Great Debate #5: Aus Hip-Hop – Heaps Good?

Another year, another Australian Music Prize shortlist without any hip-hop. The genre may be at the height of its commercial powers, but asks MATT SHEA in the final installment of our Great Debate series, is it actually any good? Weigh in on the debate in the comments section below for your chance to win a $250 record store voucher of your choosing thanks to Hyundai’s Veloster. Photo by LEAH ROBERTSON.

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.]

Aussie hip-hop is on the march. While the rest of the local independent record industry has struggled in the post millennial digital realm, Australian rappers have been shifting units, selling out arenas and broadening their radio play. The Hilltop Hoods’ 2003 album The Calling was the first local hip-hop record to go platinum and demonstrate a widespread support for the genre, while their 2006 follow-up The Hard Road achieved the same feat within a week of release. (2009 album State Of The Art has since gone double platinum.) Hilltop Hoods are matched by Sydney’s Bliss n Eso, who notched up gold and platinum records with 2008’s Flying Colours and 2010’s Running On Air respectively, and attracted over 50,000 people to their 2011 national tour.

But the success of Australian hip-hop has led to an almost inevitable backlash against the genre. Op-eds have popped up on the topic, and even the triple j forums are riddled with objections to the quality and quantity of local rap music being spun on Australia’s national youth broadcaster. It raises the question: is local hip-hop actually any good? Are the leading artists and their fans an accurate barometer of a broader community that exists in local rap music? And does local hip-hop have the potential to break overseas? It’s a debate that takes place against the backdrop of yesterday’s Australian Music Prize shortlist announcement, which once again neglected to include a local rap release.

One local critic who has questioned the worth of contemporary Australian hip-hop is Robbie Ettelson. Ettelson edits Unkut.com, a widely read US-focused hip-hop blog widely read in the northern hemisphere. Writing for the most recent issue of Acclaim Magazine in a piece titled “The Aussie Rap Dilemma”, Ettelson opined:

Somewhere along the line, the so-called “scene” fell into … the warped misconception that we must support “Aussie Hip-Hop” at all costs, even if it’s not actually very good. This means patting each other on the back at every opportunity and establishing an incestuous circle-jerk of shitty music which everyone is obliged to praise else they risk being labelled unpatriotic. This in turn leads to kids who may never hear any significant hip-hop from the States beyond Kanye and Eminem, and as a result don’t really have a point of reference to compare anything against and actually start to believe the hype that Oz hip-hop is far superior to the rest of the world.

All these factors contribute to an awkward mess of delusional flag-wavers and desperate airplay whores, which to a life-long rap fanatic such as myself results in a whole bunch of music which simply doesn’t measure-up to the standard of the finest new releases from New York, Chicago and LA, which are still the yard-stick by which such things are measured.

It’s a damning assessment, and one that’s clearly supported by many music listeners throughout Australia. Adding legitimacy to Ettelson’s comments is his status as an industry insider, having come up through the Melbourne rap scene in the late ’90s as MC Rob Nat, a member of Melbourne crew Lyrical Commission.

Regardless of Ettelson’s credentials, Craig Mathieson – author and occasional M+N contributor – tends to take a different view. “It’s like any large genre: there are good things and there are bad things,” Mathieson reasons. “Would you ask me if Australian indie rock is any good?

“It just speaks to that great mass of young people who are growing up in suburbs, whether inner, middle or outer, or in country towns … One of the traits that Australian hip-hop has is very much a sense of identification – that you, the listener, and I, the artist, are interchangeable, and our lives are interchangeable. It’s a very direct form of communication and if you’re 16 or 18 or 22 or whatever you can identify with that.”

Luke Anisimoff, a freelance journalist who regularly covers local hip-hop for Rolling Stone, takes a similar view. “It’s the same with any music. There’s some great stuff and there’s some absolute shit. You could ask if Aussie indie music is good or shit … There’s a lot of Aussie hip-hop that’s just absolute crap, but the good stuff is out there and it’s really good.”

“And it’s just the sheer numbers,” Anisimoff continues. “Acts like Bliss n Eso, Hilltop Hoods and 360 – they’re acts that are almost guaranteed a number one release at the moment. Drapht as well. There aren’t exactly any rock bands since Powderfinger that have that sort of pull.”

Helping put Ettelson’s arguments into context is Tim Levinson – MC, producer, and Managing Director of local hip-hop label Elefant Traks. “Robbie’s a dope writer with an incredible depth of knowledge on hip-hop and a great sense of humour,” Levinson says. “He’s also a purist until death and his writing has to be appreciated through that lens.

“When he’s talking about measuring against New York City or Los Angeles rap, local stuff will never pass because he can’t imagine another strand of the genre existing alongside a purist’s view of hip-hop. To him and many others it’s illegitimate. But they also believe that the majority of hip-hop today is illegitimate, so you can pick and choose his positions to back up your own opinion as you please.”

That’s not to say Levinson doesn’t agree with some of Ettelson’s criticisms. “He hits the bulls-eye in respect of fans being deluded thinking local rap is superior to US [hip-hop]. I also agree that the US native tongue is the easier accent to listen to hip-hop with. But look a the facts: there must be a reason why so many kids are buying local rap.”

Levinson isn’t alone in his ambivalence. MC Tuka of high-profile Sydney-based crew Thundamentals agrees with Ettelson’s idea that Australian hip-hop is often divided down pop and purist lines, but points out that there’s a vast spectrum between those two polarities. “There’s so much stuff in-between. I do agree with everything he’s saying; I just think he left out the 70 percent that sits in-between those two opinions.”

But Tuka has noticed Australian kids growing up listening only to a local form of the genre. “Definitely. It’s got a huge positive and a huge negative to it. When you have these passionate kids, that’s amazing, except it’s married to this old Australian custom of patriotism, which I think taking a world view is a really dated concept ideologically … That patriotism was pushed to get the flint sparked, but now that it’s sparked it tends to marginalise everyone that isn’t a middleclass white Australian.”

Tuka asserts that the local genre is undergoing a period of diversification and in the process becoming more inclusive and representative of Australian culture. “People have grown some nuts and can now explore some different sounds,” he says. “This is a very conservative country and our art reflects that, and when someone does a piece of art that’s a bit different they’re afraid. Finally, Australian hip-hop is getting out of that mentality and stretching itself.”

Hau Latukefu has the advantage of approaching the debate from two angles: as MC for Canberra duo Koolism and as the presenter of triple j’s Hip Hop Show on Monday nights. He too is philosophical. “Robbie’s quite diplomatic in that article. I agreed with it,” he says. “But at the same time I think there’s some great international standard hip-hop today.”

“The idea of supporting Australian hip-hop because it’s Australian,” he continues, “I think back in the day you would think, ‘Yeah, we need to supply our own.’ That’s why we called it Aussie hip-hop, because we needed that identity. Now when I hear that phrase – ‘Aussie hip-hop’ – it makes me cringe. There’s a stigma attached to that tag now that we’ve created a foundation where we’re able to say ‘hip-hop’ and support it if you like it.”

Latukefu agrees with Tuka’s assertion that there’s a lot of diverse rap music being made that doesn’t get anywhere near the mainstream. But as for the idea that triple j play too much Australian hip-hop, he’s blunt. “It’s the same when you’re on the road and you say, ‘Let’s spot all the red cars.’ All of a sudden you see five red cars in 30 seconds. You look at the playlist and it’s nothing like that – it’s like one song in 20. People just notice it when it’s played.

“I have noticed the backlash on the triple j site, when we had the Hottest 100 Australian Albums Of All Time poll and the [Hilltop] Hoods came in on the top 10: just the amount of negative feedback. People saying, ‘Hip-hop doesn’t belong in Australia,’ or, ‘Australians can’t rap.’ It’s terrible.”

But beyond the appraisal of local hip-hop’s worth is the question of relevance. And does it have a future where it’s good enough to crossover into foreign territories – particularly America?

"Sooner or later we may produce someone who’ll make a global impact.”

Regular LA Weekly scribe and Los Angeles-based hip-hop journalist Jeff Weiss describes Australian rap as being “mediocre” by US standards, but stresses that the fundamental question is whether or not it’s meaningful. “People are always going to want to identify with their music. I think with hip-hop it’s the same. There are a lot of different types of hip-hop consumers: those who like to dance, black people who identify with the struggle. It can be themes or emotion or energy. I think for white rappers like Mac Miller or Asher Roth there’s a lifestyle. And I think in Australia, they’ve tapped into a similar thing … I think eventually Australia will produce one person who will crossover to America – eventually.”

But is international validation and acceptance actually necessary? Levinson isn’t so sure. “There are two ways of looking at it,” he says. “One is that we need international growth in order to evolve and progress: it’s the next frontier and acknowledges that there’s more to life than our backyard. The second is the classic Aussie cultural cringe that has existed since art was being made here, that is we’re not legit until we’re validated by international approval…

“I say, whatever the fuck: you can’t always rationalise a love of something. Let’s keep the door open to people evolving the Australian sound, because sooner or later we may produce someone who’ll make a global impact.”

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