Identity Issues
'Life is not as hard as my ancestor’s journeys'
Nemesis
When we lose a sacred place, we lose our past… In a very real, almost final sense we lose ourselves.1
Every person has an identity. It’s a combination of all the different parts in a person’s life that combine together to make them a unique person. These parts tell the world what you are like as a person, what you connect with and, in the end, define who you are. They create the ‘lens’ through which you see and make sense of the world. One of the lenses you view things through is coloured by your background and your place of origin – your ‘roots’ – and this sense of where you come from lays the foundations for who you are now.
Identity is also trans-historical. People inherit experiences of the past that define their present. With regard to Māori, colonisation is a recent inherited experience that has shaped who they are today.
The fundamentals of Hip Hop are the same as American Hip Hop but the actual topic that we talk about is totally different. They talk about shooting people in the street whereas New Zealand hasn’t been exposed to that type of lifestyle so we’re gonna be talking about the Treaty of Waitangi and coming from the islands to New Zealand.2
The young people who picked up on Hip Hop in the early days of its arrival in Aotearoa were predominantly of indigenous Māori or Pacific Island descent. What they saw were images of Black and Latino youth, people who looked just like them. 3 They also saw Hip Hop as a way to express who they were… a creative outlet that gained them some respect in a world which often turned their back on them.
The ways in which every significant institution in our society makes it clear to them (young people) that they do not count, that their parents are losers, and that their communities are places where no one would live if they were not forced to do so… [the] problems [are] common because of de-industrialisation, economic restructuring, and neo-conservative politics. 4
Hip Hop can provide an alternative to low-skilled, unsecured service industry jobs or welfare benefits – a way to find a sense of belonging other than through gangs, drugs or similar self-destructive acts. It has become a means of being ‘heard’ by the system – of finding other voices that sing the same song.
…local Hip Hop is an extension of what was here before… a way of networking, extensions of the family, a tribal thing.
Sirvere 2003, The 'Next' Research, p36
For young Māori in Aotearoa, perhaps the first glimmer of how cultural identity could be asserted through music came with the 1984 Number One hit by Dalvanius Prime and the Patea Māori Club, ‘Poi E’. This blend of traditional Māori chanting, poi, rap and break-dancing (or 'bopping' as it was known then) lifted the visibility of Hip Hop culture in Aotearoa, and it's possible that this combination opened the eyes of other Polynesians to use Hip Hop as a voice. 5 And perhaps it did, because after Dalvanius more and more Polynesians, especially Māori, began to write and produce rap music that was culturally and politically orientated. So started the slow transformation of American Hip Hop culture into a more uniquely Aotearoa style - a transformation that is still ongoing today.
You’re a magpie, taking cultural references from everywhere to say your own shit. It’s the people’s music.
DLT, 'The Next' Research p41
It wasn’t just a Māori and Pacific Island gig. Pākeha rappers, too, struggled to assert their cultural identity. As blended Hip Hop group Aposse Cut said:
In the beginning Kiwiana was never meant to be / Now the only way to have identity / Is by gripping and sifting through icons from the past / Doesn’t suit you because the future is moving so fast / Folks being choked by the American yoke / So now anything New Zealandy looks like a joke… /…I took stories from my childhood and put them to verse / And then got bombed, a Kiwiana curse / I can think of worse, but still it’s a taint / It isn’t nice being labelled as a joke when you ain’t.6
Power of Respect
At the basis of all identity issues is one common feature – the desire for ‘respect’ – both by those in your own community, and in the wider society. Hip Hop not only preaches the mantra of ‘respect’ worldwide, it helps those involved to gain it.
I think the whole movement (Hip Hop), if you trace it back, it’s either looking for respect, or having respect or gaining respect. Like respect for your peers or just respect in general…
DJ Ali, 'The Next' Research p32
I don’t care if you’re male, female, white, brown, or whatever. If you’ve got skills and you’ve paid your dues, you get respect.
JC aka Wordperfect, 'The Next' Research p44
Perhaps the most powerful step to creating a unique cultural identity is when groups are given the opportunity to talk about the specific difficulties facing them, and give voice to their grievances. Hip Hop provided the perfect platform for this.
…an introduced culture migrates to a different land, and there it is somehow infused with whatever the current social climate [is]; e.g. political, racial, economic. When Hip Hop becomes the voice for those people, then that is local Hip Hop.
Askew, 'The Next' Research p47
Youth Struggling for Survival
The people of America’s First Nations use Hip Hop as a means of connecting with their own young people. An American organisation called ‘Youth Struggling for Survival’ actively work to strengthen young people’s identities by making links back to traditional customs. It is through this linking of the traditional with the modern that young people can connect with their historical stories and strengthen their understandings of their ‘true’ identities. They believe that by guiding their native and urban youth back to their own indigenous roots, they help harness pride and self-esteem to fuel more successful futures. Check out our Links Page for further details.
Collective Identity
Dr Kirsten Zemke-White, in her article ‘Rap Music and Pacific Identity in Aotearoa: Popular Music and the Politics of Opposition’ speaks about Pacific youth joining in a collective identity, with political and racial dimensions. She believes ‘rangatahi, or youth, use the rap genre exactly as it was intended: as a political and aggrieved voice of a sometimes voiceless people’.
Uplifting Voices
Some Māori involved in Hip Hop tend to use it as a vehicle to express and confirm their place as the indigenous people, as tangata whenua. Some Pacific peoples use Hip Hop as a means to uplift their people and cultivate an identity in a land that they are not indigenous to, but have migrated to. Although many of the words used in Hip Hop are imported from overseas, more and more are now drawn from Māori and Pacific Island languages. By using their own language, their voices reflect their unique cultures – and speak of issues vitally important to each group. It’s a way of re-educating Māori and non-Māori about their cultural history… a way of truly making local Hip Hop relevant for local youth.
Check out the web links page for more on Identity issues.
Test your knowledge
- What kind of things does Hip Hop provide an alternative to?
- Who produced a landmark Number One hit in 1984 that brought Māori culture into the public eye?
- What lies at the basis of all identity issues?
- What group of young people does the organisation Youth Struggling For Survival use Hip Hop to connect with?
- What does the term ‘collective identity’ mean?
- How does Hip Hop help uplift the people of the Pacific Islands in Aotearoa?
Extend your thinking
Think about who you are as an individual. What are the things that make you unique? What things about you reflect the group you relate to in society? Have you ‘worked’ on your image – style of clothes, hair, language, body language, etc? Do you feel you are ‘visible’ or ‘heard’ by the system?
1. Kelly, R. November 1987, ‘New Internationalist’, Issue 177.
2. Duffy, D. Summer 2002, quoting Nemesis, in ‘Ill Semantics: Theory of Meaning’, Taiohi Magazine, Issue 6.
3. Khmer. September 2001 ‘Kerb.’ Back2Basics, Aotearoa Hip Hop Magazine, Pioneer Issue.
4. Lipsitz, G. ‘The Hip Hop Hearings’ New York University Press 199:397.
5. Zemke-White, 2001.
6. Curious Records, 1996. ‘On the Beat ’n’ Track’.
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