This is a topic i've wanted to write about for a while now but I couldn't really articulate my frustration. I still can't, but i'm just going to share my thoughts on this because it's bothered me for a while now.
I'll be talking alot in generalisations here. I understand that plenty of middle class kids have the same positive feelings towards the current scene as I do, and I know that there is plenty of working class kids that detest our scene right now.
As someone that's been a fan of Aus hiphop for the last 10 years, and grown up in fairly middle class world, I've always felt that there was a lot of classism thrown into the conversation whenever the topic of Aus hiphop was brought up. These same people that dislike our hiphop had no issue having a playlist full of American and British hiphop, but when it came to their own scene something seemed to bother them, this always confused me. We've all heard the usual criticisms, "I just think the Aussie accent sounds shit in rap"
"They're just bogans"
or even "Australia isn't even that dangerous"
I think to understand this we need to look at the history of hiphop in this country.
Australia is unique in terms of how hiphop developed here. Unlike in America and Europe, hiphop didn't come from the working class to the middle class. That's not to say that there wasn't pioneers from working class backgrounds, not at all. But the first acts to really grab mainstream attention like the Hilltop Hoods, Bliss n Eso or Horrorshow, were all middle class - and middle class kids didn't really have an issue with them, in fact, they embraced these artists. When it comes to why this is, why the early years of Aus hiphop were so dominated by the middle class, no one will ever truly know, but I think it has to do with access. We should remember that there was a time when hiphop was a foreign type of music to us Aussies, and who has the most access to foreign things? Middle class people. The record shops , the live music, and even just a place where you could meet an American or Euro was in the richer parts of Sydney and Melbourne. I think this is one reason why middle class Aussies had such a head start in Aus hiphop. I can remember when lads couldn't care less about hiphop, they cared about hardstyle and gabba music. Another influence would have also been that almost all of the established music industry leaders in Australia were middle class and simply preferred the more digestible styles of Aus hiphop, and preferred interacting with them also.
So we know that middle class Aussies can like Aus hiphop, like when they supported what alot were starting to call "BBQ Rap", but around the early 2010's something started to change. With the growth of independent hiphop coming from West Syd, mainly through Hustlehard tv , Aus hiphop started to change. The working class kids were starting to gravitate towards hiphop, and middle class kids were fleeing. I remember at my high school it was pretty mixed class, meaning we had poor kids, but we also had rich kids. I remember there being two completely different realities going on. A housing commission kid could put on Kerser and would listen to him as if he was a modern day Biggie, but a middle class kid could put on Kerser almost mockingly, as a joke. I don't blame either, Hustlehard tv and the early days of Kerser was something totally unique, it was also very DIY and unpolished. But this was the time I started to see a huge split. I started to see that middle class kids just could not deal with art coming from the working class, unless it was the "right" art. Take this Friendlyjordies video for example, I think this video perfectly illustrates the feeling alot of middle class kids had towards Aus hiphop.
Fast forward 10 years, Hustle hard tv had popularised an entire sub culture to the rest of Australia. Sold out tours, radio play, international features and actual money to be made in this scene, a lot had changed. I could cop people not taking Aus hiphop seriously back then, fair enough, but now? This is what bothers me. You could be playing song after song of British or American hiphop, but for some reason you put the exact same style and quality song, but with an Australian accent, and some people just can't get around it. I've seen things change of coarse, plenty of my friends who didn't like Aus hiphop then have now come around with the rise of Onefour or Hefs. I guess my main gripe is that alot of these middle class kids, who claim to be the warriors for the working class and diversity, will openly mock hiphop coming from a brown kid in their backyard but wouldn't do the same for an American or British artist. I like to think that the British and Americans scenes went through the same things in their infancy but did they? I think in America is was a more racial thing, hiphop was a black art so alot of Conservative America just couldn't support it. I think the UK's early years with Grime were different because of it's origins, early grime had a massive electronic music influence which was loved by both the working and middle class. So is this an Australian problem? honestly i don't know. I will end with something positive though. The younger generation seems to completely accept Aus hiphop, my younger brother went to Goodlife festival (an underage festival) and him and his friends were most excited to see Hooligan Hefs. This is such a change from when I was that age, so to be fair , i don't think this will be a problem in as Aus hiphop continues to grow.
Hooligan Hefs at Good Life Festival
