Title: , You Don’t Stop!

Author: Morganics

Area of Study: Popular Culture

About the author: Morganics is a based Hip Hop artist, director and community worker. Morganics makes regular appearances at SCANSW PIP Days, where his use and application of sociocultural terms and concepts is always very well received. He exists online at https://www.facebook.com/morganicsonline/ and https://www.youtube.com/user/morganicsonline.

Contemporary context The following points are to be integrated across the study of Popular Culture: • use examples drawn from contemporary society • assess the impact of technologies, including communication technologies, on popular culture • examine a contemporary issue in popular culture using the research method of content analysis. Focus study Students are to examine ONE popular culture that conforms to the distinguishing characteristics and has a global acceptance by examining: the creation and development of the popular culture: • the origins of the popular culture • the development of the popular culture from a local to a global level • the process of commodification for the popular culture • the role of mythology in the creation and perpetuation of the popular culture • continuities and changes to the popular culture the consumption of the popular culture: • the consumers of the popular culture and the nature of its consumption • the relationship of heroes and mythology to media and consumption • how globalisation and technologies have influenced consumption • the relationship of access and consumption to age, class, ethnicity, gender, location, sexuality • how consumption and ownership of paraphernalia influence a sense of identity the control of the popular culture: • the ownership of the popular culture and the tensions between consumers and producers • the stakeholders and how they influence the popular culture – family, peer groups, media, marketers, governments, global groups • the role and impact of official and unofficial censorship • the influence of power and authority at the micro, meso and macro levels the different perceptions of the popular culture: • groups that accept and reject the popular culture • changing perceptions and the value of the popular culture to groups in society • how the popular culture constructs or deconstructs gender the contribution of the popular culture to social change: • how the popular culture expresses contemporary social values • the positive and negative impact of the popular culture on wider society • the ways in which the popular culture has contributed to social change.

DJ Kool Herc is the person, America is the society, Hip Hop is the culture, the in is the environment, and 1973 is the time.

Hip Hop you don’t stop, from the birth place to the tip top,

from the ghetto to the world non stop, oh yeah!

Bboys and Girls gonna get down, way before was in your town, from rags to riches putting rappers in pictures, we’ve come so far femcees aint bitches, from Queen Latifah to the one Jean Grae, now Jay Z’s Mum has come out gay, times have changed from way back in the day, when we said “Old School” the records they played were The Trecherous Three and The Furious Five, now ’s on TV trying to survive

“Don’t push me ‘cause I’m close to the edge….” of being that guy that raps in a TV car commercial.

True story. That car commercial on TV with a guy “Don’t push me” is the original Melle Mel, one of the first MCs ever, the king of socio-political commentary with “The Message” being his masterpiece as one member of and The Furious Five.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PobrSpMwKk4 Salt’n’Pepa are in another accompanying TV ad singing their song “Push It” – no irony there yeah? I watched a Holden car ad with a young white boy top rocking in the great outdoors and since I’m a new father I couldn’t help but love the toilet paper TV ad with a computer animated baby busting out some Bboy moves in the clouds to sell, wait for it……toilet paper. Hip Hop You Don’t Stop!

But before we get carried away, a couple of basic questions; what is Hip Hop, who invented it and where does it come from? Discussions about Hip Hop often end up focussing on mainstream recording artists as if they are the be all and end all of the culture, but we need to be aware that this is a reflection more of recording labels and their marketing departments than the full breadth of the culture. It’s a limited scope and shows a small amount of knowledge when people frame these discussions around what I would define as Hip Pop. To be clear, they think that Hip Hop is rapping, that it’s MCs, that it’s just a form of music – it’s not.

Hip Hop is a cultural form that started in the South Bronx in New York City in the early 70s, that has four elements;

1. MCing (or rapping) 2. DJing 3. Bboying or Bgirling Disclosure with KRS One () and, https://i.ytimg.com/vi/9483Y5L5nG0/maxresdefault 4. .

Some would argue that the fifth element is the vocal percussion form known as Beat boxing, others such as KRS One https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppR7s19c1RY would argue that other elements include philosophy, street entrepreneurship and fashion, but you get the idea, Hip Hop is not just rapping, it’s a multipronged urban cultural form. The inventor of Hip Hop is universally acknowledged to be DJ Kool Herc, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhisX4mVoDI a Jamaican DJ who travelled to New York with his mother on her search for a better life. He pulled from the dub and scene of Jamaica to transplant the idea of two turntables and a sound system as a way to share music and also “battle” with other DJs or crews in a musical form. One of the first names for Hip Hop was “Punk, Rock, ”, because there was no actual word to describe what was happening as all these different cultures, people, fashions and ideas started to meld themselves together in the South Bronx in the early 70s. It was the birth of a global – even interplanetary – form of music. A new form of movement such a Bboying pulled from elements of gymnastics, mime, Kung Fu movies and Puerto Rican folk dances. Hip Hop invented DJ culture as we know it, chopping, mixing and sampling from German electronic groups like Kraftwerk to Aussie rock like AC/DC, from James Brown’s drum breaks to disco bass lines. The MCs channelled the call and response of the gospel church, the fiery invocations of the preacher, the poet and the boxer to cajole, entice, enrage and excite the crowd. Graffiti artists turned the New York train system into a moving museum of aerosol art on wheels.

One thing that all these forms had in common was the unique attitude of making an object do something that it wasn’t supposed to. For example, an aerosol can wasn’t designed to do huge colourful works of art, so the graffiti artists made their own nozzles so that the paint flow could be better controlled and directed. Record turntables weren’t designed to spin backwards, records themselves weren’t designed to be “scratched” and there was no machine that allowed DJs to listen to one record in their headphones while the other one played through the speakers – that is, until DJ Grandmaster Flash https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oA-OpvH4CIQ invented it. An MC on the mike could hype the crowd at a basketball court in a housing project and turn the location into a party place, a party for the whole block, a “Block Party”.

Back when I started Bboying in North in 1984 there were no “Hip Hop” clothing labels, no “Hip Hop” friendly electronics companies, no local “Hip Hop” record labels; if you wanted to be a “Hip Hopper” you had to make it yourself. Hip Hop, like Punk music, was a DIY culture, a participatory culture. I went to the chemist and bought some white gloves for my mime inspired moves, I went to Paddy’s markets to buy a local fashion label called “Odyssey” that made baggy pants that local Bboys dug because they were good to dance in. I went to a Hobbyco store in Crows Nest to buy paint and glue to stick coffee jar lids and lego tyres onto my stereo to make my own “ghetto blaster” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=- DeTR8n7eTU We practiced our Bboying in a car park next to North Sydney train station, learning off each other in a time before the internet. We went to hardware stores to buy rolls of linoleum – we called it “lino” – to dance on when we were busking down at Circular Quay.

From the periphery of mainstream society Hip Hop has quickly moved to the centre of the production of consumer culture. Will Smith started out as an MC, as did other Hollywood actors Queen Latifah, Mark Wahlberg and Ice Cube. Ice Cube was in N.W.A. the group famous for their song “F--- the Police” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7-TTWgiYL4 I can remember playing the song, then some politicians said they shouldn’t be playing it, that it should be banned, so they played it on repeat for 24hrs. Now Ice Cube makes kids movies like “Are We There Yet?” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFvco0kn7bw

Red Bull spends thousands on the international Red Bull BC One Bboy championships https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9oEzPGZiTE692KucAsTY1g Apple paid millions for Dr Dre’s headphone brand Beats, Missy Elliot plays for halftime entertainment at The Superbowl, Obama publicly states that he likes Jay Z’s album “The Blueprint” and Jay Z starts his own streaming service, Tidal, while Kanye West….well, let’s just leave it there. Hip Hop culture is ubiquitous, it’s everywhere, it’s universal, it links millions worldwide and it makes millions worldwide. A culture created in the ghettos by outsiders has now become intrinsic to what we would call mainstream culture.

I mentioned Netflix in my opening rhyme, and a good documentary to check for the commodification of that I watched on Netflix is “Fresh Dressed” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQ9LyiNrA-s The sometimes uneasy relationship between an underground culture and big business is fascinating to watch. Where would Adidas be without the endorsement of Run DMC and Missy Elliot? How about Timbaland boots in the mid-90s? One of the biggest Hip Hop producers is in fact called “Timbaland”. Many Hip Hoppers idealised labels like Tommy Hilfiger since they represented the elite, the rich, the polo players of society. To this day, on the streets of Sydney or Melbourne I can pick young men who love local MCs like Kerser, https://www.youtube.com/user/TheKERSER rocking their Polo, Gucci and the latest Nike Air Maxs with pride. You can look at labels like FUBU (For Us By Us) which focussed on the African American market, labels like Ecko (founded by a graffiti artist which I can now buy in Kmart), or Karl Kani and RocaWear which pride themselves on being as elite and expensive as Tommy Hilfiger – the outsiders coveting the elite, mimicking them and replicating them, with their own small twist on the style. Look at the lines of young people lining the streets when Kanye releases a new pair of sneakers or a sloppy joe with a font that mimics Chicano graffiti artists from Los Angeles, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSIuCPuiub4 with a ticket price of $200.

So let’s talk about the capitalist co-opting of Hip Hop culture and ask ourselves; is bigger always better? Is the success or importance of a culture judged by its ability to make money? Who owns Hip Hop now? Who controls it? Who uses it? Who sells it? Who consumes it? These are tough questions, big questions that change through time and geography. Since its birth, Hip Hop has spiralled out to wrap itself around the world as arguably the most influential cultural form of the last 40 years. On that journey, the culture itself has been used, experimented with – many would argue it was an experiment to start with – twisted, transformed and exploited through the powers of mass market capitalism in ways that its founders could never have imagined.

Speaking to a Senegalese, French arts worker the other day he said to me, “I can’t really dig the message or the music of what is in the charts today. For example, I used to like The Black Eyed Peas, but what happened? Look at Will I Am now making house songs with Justin Bieber, that’s not Hip Hop.” “I agree” I said “I really liked that crew Daara J, they rhymed in Wolof, French and English yeah? There were so many Hip Hop crews in Senegal and one of the first and most famous French MCs who mixed and Hip Hop while sampling French artists like Serge Gainsbourg was..” “MC Solaar!” we said together. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSG2qHBm7WM

Hip Hop has flourished in many unlikely settings worldwide. I have been lucky enough to produce a whole album with ex street kids in Tanzania, West Africa, all recorded in their language Ki-Swahili, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_gB9n2KjqA I have recorded songs with school students in Cambodia, sampling old Cambodian pop songs, recording their raps in Khmer and English. I’ve thrown down with Bboys on the streets of Kuala Lumpur and Tokyo, I have worked in remote Aboriginal communities all around recording songs in a myriad of different languages https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zB_EoB-A9k I’ve been to Hip Hop Festivals in Rio and seen the amazing distinctive styles of Brazilian graffiti. All over the globe graffiti is there whether we like it or not, street artists like Adnate use graffiti to repopulate Australian cities with larger than life depictions of . Sydney based graffiti artist and community Worker, Spice https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IW9Pnzl5mmk works with young people throughout Western Sydney; she was the opening act - as an MC - for Ice T when he first toured to Australia years back. Mentioning Spice brings me to another big question;

Where do women fit in Hip Hop?

Are they just there to shake their booty in the background of a Kendrick Lamar clip or can they rap themselves? Women have always been involved in Hip Hop, the founder of the first Hip Hop , Sugarhill Records, was – she is often referred to as the mother of Hip Hop. The first female MC was Sha-Rock, who along with Lisa Lee and Debbie D formed Us Girls who starred in the seminal Hip Hop film “” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkRPu8CUA_k One of the most famous pioneering graffiti artists was Lady Pink, she appeared in the classic Hip Hop film “” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EW22LzSaJA

However, over the years, particularly after West Coast Gangster Hip Hop appeared, women started appearing as backup dancers in Hip Hop video clips wearing less and less clothing. LA MC Ice T, now an actor and member of black heavy metal group Body Count, is married to a porn star, so to argue that Hip Hop is a feminist movement would be a hard argument to mount indeed. However with women like Queen Latifah https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLvcx3Ja8XQ or locals such as Spice, there have always been strong role models to be found as well.

Phillipino Australian Bgirl Demi Sorono came fourth on “So You Think You Can Dance” starred in Australia’s first Hip Hop Feature Film “Survival Tactics” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZQB5 17d2P8 teaches in juvenile jails and performs nationally. Turkish-Mexican Australian MC hosts the show on Triple J for years before moving to LA and continuing to use Cast of “Survival Tactics” Hip Hop as a tool of activism recently http://www.survivaltacticsmovie.com/wp- releasing a powerful song addressing the issue of rape. Sydney based all-female graffiti collective “Stay Fly”, with artists such as Thorn and Iresh, mount all female graffiti exhibitions and run workshops with young people in community centres. In LA, battle MCs like Gavlin represent while Butterscotch beatboxes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROgUkFCjVSw with Mike Patton and classical orchestras. In France, MC Pumpkin makes futuristic, soulful Hip Hop, in DJ Sarah Love spins true school Hip Hop with Josie Styles on the wheels in Sydney. In the US, Bgirl Rokafella https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkj4N2sQltk performs at The White House and is one of the choreographers for the Netflix program “”. In Melbourne, one of the most active Hip Hop producers on the scene bringing that sound to your ears is Sadiva.

Last week, just outside Melbourne I ran a workshop in Melton Library. An 11 year old South Sudanese girl called Nana wrote and recorded her first rap with the line “I’m a ghetto kid from the land down under, I rap so loud it sounds like thunder”. She left the room with a mad smile on her face, happy and proud of what she’d done, and that, for me, is real Hip Hop - Hip Hop You Don’t Stop!