Aboriginal hip hop and identity: Local Knowledge’s Blackfellas

Anna Hush Egerton

Blackfellas, released by Aboriginal hip hop group Local Knowledge on Propaganda

Records in 2005, is a defiant assertion of contemporary, urban Aboriginality. Here, I

explore the meaning of Australian hip hop within a global socio-political context, and

argue that Blackfellas is an expression of Aboriginality that challenges hegemonic and

imposed narratives through its evocation of traditional Aboriginal cultures,

sovereignty over land and positive engagement with young Aboriginal people. Local

Knowledge draw upon the tropes of hip hop to subvert mainstream representations of

Aboriginal culture as primitive, static and dysfunctional.

Hip hop emerged as a genre in the Bronx in the 1970s, giving voice to young African

American and Latin@ communities. Facing unemployment, crime, incarceration and

drug epidemics, hip hop provided a platform for disenfranchised young people to

express their frustration both vocally and physically, through the techniques of

emceeing, b-boying, sampling and beatboxing. The tropes of hip hop were shaped by

the limitations of the technology available to these groups, as well as the specific

political and cultural concerns of the ghetto. However, as hip hop began to spread

around the globe in the early 1980s, it came to transcend its initial specificity,

extending a voice to other communities with comparable experiences of racism,

poverty and various other forms of oppression. Sujatha Fernandes writes, ‘exactly this

local specificity emerged as key in the global spread of hip hop. Hip hop was shaping

a language that allowed young people to negotiate a political voice for themselves in

their societies’ (Fernandes 2011: 4). Young Aboriginal folk in Australia saw their

struggles reflected in the themes of American hip hop, and recognised it as an

effective and relevant platform to express their experiences of oppression within a

culture of erasive colonial ideologies.

If hip hop presents a ‘subordinate, subaltern or subterranean’ youth culture which

defines itself in opposition to the ‘normal, average and dominant’, it forms an ideal

space for self-determined representations of Aboriginality (Thornton 1995: 5). Local

Knowledge’s Blackfellas draws upon the tropes of hip hop to construct an image of

contemporary Aboriginality, challenging mainstream conceptions of what it means to

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be an Aboriginal Australian. Three key aspects of this vision of Aboriginality are

presented in the song: the continuity between ancestral cultures and the present day,

sovereignty over land, and a positive engagement with young Aboriginal folk.

Local Knowledge synthesises elements from traditional Aboriginal cultures and the

contemporary form and techniques of hip hop to convey a continuity between the

past, present and future of Aboriginal culture. The lyric in the second verse, ‘this

culture in my veins got me feeling so strong … when I slap on my ochre, begin to

dance’ expresses their pride in Aboriginal heritage. References to traditional practices

such as ochre painting, and the lyrics in language after this verse, suggest that

retention of pre-contact culture plays an important role in shaping the rappers’ sense

of identity. As Mick Dodson writes, ‘we, the Aboriginal peoples, are already a

retelling of the past… in all expressions of our Aboriginality, we repossess our past,

and ourselves’ (Dodson 1994: 10). Confronting a dominant culture that often denies

the existence of pre-contact Aboriginal cultures, Local Knowledge affirm their own

connection to the past with the embodiment of traditional knowledge and practices.

Incorporating the flows and beats of hip hop, the group bring these traditions into a

contemporary setting, reflecting their aim of ‘teaching all the cultural knowledge in a

way that’s appealing to young fellas’ (Wenitong 2005).

The song also contains a number of references to sovereignty and the group’s

connection to country in an urban context. They rap, ‘who the fuck am I, where you

think I’m from? Take a look at this land, it’s where I belong.’ Responding to the

continual denial of land rights and the doctrine of terra nullius, the group proclaim

with pride their sense of belonging to the land. The video clip is filmed on the Block,

Redfern, a historical site of urban Aboriginal culture and the site of present struggles

over ownership of land. Released only a year after the Redfern Riots of 2004, the clip

makes explicit reference to the police murder of TJ Hickey, with one of the houses

displaying a TJ poster in the window. In choosing this location for their clip, Local

Knowledge situate themselves deliberately to proclaim the strength and resilience of

urban Aboriginal communities. They affirm the existence of contemporary

Aboriginality, challenging the notion that Aboriginal identity is ‘primitive’ or

essentially linked to living in remote areas. As Bronwyn Fredericks writes, ‘when

Indigenous people live in a city or town we don’t become any less or any more

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indigenous’ (Fredericks 2013: 5). The group thus ratify the complex, layered nature of

Aboriginality and the possibility of being simultaneously an Aboriginal person, living

in an urban locality and maintaining a connection to the land.

Finally, the song challenges mainstream representations of Aboriginal youth and

declare the strength and dignity of young Aboriginal people. In the last verse, the lyric

‘I was black at school when it was not cool / said the colour of my skin made me a

fool’ denounces the stereotype of Aboriginal youth as unintellectual truants. Drawing

on the elements of land rights and heritage, the group construct a positive message for

Aboriginal youth: they rap, ‘to all the young proud mob, don’t show no fear’.

Blackfellas seeks to empower young Aboriginal people, engaging them through the

musical language of hip hop and the messages of pride, strength and cultural survival

embedded in the song’s lyrics. Hip hop is thus employed as a tool to sustain kinship

ties across generations.

The key themes of the song, of traditional cultures, connection to land and kinship

between young and old Aboriginal folk, are synthesised with the contemporary tropes

of hip hop to create a dynamic, empowering expression of Aboriginality. Blackfellas

represents an important act of self-definition, challenging hegemonic narratives of

Aboriginality as primitive, static and dysfunctional, and renewing the traditions,

knowledge and pride inherent in Aboriginal cultures.

1003 words.

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Works cited

‘Blackfellas’, 2005, on Blackfellas EP, Propaganda Records, Sydney. Written and performed by Local Knowledge.

Dodson, M. (1994) The Wentworth Lecture. The end in the beginning: re(de)finding Aboriginality. Aboriginal Australian Studies 1: pp. 2-13.

Fernandes, S. (2011) Close to the Edge: In Search of the Global Hip Hop Generation. Brooklyn: Verso Books.

Fredericks, B. (2013) ‘We don’t leave our identities at the city limits’: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people living in urban localities. Australian Aboriginal Studies, 1: pp. 4-16.

Thornton, S. (1995) Club Cultures: Music, Media and Subcultural Capital. London: Polity Press.

Wenitong J., Wright A., Wright W. (2005) Interviewed by Tony Mitchell for Local Noise, 12 August. Available at <http://www.localnoise.net.au/site-directory/interviews/local-knowledge/>

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