A hiphop perspective
By Lena Stahlschmidt
This film takes a look into the world of politics through a hip-hop lens. It follows the American hip-hop movement from the 80’s to present. Through the voices of the hip-hop community issues such as the war on drugs, Regan presidency, crack epidemic, racial profiling, patriot act, censorship, police brutality, poverty, the industrial prison complex and many other political issues were discussed in relation to their impact on hip-hop.
The underlying inter-connecting issue throughout the film is racism and stereotypes. As it follows American politics it looks at the way hip-hop has been used for those marginalized and oppressed by the racist politic system to have their voices and stories heard and make a difference. It also looks into the current control that corporations and companies have over hip-hop music and how that has contributed to (mainstream) hip-hop loosing its political voice. It explores how companies have used hip-hop culture, which originated as a resistance to inequalities, to advertise as a way to make money that in turn maintains inequalities.
The film presented many issues that I have previously read, studied and heard about however, looking at it through a hip-hop perspective gave me new insight and a broader perspective on many of the issues.
I boarded the tiny plane in Westport on July 14, nervous and unprepared. I hadn’t even read half of the information we’d been sent. I was excited to finally get a chance to go overseas, but by this stage I had convinced myself it was going to be terrible. They wouldn’t feed me enough (I like food), the people would be super brainy and super snobbish (how could a little West Coast girl ever compete?), not to mention old (I’m only 18 and the people going were aged from 16-30), and I’d get lost (the amount of youth going to the festival was more than the population of my entire town)!
I was immediately welcomed by the 16 other New Zealanders at our one-day workshop in Auckland on the 15th (they weren’t mean after all). And I soon realised I was the only one who was feeling nervous and ill-prepared. And I was one of the youngest people there, but it never became an issue. We all came from different backgrounds, and different parts of the country, but here we were all equal.
Another highlight was meeting three Moriori youth from New Zealand. I never learned anything about the Moriori people at school. All I knew was something about “the Moriori being eaten by the Māori”… It was interesting learning about how the Moriori were still very much alive and the efforts being made to resurrect their language and culture. Their fight to rectify the shame people felt in being identified as Moriori (even more than Māori, Moriori people in the past were looked down upon and forced to hide or forget their culture) was incredibly inspiring.
Over 1000 young people aged 16-30 attended the first Pacific Youth Festival held in Pape’ete in Tahiti from 17-22 July 2006. Aotearoa NZ had a delegation of 16 people (from the North and South islands, and the Chathams) , 8 of whom were selected by Just Focus to participate at our first international event.
“I’ve got a new awareness of colonisation issues in Aotearoa NZ, having seen colonisation through a French lens in the Pacific region”
When I first heard about volunteering for the Parihaka festival I had no real idea of what it might entail. It sounded like a good idea — a chance to hear a lot of really good bands in one place — so, with two of my friends from school, we packed our bags and headed up from Wellington to Taranaki.
The roots and reggae were also amazing. It was disappointing that there weren’t more people there, but hopefully next time people will have heard how great it was and there will be better attendance. It’s the kind of festival I can see growing and improving every time.
Welcome to a world of music censorship, a subject that can get a lot of people very, very angry. Music is expression. Ideas, beliefs, and opinions are all set to a catchy tune.
Even more disturbing is the possible influences that white supremacist rock n’ roll (thankfully, a very small genre) may have — one distributor’s website featured an ad for a computer game called Ethnic Cleansing (violence for the whole family!). Hardly among the top 10 ways for making the world a better place.