The Hip-hop culture in Aotearoa New Zealand

Hip-hop has emerged as a significant musical genre in Aotearoa New Zealand creating an awareness of cultural diversity and ethnic identity and is similar to other countries where reclamation of identity has been achieved using music. Hip-hop has long been seen as the voice for the disenfranchised. The New Zealand Hip-hop scene began in the 1980’s when artists such as Upper Hutt Posse began recording and gained recognition for lyrics relating to tino rangatiratanga, Maori Sovereignty. Is the success of Hip-hop in New Zealand the backlash of the colonisation process? New Zealand has a colourful past in terms of race relations, which has contributed to Maori and Pacific Islanders, amongst other minority groups, sense of disenfranchisement. The Hip-hop culture has provided a medium for young people to channel their talents and have a

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Many New Zealand Hip-hop artists including King Kapisi use Hip-hop in order to promote preserving ones culture and language. The creator becomes the musicians, the disc jockey, and the singers, the record producers and promoters. Most students identified the Hip-hop as a popular choice in personal musical preference, with the beat and lyrics of Hip-hop over other popular styles of music being the preference, as opposed to rock or grunge. The subsequent popularity has also brought commercialism to every aspect of Hip-hop culture and the fashion styles have become consumed by the mainstream and represent some of today’s best selling commodities . Like many countries where minority groups have been disenfranchised from their cultural backgrounds, Hip-hop arrived in New Zealand and emerged within the music scene as having a strong influence with local artists and the political message of persecution and racism spoke strongly with many Maori musicians. nz

I am also very grateful for Sue McLachlan; HOD from Aranui High School Music Department, for the time she gave me during the research for this assignment and the material supplied which was invaluable. Most Hip-hop bands compose music using lyrics that speak politically about their own lives and those of their ancestors. Hip-hop is an area that is focused on, amongst many others. Consequently, Hip-hop is more visible and the messages have been able to influence a not only a local but a worldwide audience . The cultural object in this context has two sides to it, the gain of political and social dominance for the dominant powers and the lose, for the minority groups, of ones own values and attitude that are both as foreign to each other as the two cultures are to each other.

From there New Zealand Hip-hop has gone from strength to strength, with added contribution from Pacific Island musicians thus creating a vibrant style known as Urban Pasifika. As Tamati (2003), points out there are universally held views on the Hip-hop culture in New Zealand and the young people who are involved around New Zealand all have different perspectives about how Hip-hop relates to them specifically. There is a need for the larger audiences to understand the positive contribution that Hip-hop is making to the lives of young people both locally and globally. In conjunction with the rapper, there is usually a DJ or live band that keeps the beat and in addition to the beat, other sounds are synthesized and performed .

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Approximate Word count = 3010
Approximate Pages = 12 (250 words per page double spaced)

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