCK, E. Y., and WAYNE. K. 2012. Decolonisation is not a metaphor. Decolonisation: Indigeneity, Education & Society, 1, 1-40. ULLESTAD, N. 1999. American Indian Rap and Reggae: dancing "to the beat of a different drummer". Popular Music and Society, 23, 63-91. VIERA, R., 2014. Life Stories, Cultural Métissage, and Personal Identities. Sage Open 4, 1-13

VOGEL, S. 1988. Marx and alienation from nature. Social Theory and Practice, 14, 367-387. WALTER, M. 2010. Market forces and Indigenous resistance paradigms. Social Movement Studies, 9, 121-137. WALTER, M and ANDERSON, C. 2013. Indigenous Statistics: a Quantitative Research Methodology, Walnut Creek, CA, Left Coast Press. WAUGH, E. 2019. Cree Dictionary [Online]. Intellimedia Technologies Inc. Available: http://www.creedictionary.com [Accessed]. WENGER-NABIGON, A. 2010. The Cree medicine wheel as an organizing paradigm of theories of human development. Native Social Work Journal, 7, 139-161. WHITE, C. 2009. ‘Rapper on a rampage’: Theorising the political significance of Aboriginal Australian Reggae and Hip Hop. Transforming Cultures eJournal, 4, 108-130. WILSON, S. 2008. Research is Ceremony: Indigenous Research Methods, Black Point, NS, Fernwood Pub. WISEMAN, M. S. 2015. Review: James Daschuk, Clearing the Plains: Disease, Politics of Starvation, and the Loss of Aboriginal Life. British Journal of Canadian Studies, 28, 268. WOLFE, P. 1999. Settler Colonialism. New York: Cassell. WOLFE, P. 2006. Settler colonialism and the elimination of the Native. Journal of Genocide Research, 8, 387-409. WOODS, D. 2018. 9 Time out of 10. YOTHU YINDI, P. K. 1991. Treaty. Tribal Voice.

231

232