The music coming out of Western Sydney sits alongside the sounds Australians have embraced from the USA – it is divergent, politically magnetic, dangerous and fun. Rappers like Lil Spacely, Elijah Yo, L-FRESH The LION, and Kwame are making music in places like Blacktown and Parramatta.
Their sounds are trappy and transcendental, polished, cheekily autotuned, the beats are nasty. It sounds like the type of music we would vote number one in triple j’s Hottest 100 – it sounds like Kendrick or Kanye, Drake, Macklemore – but it’s Australian. So why aren’t Australians paying attention?
The hip-hop scene in Western Sydney has the black magic of a cultural hub, it’s a community that is both flourishing and burgeoning. Yet its importance and influence has remained largely ignored by the mainstream. Western Sydney is not lauded as a cultural hub in the same way Australia gazes lovingly upon gentrified inner city hubs like Newtown, Fitzroy and Surry Hills.
So why don’t we care about Western Sydney? Why are we not paying attention? There is a festival next Saturday in Parramatta – Live and Local – showcasing all these artists. Will you be attending?
Looking out into the world, we have become a nation that will accept artists that don’t fit the mould – we don’t demand they be white, we don’t demand a cookie cutter sound, we don’t demand they keep it light, or apolitical. Internally it’s a different story.
WHAT IS WESTERN SYDNEY AND WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?
Western Sydney is coming to be the nexus point for this music, also with thriving hardcore scenes and pop artists, and if you look at the population for this community, the prolific output makes complete sense.
The 2016 Census data puts the population of Western Sydney at 2,232,661, which is about 9% of the Australian population. It’s a marginal electorate with an enormous population; a political battleground, which every four years becomes a high stakes territorial pride marker for politicians.
Politicians flood the community, in their tailored suits, with their assistants and their press entourages, to do shopping centre appearances and media appearances. The TV advertisements are expensive and tailored, targeted to this area; the streets are postered with political slogans.
This is a cluster of communities, predominantly working class, hugely diverse racially and religiously, raised on engagement and awareness and adept at adjusting to change; the people of Western Sydney are the best example we have of what Australia really is. Racially diverse, religiously dissonant, family focused, the population skews young.
The music coming out of this region has the ability to represent Australia’s diverse and important national sound, beyond that, our national image, our profile as a people. Australia has always had issues with national identity, sense of self. Embracing who we really are beyond vague ideas of ‘mateship’ and ‘having a go’.
WHY AREN’T WESTERN SYDNEY RAPPERS MAINSTREAM?
When Australians are seeking music soaked in this social and political engagement, aren’t we best to look to our communities that are informed by these issues? Artists from our own shores?
Take Lil Spacely, a trap rapper from Blacktown. In his video for ‘You Know It’ he spits down the camera lens while the scenes flip back between him boxing in a ring to him tailgating in a carpark in the Western suburbs of Sydney with a big crew dancing in the dark. There’s a bulldog barking, girls in fake fur, people waving scarves in the wind, he calls, ‘I’m a Machiavelli! Right!’
I saw Lil Spacely at a warehouse gig a couple of years back and it was one of the most wild and raw performances I have ever seen. In ‘Dope Boy’ he raps with Big Skeez about public housing, being a dope boy, community, and the code. Richard Kingsmill has reviewed Lil Spacely’s page on triple j Unearthed in two words, “Intense. Impressed.” Brief as Kingsmill might be, his praise is also succinct and a warning to Australians that something major is happening in Australian hip-hop.
When it comes to hip-hop, if the artist comes from overseas, Australians are willing to accept it. In the past ten years, the shift in Australian audience’s taste has been somewhat dramatic, demonstrated what is, ultimately, a democratic vote in triple j’s Hottest 100.
In 2015, Kendrick Lamar came second in triple j’s Hottest 100. This year, 2,386,133 people voted Kendrick Lamar’s song ‘HUMBLE.’ as their absolute favourite. The Hottest 100 is mainstream; the change it signalled was dramatic.
In the world today there are hip-hop acts that are challenging the idea of what we call good music, high art. Chains swinging, designer brands, and lyrics about struggle, race, poverty, and inequality. After Kendrick won the Hottest 100, The Guardian called the song “incendiary” and labelled his albums “both critically acclaimed and uncompromisingly political.”
The praise was echoed across local media outlets, in different variances of sycophancy and reverence, as articles cited the significance of Kendrick’s win a watershed. The ABC cited Kendrick’s “typically high level of artistry and intent,” demarcating him as the first “person of colour” to take the top spot.
AUSTRALIANS DON’T KNOW WHO THEY REALLY ARE – THIS AFFECTS OUR ARTISTS
Australia is a country marred by issues of representation. We are tall poppies, sure, but we are also consumers of comfort. Our biggest artists are, and always have been white, and usually male. They come from these ‘cultural’ places like the Northern Beaches, Newtown, Canberra and Surry Hills. The latte belt.
Our biggest artists are rarely ‘people of colour’, they’re rarely ‘uncompromisingly political’. In areas like this, artists are supported, but another level of support exists. The median income is high, schools are private, the houses cost millions of dollars, the racial diversity is low.
So often rolling around in the music scene, you hear actual, finger-on-the-pulse music lovers decry ‘Aussie hip-hop’ as being boring, bland, samey. I have heard this phrase, like a subcultural music-lover-mantra, since I first started engaging with music as a young teenager.
It’s a catch cry that always upset me, but has become acceptable and uncontested; tastemakers writing off an entire genre. Australian commercial radio stations used to run stings in the noughties that spruiked their playlists as having “All the hits, no rap crap!” Sure, these stations are free to play whatever they want, but these kind of attitudes implant in the collective consciousness of a nation.
As time has passed and the value of hip-hop has become undeniable to Australians, are we still suffering from a cultural hangover? Will we only embrace hip-hop if it’s not Australian?
Live & Local Parramatta is happening next Saturday, April 14th across 17 venues in Parramatta City. Our picks for the hip-hop acts not to miss are Lil Spacely, L Fresh the Lion, Elijah Yo, Big Skeez.
