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‘Inbetweenness’ and ‘Migrant’ Youth
Melissa Butcher and Mandy Thomas begin their edited volume Ingenious, a collection of essays which celebrates various subcultural expressions of multicultural, second generation and migrant youth cultural fusions in Australia, with the following definition of the speaking position of 'inbetweenness' by Stuart Hall:
There are people who belong to more than one world, speak more than one language (literally and metaphorically), inhabit more than one identity, have more than one home, who have learned to negotiate and translate between two cultures, and who, because they are irrevocably the product of several interlocking histories and cultures, have learned to live with, and indeed to speak from, difference. They speak from the 'in-between' of different cultures, always unsettling the assumptions of one culture from the perspective of another, and thus finding ways of being both the same as and at the same time different from the others amongst whom they live ([1996] cited in Butcher and Thomas 2003:15).
There is a significant proportion of second generation migrant youth in Australia who inhabit this ‘in between’ position which enables them to articulate an Australian identity in some contexts as well as express their non-Anglo ethnic background in others, as well as mimicking and reversing the derogatory ethnic stereotypes (such as ‘wog’) they are often subjected to. In their 2002 essay on Lebanese-Australian youth, Greg Noble and Paul Tabar demonstrate how Arabic-speaking youth in the Canterbury/Bankstown area of Sydney articulate their hyphenated identities through a strategic essentialism which involves linguistic code-mixing and hybrid behaviour: in some contexts, for example, Lebanese-Australians might ‘reassert their Lebaneseness in the face of structural disadvantage and racism’, but in others they ‘adopt and mimic the dominant images of them by others, and even erase their ethnic alignments’ (2002: 140-141). Their mobilisation of a strategic Australian identity enables them to assert independence from their parents and traditional Lebanese codes of behaviour, while their use of a Lebanese identity enables them to assert their difference from Australian norms when appropriate.
Their ‘homeland’ is likely to shift between Lebanon and Australia depending on the situation they find themselves in. But this does not amount to simply meeting the demands of the ‘two worlds’ they inhabit, rather is dependent on a strategic alignment with different contexts in which they encounter ‘incommensurable differences’. Drawing on Hall’s articulation of ‘new ethnicities’ the authors conclude that ‘[t]o be ‘Lebanese-Australian’ is thus an example of a new, multifarious configuration which consists of different identities sutured together without any one obliterating the others’ (2002:144). This strategic mobilisation of different identies from an ‘inbetween’ position also occurs within Australian hip hop.
The role of music as an expression of identity, particularly through performance, but also through participation in scenes and subcultures, has been widely noted, especially by Simon Frith, who draws the following analogy between music and identity;
Music, like identity, is both performance and story, describes the social in the individual and the individual in the social, the mind in the body and the body in the mind; identity, like music, is a matter of both ethics and aesthetics (1996:109).
It follows that the double perspective of 'in-betweenness' described by Stuart Hall can be given particularly strong expression through music, and in the case of the embodied declamatory vernacular medium of hip hop, can be given sharply focused public expression. Such expressions of dual identity, embodied to varying degrees of confidence and assurance, are an important aspect of Australian hip hop, frequently overlooked in debates about the desirability of Australian accents and local cultural references in what is still widely perceived as an African-American musical and performative genre. The cultural diversity of much local Australian hip hop reflects the broader indigenisation of hip hop by both indigenous and second generation immigrant youth throughout the world, and the frequent adoption of the four elements of MCing (rapping), DJing (turntablism), graffiti and breakdancing by young people from migrant ethnic minorities as a conduit to explore and re-discover aspects of their homeland culture in a form of what Schiller and Fouron have called 'long distance nationalism' (2001).
On the one hand, culturally diverse hip hop crews in Australia such as Downsyde, South West Syndicate, TZU and Curse ov Dialect - with their wildly surreal 'rainbow hip hop' - embody multiply ethnicised speaking positions which express Australian multiculturalism, pluralism and diversity. On the other, individual MCs from non-Anglo-Australian backgrounds such as MC Trey, Hau of the 2004 Aria Award-winning group Koolism, Maya Jupiter, Sleek the Elite and Comrade Kos of Third Estate, who all speak from varied positions of 'in-betweenness', and are the subjects of this paper, bring a unique sense of hybridity and musical syncretism to Australian hip hop which contributes to a highly original and distinctive view of the world and participates in an expressive form of 'transborder citizenry' (Schiller and Fouron 2001:20), of both the Australian nation and the rhetorically configured global 'hip hop nation'. While most Australian hip hop is in English, a factor which tends to accentuate comparisons with US hip hop, and charges of derivateness, and place it in a position similar to that of UK hip hop, which has been similarly disparaged, the growth of culturally diverse elements, such as the use of Samoan, Tongan and other Pacific Island languages and cultural elements by Trey, Koolism and the Souljah Sistas, Spanish and Salsa Rhythms by Maya Jupiter, Ila Familia, the Herd, Brethren and Downsyde, along with the inclusion of Aboriginal language by artists such as South West Syndicate and Native Rhyme Syndicate, is defining Australian hip hop as a vehicle for cultural diversity.
Writing in 1960 about European migration to Australia in the 19th and 20th centuries, Frank Thistlethwaite suggested that 'we should try and think neither of emigrants nor immigrants, and to treat the process of migration as a complete sequence of experiences whereby the individual moves from one social identity to another' (in Pozzetta 1991, 635).
This rather fixed and simple notion of an unproblematic exchange of social identity, together with an implicit connotation of instability, impermanence and displacement expressed in the term 'migrant' has been widely adopted in Australia.
But many second generation migrants, in the sense of those either born here or who have migrated to Australia at an early age, and who have been able to physically and linguistically re-connect with their ancestral homelands, are becoming an increasingly widespread phenomenon for which the term 'transmigrant', as mobilised by Schiller and Fouron (2001:3), is more appropriate. For Schiller and Fouron ‘transmigrants’ are 'long distance nationalists' for whom the 'homeland is not just a site of nostalgia; it is a location of ongoing experience' (2001:2-3). For some hip hop MCs of non-English-speaking background, hip hop has provided an impetus for them to re-connect with their homeland while continuing to negotiate their identity as Australians.
An important illustration of the 'transmigrant' multilingualism of Australian hip hop can be found in Sonic Allsorts: Modern Music - Native Tongues, a highly distinctive CD compilation which showcases the cultural diversity of second generation non-Anglo migrants. A co-production between SBS Radio Alchemy, the 2003 Noise Youth festival and Cyclic Defrost magazine, it features tracks by 17 Australian artists from 7 states performing in over 20 languages, with code-switching a recombinant feature. It was compiled by Brendan Palmer, SBS Radio Alchemy producer, founder of the independent Australian electronica collective Clan Analogue, and prominent local and international DJ and electronica artist. Over 3,500 copies of the CD were distributed throughout Australia, mainly as a 'giveaway' in the important 'underground' music magazine Cyclic Defrost, which is edited and published by DJ and music writer Sebastian Chan, and profiles and reviews a wide range of independent Australian and overseas exponents of hip hop, electronica and avant-garde music (available online at cyclicdefrost.com). Dale Harrison, Cyclic Defrost co-editor, music producer and member of Sydney hip hop group the Herd has noted that both Sonic Allsorts and Cyclic Defrost were 'borne out of a need to represent other less emphasised elements of Australian culture, and to reclaim from the rampant parochialism and jingoism the very idea of being "Australian"' (2003:16).
Australian hip hop, given its predominantly subcultural nature as an underground, do-it-yourself phenomenon which obtains little support from the mainstream music industry and frequently gives expression to marginalised social groups (see Mitchell 2003), is an ideal medium through which to express these 'less emphasised elements of Australian culture’.
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The result of a nationwide competition linked to the 2003 Noise Festival, an Australian Youth Music festival, Sonic Allsorts leads off with a track in Swahili by Sydney-based hip hop producer and MC Mr.Zux, following on with Eh Mate, in French and Punjabi, by Brisbane artist Prussia, and a Spanish rap by Adelaide based Joel Castell. The most popular track amongst the six judges by a wide margin was Curse Ov Dialect's Curse Ov The Vulk Macedonski, which features traditional Macedonian music, dance and MCing by Vulk from the multicultural Melbourne crew who are redefining Australian hip hop. Also scoring highly were 'Nursery Chant' by Sydney artist Tufa, who sings, chants and raps in the Chinese dialect Henghwa, and Latin American collective Ila Familia with their anthemic salsa dance track 'Ven a Bailar', produced by Mr.Zux. Anglo-Australian facilitator of Aboriginal and multicultural hip hop Morganics follows with Multi Lingual MC, which features snippets of 15 different languages, is also included. Palmer attributes the predominance of hip hop on the album to the fact that it is 'the most active lyrical modern music' and ' a style that allows the un-represented to be represented' (in Harrison 2003:16). Other artists on the compilation include Creator, a Tasmanian-based MC from Sierra Leone who raps here in French, but also performs in Mende, Creole and English, Mandarin MC Horny Keung, whose name comes from an evil sauna bath owner featured in the cult movie Hong Kong X File, as well as 'Oiaue, (oyawaya) a part Tongan-language, part English party track from Koolism, recorded especially for the compilation, an R&B track in Samoan, English and Cook Island Maori by Soul-Jah On, a French track with some deft scratching by Darwin-based Vassy, gamelan jazz from Indonesian artists Anything But Roy, and drum 'n' bass with Punjabi and Urdu inflections from Vir Asan. Sonic Allsorts represents a hidden face of non-Anglophone Australian music, and its use of languages other than English as well as code-switching demonstrates how hip hop can be an important medium for retrieving the native languages of transmigrants and expressing aspects of their homeland culture. The fact that MC Hau of Koolism does not in fact speak Tongan, but learnt the lyrics of 'Oiaue phonetically, also demonstrates that strategic essentialism can be articulated through hip hop in gestures towards a homeland identity that may be rhetorical rather than actual.
One of the most prominent second generation transmigrant figures in Australian hip hop is MC Trey, who grew up in Fiji listening to her father’s gospel singing, along with Polynesian and reggae music. Trey's real name is Thelma Thomas; the name Trey originated as an acronym for 'The Rhymin' Edifyin' Young'un' on her 1997 self-produced debut cassette tape with DJ Bonez, Projectile. Trey's first encounter with hip hop was when she was 9 years old, at primary school in the mid 1980s in Fiji, watching videos of the Rock Steady Crew at a neighbours house: ‘They had a copy of “Hey You” and “Uprockin'”. I remember seeing Baby Love and was like, “wow she's great, I want to do what she's doing”’. She set about finding out as much as she could about MCing and breakdancing, and at primary school she began scribbling down lyrics in exercise books. ‘I was so young and didn’t have funds or much access to hip hop and didn’t even know what was happening in other countries, but I watched as many vid[eos]s as I could.
Image: Tapastry Tunes Album Cover
My older cousins would learn breaking moves off the vids and I'd learn off them, and at family parties, we'd entertain them with our dance routines’. Her cousins in Australia and New Zealand sent her the video of Stan Latham's 1984 film Beat Street - the first Hollywood film about break dancing - as well as Run DMC tapes and she copied the moves and the flows.
Trey’s early breakdancing performances in Fiji coincide with an influx of breakdancing in the Pacific, particularly in Western Samoa, from which it spread to Aotearoa/New Zealand, where Maori and Pacific Island youngsters formed breakdance teams who appeared on local television and in a national breakdance competition. As Tania Kopytko has pointed out, the US import culture of breakdancing provided these mostly disadvantaged young people, who often had little change of achieving recognition through conventional channels such as school, sport and social position, with ‘a very strong and positive identity that did much to raise their self esteem and realise their capabilities’ (1986 21-2). It also provided both Maori and Pacific Island young people with a more accessible substitute for their own culture, which in many cases they were disconnected from, and arguably provided a conduit to gaining more knowledge about their own cultural background. Trey has admitted that she still doesn’t know a great deal about Fijian culture, but sees hip hop as providing her with the motivation to discover it, and in the process she has re-acquired some aspects of her heritage. Her track on her debut mini-album Daily Affirmations ‘So Where U Wanna Go’, which addresses MCs looking for direction, begins with a description of a trip to Fiji in the context of the migratory journeys of her Pacific ancestors, before embodying the local-US syncretism of much Australian hip hop by hooking up with African-American MC Eligh from Living Legends. Trey also uses the metaphor of her Pacific ancestors setting their seafaring course by the stars to express her own progress and direction in hip hop.
Trey's family moved to Parramatta in the western suburbs of Sydney when she was 11, and she pursued her interest in hip hop by going to local jams in the then emerging Sydney hip hop scene, which had started with breakdancing parties in the park at Burwood. In Basic Equipment, a 1997 documentary about Sydney hip hop by the Maltese-Australian creator of SBS’s comedy series Pizza Paul Fenech, Trey talks about the way that she regards the four elements of hip hop as modern extensions of analagous elements in traditional Fijian culture. She relates turntablism to the beats of the lali log drum (used on ceremonial occasions such as announcing mealtimes), the MC to her grandfather’s public speaking in a circle around the kava bowl, breakdancing to the ceremonial meke story-performance dances, and graffiti to cave-painting. She also draws on the designs of the tapa or masi cloth, a traditional bark-cloth used in traditional Fijian ceremonies and religious rituals, made from the paper mulberry tree into which patterns which recount ancestral Fijian stories are stencilled, stamped or smoked, as a traditional equivalent of hip hop graffiti. Trey has used tapa cloth designs on her CD covers and website as well as wearing it in performance, and appropriating it in the name of the record label she has set up, Tapastry, and in the title of her second album, Tapastry Tunes. As the album liner notes state: ‘Tapa is of high significance in Fijian culture and always included in traditional, ritualistic and spiritual ceremonies throughout the island; Tapastry metaphorically represents the various elements of life experience, knowledge and creativity that interweave to create Trey – the artist and her music’.
These rhetorical and metaphorical connections and correspondences between traditional and ceremonial elements of indigenous culture and hip hop have also been explored by Maori and Pacific Island hip hop artists in Aotearoa/New Zealand (as illustrated in Sydney film maker Carla Drago’s 1998 documentary film Island Style, in which Trey appears, and in Gareth Shute's 2004 book on Hip hop in Aotearoa). They are part of the indigenisation or ‘glocalisation’ process which has seen hip hop take root in local cultures through out the world. As Trey has commented: ‘I feel that a lot of young people who are removed from their culture or have grown up without a culture are drawn to hip hop because of its elements and sense of belonging it provides. For me, MCing is modern day story-telling, just like my ancestors did around the kava bowl.’ In her view, it is important for Australian hip hop to be multicultural, ‘because it brings different music styles and tales of different lands, and can only add to the beauty of hip hop’.
These rhetorical and metaphorical connections and correspondences between traditional and ceremonial elements of indigenous culture and hip hop have also been explored by Maori and Pacific Island hip hop artists in Aotearoa/New Zealand (as illustrated in Sydney film maker Carla Drago’s 1998 documentary film Island Style, in which Trey appears, and in Gareth Shute's 2004 book on Hip hop in Aotearoa). They are part of the indigenisation or ‘glocalisation’ process which has seen hip hop take root in local cultures through out the world. As Trey has commented: ‘I feel that a lot of young people who are removed from their culture or have grown up without a culture are drawn to hip hop because of its elements and sense of belonging it provides. For me, MCing is modern day story-telling, just like my ancestors did around the kava bowl.’ In her view, it is important for Australian hip hop to be multicultural, ‘because it brings different music styles and tales of different lands, and can only add to the beauty of hip hop’.
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