Beat Streets in the Global Hood:Connective Marginalities of the Hip Hop Globe

Halifu Osumare

Public Enemy showed us that Rap music is not afraid ofsubjects connected with national and race issues. Westarted to see how powerful Rap could be if it were usedin expressing our attitudes. The kind of lyrics and con-sciousness that reveals the whole process of civilization,which is the story of dominance.

—Benjamin, Croatian fan of rap group Public Enemy'

At the beginning of the twenty-first centuryand the third millennium the term "global vil-lage" has become a cliche. The telecommunica-tions revolution has situated us in an InformationAge that is proliferated with various high-tech-nology media: cellular telephones, web televi-sion, over fifty national cable television channelsincluding interactive ZDTV, computer-mediatedcommunication through the Internet with chatrooms of fictitiously-constructed identities, speechtechnologies that allow for computing betweendifferent languages, and instantaneous satellite-projected news stories throughout the planet, justto name a few. The concept of global virtual real-ity is no longer a vision of a few computer hack-ers, but is fast-becoming a household phenomenon.

A concomitant global pop culture, based inmusic and dance videos, simulcasts of rock con-certs throughout the major metropoles, and anintensely-marketed "modem" lifestyle through allmanner of brand names and symbols of consumergoods, clothes, athletic shoes, and head gear arethe materiality of a global youth-oriented culture.Young peopile throughout the planet, in their for-mative stages of puberty and beyond, are particu-larly affected by this fast-paced-MTV-souhd-byte-information-glutted age that is at the centerof the increasingly homogenized post-moderniza-tion process.

African American music, dance, and style, atthe epicenter of American culture, are not only

part of this technology-mediated global youthculture, but are absolutely essential to it. Blackmusic and the dances that depict the changing"afro-sonic" styles are bought and sold in the exi-gencies of a global supply-and-demand capitalistmarketplace on a daily basis. Music legend QuincyJones remembers that

When the tenor saxophonist Coleman Hawkins recorded"Body and Soul" it took from 1939 to 1953 to get theword around the world that the song was out. Today, youhave instantaneous releases by satellite. (lOE)

In today's world "neosoul" artist D'Angelo canbe marketed to new touring sites in South EastAsia, just as rapper Hammer was in Russia in theearly nineties, and just as Barry Gordy's Motownrecording artists were to the Western Europeanmarket thirty years before either of them.

The steadily increasing extension of blackmusic's influence is part of the United Statesbecoming the world power. However, black music'sglobal influence is also due to it being "the mostunique cultural product..." as Cornel West recog-nizes, "created by Americans of any hue" (Krugerand Mariani 94). Along with global marketingstrategies of the American music industry, forbetter or worse, American values and lifestyles inall of their diversity have followed. Black popularculture today is even more snared in larger eco-nomic vicissitudes—it is what sells to morepeople than ever before—while simultaneouslybeing at the nucleus of a postmodern web of con-trol over global social narratives of identity.

The most invading of black music in the lasttwenty years has been rap. Global hip hop youthculture has become a phenomenon in the truestsense of the word and has affected nearly everycountry on the map. William Eric Perkins, editor

171

172 • Journal of American and Comparative Cultures

of the seminal scholarly anthology Droppin'Science: Critical Essays on Rap and Hip HopCulture (1996), explains that

the hip hop revolution is just that, an uprooting of theold way in style and culture, and the introduction of ataste of black and Latino urban authenticity to everycomer of the globe. (257)

Nelson George, in his new Hip Hop America,extols the persuasiveness of hip hop culture:

From Vancouver and Toronto in Canada, to Dakar inSenegal, to Holland, to Cuba's Havana, to every placesatellites beam music videos and CDs are sold (or boot-legged or counterfeited), hip hop has made an impres-sion. (206)

What started in the South Bronx in the mid-1970samong African American and Jamaican-bom DJsas party-music, using new turntable technologywith booming base sounds in the percussive"breaks" of the recorded songs, has proliferatedto places as diverse as New Zealand, Senegal,South Africa, Mexico, Germany, Russia, France,England, India, and Japan. Global technology andAfrican American culture have indeed formed amutually sustaining MuLuhanian message-in-the-medium that is facilitated by cultural interpene-tration.

My opening epigraph by the Croatian rap fanof Public Enemy demonstrates the internationalinfluence of rap music in our contemporaryworld. Although rap music is situated in the con-tinuum of historical exportation of American popmusic, hip hop as a culture, has interjected itsown often self-empowered messages and atti-tudes that are not necessarily under the control ofthe music industry. Rap's dense, poetic, lyric con-tent is often underpinned by African Americanmessages about an historical marginalized status.Socially relevant content of some rap groups cou-pled with hip hop's driving rhythmic beat res-onates with youth internationally. This is exactlywhat the Croatian Public Enemy fan means whenhe says, "We started to see how powerful Rapcould be if it were used in expressing our atti-tudes." Ethnomusicologist David Badagnani hasfound that.

Many other oppressed or minority people around theworld have recognized a very strong parallel betweentheir social situation to that of black Americans.... Anytime people do rap in any foreign countries they have anacknowledged indebtedness to black-American culture.(Antonucci GIO)

Of course, not all of rap's content is aboutexploring social marginalizations, racial or other-wise. Many young men and women, particularlyemcees (rappers) in their teens and twenties, arefocused on sex and the opposite sex, or just"fighting for your right to party," as the BeastieBoys' 1986 hit told us. Still other forms, such aswhat the media first tagged as "gangsta" rap,reflect the increasing violence and gangs in dilap-idated black and Latino lower-income communi-ties. However, rap groups from the early days likePublic Enemy, Brand Nubian, Queen Latifah, andthe now defunct A Tribe Called Quest, spreadAfrocentric, probing, and street-wise raps thatinculcated messages of social consciousnessglobally. Today's emcees like The Roots andLauryn Hill, through international tours, continuethis self-empowering wing of hip hop that beganin the late 1980s. The so-called conscious brandof rap music motivates youth internationally toexplore their own issues of marginalization in thehip hop "underground," which continues to evadethe dominant pop culture industries.

Hip hop's connective marginalities, as I callthem, are social resonances between blackexpressive culture within its contextual politicalhistory and similar dynamics in other nations.Connections or resonances can take the form ofculture itself (Jamaica and Cuba), class (NorthAfrican Arabs in France), historical oppression,(Native Hawaiians in Hawaii), or simply the dis-cursive construction of "youth" as a peripheralsocial status (Japan). Joe Austin and MichaelNevin Williard, editors of Generations of Youth(1998), remind us that the term youth can become"a metaphor for perceived social change and itsprojected consequences, as such it is an enduringlocus for displaced social anxieties" (1). Alongthese lines, rap is an in-your-face rebellious youthstyle that does challenge the adult status quo. Thegenerational dynamic of this subculture remains,even as hip hop "heads" themselves grow older.

Beat Streets in the Global Hood 173

However, rap music and the entire expressive cul-ture of hip hop resonate not only with the anxietyof youthful social rebellion, but extant globalsocio-political inequities as well.

Rapper Chuck D is one who has been respon-sible for rap's world wide proliferation and whoTime magazine called "The Commissioner ofRap." In his own book Fight the Power: Rap,Race, and Reality (1997), he records the politicalresonance that connects youth all over the worldto some of rap's messages.

In my travels around the planet, I've continually heardstories of oppression and stories of the rich trying to beatdown the poor. Black people suffer globally from whitesupremacy because we're easily identifiable, so we'reused as pawns in the game. But I've witnessed otherpawns in the game. In countries where there's not a largepopulation of Black people, they find a way to makepeople the scapegoat based on religious, ethnic, or cul-tural differences. (57-58)

In the United States, the national communityof hip hop insiders is called the Hip Hop Nation,but in the new millennium over 25 years since itsinception in the South Bronx, I have come to rec-ognize this subculture as the Hip Hop Globe. ThisU.S. subculture truly has a diaspora that is, infact, shifting the global center and the marginsthrough youth's participation in popular culture.Hip hop, as an extension of African Americanpopular culture, then, becomes a global signifierfor many forms of marginalizations. In each case"blackness" and its perceived status is implicatedas a global sign. Together with the aesthetics ofthe music in low-register bass drum beats, whetherdigitized or played live, these rapped messages ofhip hop have created a worldwide cultural phe-nomenon that we are only beginning to fathom.

Connective Marginalities: Hip Hop Around theWorld

From global street culture to the World WideWeb, hip hop culture is not difficult to locate. TheInternet provides copious sites across the mapwhere one can travel to diverse international hiphop scenes at the click of a computer mouse inthe comfort of one's own home. One can visitsome of the chief spokespersons for each coun-try's subculture and find out about undergroundindependent record labels (indies), current rap

groups, and b-boy (breakdance) crews, as well aschat about local hip hop controversies and vari-ants on the culture.^ If traveling, one cannotchoose an international vacation spot or journeyto a city on business and not find hip hop culture,usually containing the sounds and movements ofthe American originators spiced with local flavor.Even localities that are continually in the throwsof guerrilla warfare take time out for hip hop. Forexample. New York rapper Puff Daddy's musicpumps out of passing cars, as "teenagers wearingbaggy pants and backward-facing baseballcaps...and Palestinian women dressed in tradi-tional embroidered robes" walk the same streetsin Ramallah, West Bank, Gaza strip (AbumaraqA8). Hip hop's global resonance reflects connec-tive marginalities both in sites that one mightanticipate as well as the less expected.

Spanish rap is becoming commonplacethroughout the U.S., the Caribbean, and SouthAmerica, with local emcees rising to celebritystatus in their local communities and native coun-tries. Mangu, in the Dominican Republic, rapsabout the dangers of Dominican drug dealing.Rapper P. de Jesus Carriello, who is a part of therap duo Sandy y Pepo, is utilized by the Colom-bian government to do state commercials withCaribbean flavored rap music. Miami, now a citythat is a cultural cross between the U.S. and theCaribbean, boasts among its rappers DJ Laz(Lazaro Mendez), a Cuban American who raps inSpanish over merengue rhythms, long a musicalstaple throughout the Caribbean.' In Sao Palo,Brazil, an emcee called Thiade has been immor-talized in Francisco Cesar's documentary film.Hip Hop SP (1990). Thiade raps in Portuguese ona street corner, demonstrating Sao Palo's full-blown street culture, replete with b-boys and b-girls that combine hip hop dance and Braziliancapoeira martial art. Besides obvious issues ofclass and historical oppression, hip hop in SouthAmerica and the Caribbean carries a strong cul-tural connective marginality that musically bindsthe Americas through African-derived rhythms.

Toronto, Canada, being in proximity to theU.S. East Coast for example, has had access tosome of the seminal emcees and breakers, enjoy-ing a long term relationship with hip hop culture.Toronto deejay Ron Nelson has produced manysuccessful concerts in that city with some of NewYork's best, such as Run DMC, Public Enemy,

174 Journal of American and Comparative Cultures

KRS-One, and Big Daddy Kane. This in turn hasspawned local Canadian emcees Ken E. Krushand Dream Warriors, as well as breakers andgraffiti artists, particularly in the Toronto suburbsof Scarborough and Mississaugua (Spady 233-34).

Dakar, Senegal's capital, has one of the mostprolific hip hop scenes on the continent of Africa.The internationally-famous Senegalese popsinger Youssou N'Dour has built a state-of-the artrecording studio that he rents cheaply to localrappers who crave their first quality recording.N'Dour has stated that he hopes his studio willstem the tide of West African pop singers havingto record in Europe. Dakar has spawn its own rapgroups including Pee Froiss and the internation-ally-recognized Positive Black Soul (PBS).Simultaneously, hip hop culture in Dakar posesthe same issue of "modem" versus "traditional"cultures that the subculture does everywhere else.

A generation bom in this burgeoning city since Senegalgained independence from France has cut its ties to therural villages that Mr. N'Dour sings about and holdsnone of his romantic affection for them.... Sometimesduring the day the thumping bass emanating from thebuilding [Hyperson studio where PBS records] competeswith wailing Islamic chants from the open-air mosqueacross the street. (Walt E2)

Yet on the other hand, Africa has a special rela-tionship to hip hop: the orality of rap has deeproots in traditional chanting and performative tra-ditions such as the griots of West Africa. Theindigenous and the global blend in complex, andoften incongruent, harmonies that hearken to apostmodern era in flux.

An age of increasing complexity has beencreated by juxtapositions of local cultures andexported postmodemity from the primary globalpower, the continental United States. As GeorgeLipsitz (1990) observes, "Mass communicationsand culture rely on an ever-expanding supply offree-floating symbols only loosely connected tosocial life." However, for indigenous culturesthese signs endure as "important icons of alien-ated identity," now partially in collision with theproduction and distributions of market-manipu-lated symbols. However, as Lipsitz also remindsus, "this 'postmodern' culture allows the residuesof many historical cultures to float above us.

'ragged but beautiful,' never quite existing andnever quite vanishing" (134-35). Twentieth cen-tury guiding narratives are in dialogue with early21st century technology, multi-media, and com-modified pop culture; they are all subsumed byall-pervasive late capitalism. Even countries thathave consciously tried to isolate themselves fromWestem youth-culture, such as India and China,have been invaded by MTV video satellite sig-nals. For example, in the early 1990s, India pro-duced a rapper, former pop singer Baba Sehagal,who became well known by covering whiteAmerican rapper Vanilla Ice's "Ice Ice Baby"using Hindi lyrics (Gargan B22). In the world ofglobal pop culture, compounded appropriationsabound, complicating the racial arguments of cul-tural appropriation in the U.S.

My conceptual frame of connective marginal-ities, encompassing the gamut of culture, class,historical oppression, and generation can beunderstood more clearly by elaborating upon afew international sites. Toward an agenda ofdeeper explication, I explore Russia, Japan, andHawaii. Hip hop youth culture over the last fif-teen years has grown internationally to the pointthat each site deserves its own chapter in globalhip hop to better reveal critical ambiguities andcomplexities that are naturally imbedded in issuesof local histories in relation to cultural hybridityor intertext. However, the following three national"snapshots" of hip hop particularity do offersome insights into how the local and the globalspheres interface through this youth culture'svarying connective marginalities.

Russians Bustin' Loose with HammerThe former Soviet Union, fifteen years ago

deemed the "evil empire" by then PresidentRonald Reagan, seems the least likely to haveadopted hip hop culture. Yet, the youth subculturehas invaded Russia despite checkered U.S.-Sovietrelations. Hip hop roots in Russia span over adecade, beginning in the early 1990s with groupssuch as Raketa (Rocket) that used rap to empha-size non-political, human elements of the Russianspace program such as the first cosmonaut dogs.Another group Malchishniki (The Bachelors), notunlike their American gangsta-rapper counter-parts, rapped about petty crime and aggressivesex. Superstar Bogadan Titomir, who drew crowdsof up to 12,000, once inspired a whole new fash-

Beat Streets in the Global Hood 175

ion trend with his multiple-zippered leather jacketand harem-style pants, which Oakland-basedrapper Hammer had made famous during theearly 1990s. Hammer had, in tum, modeled his"harem" pants on a West African male garmentthat is worn in the Sene-Gambia, Guinea, andMali regions. As an ironic and humorous post-script to former American-Russian competition,which also speaks about today's American eco-nomic and cultural hegemony, Titomir "oftenstops by Moscow's McDonalds to chat with hisfans"(ErlangerB22).

Russia's appropriation of black hip hop hasbeen particularly blatant and heavy-handed,extending to top political officials. Then PrimeMinster Viktor Chernomyrdin hired the Oakland,California-based Hammer to enliven his stodgypolitical image. Hammer's funky, danceable rapstyle and hip hop fashion had obviously becomevery popular among Russian youth, and thereforehe became the perfect artist to upgrade Cherno-myrdin's appeal to the younger generation, whoenjoy growing clout in the new Russia." After thedemise of seventy years of Communist rule,Russian politics today is obviously in severe fluxand the economy is in a shambles. Russian politi-cal expert Michael McFaul observed in the NewYork Times that

except for the Communist Party, there is such weak partyidentity in Russia that candidates have to sell personali-ties, not political platforms. It becomes Hollywoodglitzy—what personality can make [them] famous.

In the article, where McFaul was quoted, anironic and ludicrous Russian political rally withHammer as headliner was described:

Against a glowing red, white, and blue "Our Home isRussia" [the centrist political party] backdrop at theRossiya concert hall. Hammer bellowed, "We feel likebustin' loose!" His bewildered audience, mostly made ofmiddle-aged Russian bureaucrats and campaign workersdid not [do so]. (Stanley A1 and 8)

But, the power of Russian youth, who can "bustloose" as they become, to a degree, culturallymerged with their black American counterparts, isevident.

Russian youth's appropriation of hip hop cul-ture sets new trends that an older political main-

stream obviously feels forced to follow. The iden-tification with the youth signifier that hip hoprepresents conflates with their need to express apostmodern cool that, in turn, separates themfrom old-guard communists. Hip hop culture,represented in this case by Hammer in the mid-nineties, becomes implicated in the generationaltensions as they interface with the politics of thisparticular nation-state.

The use of Hammer with chaotic Russianpolitical campaigning demonstrates how rapartists can become pawns in the Americanizationprocess of countries like the new Russia. Ham-mer was hired to perform three concerts, but wasnever informed that they would be within thecontext of Russian political campaigning. In fact,the New York Times article reports that he hadnever even heard of Mr. Chernomyrdin beforetouring to Russia. Hammer's hip hop shows werein the context of what Russians called at that timetheir "cultural initiative" to "wake up the voters."Interestingly enough, the "cultural initiative" alsoincluded other black music artists such as Kooland the Gang. However, most black American hiphop and R&B artists on the international touringcircuit are not complaining about such obviousappropriation by international leaders who do notnecessarily understand their artistic aesthetic orits history in the United States. In Hammer'scase, as long as the Russian political party puttouring dollars in his pockets, the financially-beleaguered artist from Oakland, California, careslittle about Russian intent.' It becomes a case ofwho is using whom?

The vicissitudes of cultural appropriation inthe international hip hop arena are convoluted bycross-cultural variances that reflect global con-ceptions of race and pop culture trends. Forexample, Russian rap artist Aleksei Soloviev ofRaketa is frank about his cultural mix as a whiteRussian when he modifies rap rhythms "to makeit more techno-beat, more house music, a bitmore European, because, after all, I'm white"(Erlanger B22). In Russia, the connective margin-ality with hip hop is youth pop music that signi-fies a break with the older generation; yet a res-olute awareness of racial and cultural difference,vis-a-vis black music, remains. Techno music, inreality a derivative of hip hop as it blended withdisco, is perceived as "more white," and thereforecloser to Russian youths' cultural sensibilities.

176 • Journal of American and Comparative Cultures

Rap music's initial origins in the poor, blackand Latino Bronx ghetto cannot be replicated incountries like Russia, and as a result many geo-graphic hip hop sites reflect historic Americanracialized ambivalence towards black contribu-tions to world culture. This hip hop dynamic isunlike white

rock music [which] also made dramatic inroads inunlikely places, becoming a language for political dissi-dents even in the Soviet Union and China,... rap isbranded by its origins. (Antonucci GIO)

Yet despite these issues that signify the continualracial/class hierarchy of America and the world,black American rappers dominate the genre in theglobal music industry. African Americans confer"authenticity" to hip hop in its global prolifera-tion.

Jigga Who?: Hip Hop, Japan-styleJapan offers a particularly interesting example

of how American black cultural and socio-histori-cal dynamics underpin hip hop youth culture. Hiphop subculture in Japan became active around1987, and has even spawned indigenous rap andbreak dance communities throughout Asia in sitessuch as South Korea, Thailand, and Malaysia.However, there has been some debate about whe-ther the Japanese translation of hip hop is morebandwagon kitsch, or whether there are, in fact,deeper socio-cultural dynamics. Although Japanhas had several generations of avid consumers ofblack music and dance traditions from jazz tosoul and funk, and now hip hop, issues of margin-alization are not nearly the same for Japaneseyouth.

Japan's relative social comfort, built upon,some say, an illusory homogeneity, has createdseveral "trivial" rappers by American standards:Scha-dara-parr sang "nonsense" lyrics in theearly 1990s, the Geisha Girls who wear geishacostumes as male-drag rap shtick, and female rapstar Yuri Ichii in the latter 1990s who has soldmillions of albums throughout Asia. According tothe New York Times, Ichii is a comfortable middle-class rap star and "in short, is not exactly anemblem of 'gangsta' rap." The article attempts toput some kind of context to rap in Asia: "rap onthis side of the Pacific Ocean is a world apartfrom its counterpart in America, and the chasm

underscores the differences in youth values andpopular culture" (Kristof A-4). Yet many Japa-nese youth, like young people throughout theglobe, are attracted to hip hop's beat, and ironi-cally the staccato quality of the Japanese lan-guage seems to fit well with rap's beat-boxrhythm. While the rhythmic force may be persua-sive, the content of American rap is another story.

[Although] American rap is notorious for hard-edgedsongs about sex and violence.... [I]n Asia there is almostno debate about Japanese rap lyrics, partly becauseJapanese have taken the beat of rap music and stuffed itwith language that is as polite as Japan itself. (KristofA-4)

Japanese youths' adoption of American raphas also challenged traditional Japanese perspec-tives on gender. When rap aesthetics and hip hopstyle are embraced, the acquiescence implicit inthe ascribed "place" of the female is often con-tested by the signifier of rebellious youth. YuriIchii who, the article assesses, has a studied,sweet-sixteen image belying her mid-twentiesage, is a prime example of the gendered use ofhip hop. One of her songs, "Chase the Chance,"speaks of the benign dilemma of many youngJapanese females, previously more restrained,who are now trying to find their place in thisyouth-oriented global popular culture whilecoping with the demands of their own traditions:

You're taught to cooperateand good girls can only be good girls.But you've felt the beatand there's nothing you can doJust chase the chance.

Rap, Japanese-Style, seems to offer a way outof the social limitations of polite traditionalJapanese culture and its expectations of youngwomen. Japanese high school students are partic-ularly attracted to rap because of its renegade rep-utation: "It signifies a mild rebellion against theworld of neckties and keigo, or formal language,that constricts adults" (Kristof A-4). Thus, Americanrap provides a release from a conformist Japaneselifestyle that does not seem to offer rebelliousyouth an avenue of individual expression.Resonance with hip hop culture in Japan is basedon a vital youth signification as a marginalized

Beat Streets in the Global Hood 177

subculture, seeking to make its mark in the adultsociety by participating in the global postmodernyouth phenomenon.

Another dimension of Japan's hip hop cultureilluminates my earlier contention about globalsocial narratives of black representation. Editorand cultural critic Joe Wood (1998) conductedextensive research into Japan's hip hop scene andits so-called "jiggers," an obvious variation oftheinfamous American "N" word. Like their whiteAmerican suburban counterparts, the "wiggers,"jiggers are Japanese teens, often in high school,who adopt an intense "black" identity through hiphop slang, designer baggy Lugz denims andsweat jackets by Tommy Hilfiger. They listen toAmerican rap from old-schoolers like Eric B. andRakim and KRS-One to new-school rap stars likethe late Tupac Shakur and Nas. But jiggers,unlike the wiggers, play a "darkie" game by visit-ing tanning salons to blacken-up and often crimptheir hair in an attempt to look more like theirblack American rap heroes. Woods (46) notes that

Jiggers come in several flavors. The most curious areundoubtedly the blackfacers, b-boys and girls whodarken their skin with ultraviolet rays.... What...separatesthe small sect of blackfacers from their peers—eventheir hip-hopping peers—is the ardor with which theypursue African American "blackness." An obvious rever-sal of the function of blackface in American minstrelsy,jiggers literally "wear" black face in order to embraceblack people.

These Japanese black wannabees frequent the hiphop nightclubs of the Roppongi district of Tokyowhere many U.S. black service men and Africansliving in Japan congregate.* The ultimate goal ofjigger girls is to attract a male kokujin (black for-eigner). Wood titled his essay "The Yellow Ne-gro," signifying that the cultural dynamics hefound in Japan was somewhat akin to NormanMailer's 1957 essay "The White Negro" inAmerica (53). In doing so Wood poses a quan-dary about "subversive hipness" and the historicappropriation of black culture within which theglobalization of hip hop often fits. In Japan, itshould be noted, the young jiggers are actuallythought to be not cool by most hip hoppers, be-cause they have taken voyeurism to the extreme.The jiggers are actually a subculture within anendless array of subcultures of Japanese cool.

Indeed, DJ Krush, Japan's undisputed mix-master, who began deejaying in 1985 after he sawa performance of old-school rappers on tour fromthe 1982 film Wild Style, takes major offense atjiggers even being considered as real hip hop cul-ture.

Not only do they put on black paint, or dark foundations,or go to tanning salons; they also have their hair done indreadlocks. And I find it is an incredible insult.... It'sonly the young people who do this because they careabout the externals of hip-hop, not the internals. Unlessthe kids perceive that they just can't go around imitatingand carbon copying black rappers, the Japanese hip hopscene is not going to grow.'

DJ Krush personally illustrates an organicversion of Japan's relationship to black culture.His "father listened to a great deal of JamesBrown and Miles Davis," creating a family sensi-bility toward black musical aesthetics that did notjust begin in the hip hop era. His perceptionsabout the external-internal dichotomy of cul-ture—material vs. ideational attributes—revealthe insidious nature of global capitalism thatthrives on external imitation through conspicuousconsumption. Global commodification promotesa vacuous "jigger-like" cultural appropriation thatcan only be termed imitation at best and syco-phantic voyeurism at worst. The Japanesemedia's term for the endless array of black-ori-ented subcultures in the country is kokujin ni nar-itai wakamono (young people who want to beblack). Media terminology follows social phe-nomena: young Japanese's fascination with blackexpressive culture has become a major culturalforce to be interpreted by the mainstream.^ Giventhe U.S. history of blackface minstrelsy, at thebeginning of the 21st century "blackness"becomes simultaneously demonized and reified,like grinning bookends of Du Bois's 20th centuryprediction of the problem of the color line.Neither processes of fetishization attempts tofathom the complexity of the highly creativepeople producing the objectified image.

Hawaii: Marginality of Historic OppressionBy virtue of Hawaii's colonial ties to the U.S.

mainland and its unique geographic position as acrossroads between East and West, the fiftiethstate offers another complex example of the glob-

178 • Journalof American and Comparative Cultures

alization of hip hop culture. Hawaii is the gate-way to the Pacific Rim —the mid-way pointbetween the United States mainland and Asia—making it an interesting composite of NativeHawaiian, American, and Asian cultural factors.Hawaii floats geographically and culturally in thevast region we call the Pacific Rim, connectingthe Pacific region in historical and contemporaryways. Given its geo-political context and its cul-tural mix, ethnicity and identity, popular musicand dance, as well as commercialism and com-modification encompass complex relationshipsthat include today's hip hop generation in theHawaiian Islands.'

A microcosmic view of a few artists illumi-nates the influence of American popular culturethrough the capitalist media, as well as the con-nections between African American culture'songoing issues of identity and those of other his-torically oppressed peoples. Kutmaster Spaz, atwenty-eight year old hip hop deejay on theisland of Oahu, is a result of the 80s hip hopdance craze. He performed the famous "poppin'and lockin'" styles as a teen, during the mid-80sHollywood breakdance film era, that helpedspawn the craze. His birth name. Derrick Kamo-hoali'i Bulatao, reflects his Hawaiian, Filipino,and Caucasian ethnicities that are typical of thelocal mixture in Hawaii. Starting breakdance atage ten, he evolved into a serious professional hiphop deejay by age seventeen, and today hosts aweekend hip hop show on Xtreme Radio Hawaiirecords rap for Hawaii's Landmark Entertain-ment. He interprets the early days of Hawaiianhip hop and the scene's transformation over time:

Back in the day, people in Hawaii felt they had to act acertain way to be hip hop. The best example is that thekids [then] felt like they had to wear the Africa red,green and yellow medallions, not even knowin' what itstood for. But now they wear kukui nuts [made into leis]and show pride in their [own'\ heritage.'"

Mimicry of mainland black style evolving toa more "authentic" Hawaiian adaptation is a pre-dictable trajectory. Kutmaster Spaz's Hawaiianhip hop story and DJ Krush's analysis of thedynamics of the Japanese hip hop scene areindicative of the process of cultural maturation aship hop demonstrates its global longevity. Asgeneration X has matured into adults, so has its

internalization of the hip hop philosophy of"keeping it real." The process is just beginning inHawaii as it is for many international sites at thebeginning of the 21st century.

Links between the displacement issues ofHawaiians and African Americans point to theirgeneral bond as historically-oppressed peoples;these bonds are revived by today's global hip hopphenomenon. Hawaii's most recognized rapgroup makes this point clear. Sudden Rush, aHawaiian rap group from the Big Island, grasptheir historic bonds of oppression with blackAmericans and allude to them within their strongpro-sovereignty rap messages. In 1997, the grouppremiered their second CD, Ku'eH (to oppose,resist, stand different). Situating their artisticapproach within a Hawaiian context, rather thanan appropriated imitation of mainland style, thecompilation of strongly-political jams is an im-portant step, content-wise, in the hip hop move-ment in the Hawaiian islands. On track one,"True Hawaiian," they position the political hege-mony in the Pacific within the last five hundredyears of the displacement of people of color:

They tell us that we're equalBut if you look at history, we're just another sequelStarted with America, built from desecrationThey called the Indians savagesand threw 'em on reservationsThen they took the African man from the motherlandTo this other land to work for the master's planThat wasn't enoughThey had to cross the big blueAnd they saw Hawaii, oh yeah, they took that tooThey saw the hula and called it paganisticBut they didn't think twicewhen they were raping the Pacific."

Historical domination of the Indian, African,and Hawaiian are clearly juxtaposed as a part ofthe same "progress" ethos of European imperial-ism. Sudden Rush, particularly with their use ofblack style along with the Hawaiian language,represents the best of the Hawaiian dialogue withpart of the African American agenda taking placewithin global hip hop. Their raps signify a con-nective marginality of historical oppression. SuddenRush's use of black representation illuminates acommon world oppression of people of color thatechoes another trajectory of DuBois's message

Beat Streets in the Global Hood 179

about the 20th century. Hawaii, Japan, and Russiaoffer three different examples of the usage of hiphop youth culture. Sociopolitical history of eachsite in the hip hop diaspora affects that country'saesthetic emphases on race, culture, class, andoftentimes gender.

ConclusionsThis essay illustrates some of the postmodern

dynamics of contemporary global hip hop cultureand its widely-ranging international use of blackculture. American "blackness," through hip hopculture, is exported as an intertextual modem andglobal culture of cool. Temporal and spatial tra-jectories of black culture position it at the centerof global social narratives of representation ofidentity for youth. Stuart Hall (230) contends thatwhen

"Difference" has been marked[,] how it is then inter-preted is a constant and recurring preoccupation in therepresentation of people who are racially and ethnicallydifferent from the majority population. Difference signi-fies. It "speaks."

Otherness and the representation of the meaningsof blackness, already complex within the historiccontext of American racism, encompasses evenmore convoluted subjectivities within the globalcontext. International meanings of black identity,signified through hip hop, compound issues ofrace and power relations when filtered throughvarious other countries' issues of marginality anddifference. Black cultural production has pro-ceeded along predictable lines dictated by its ownintrinsic aesthetic and philosophical principles.Technology and economics, however, have occa-sioned new and provocative demands for its con-text in the new millennium. Rap, as the most popu-lar music emanating from the hegemonic Americanmusic industry, is utterly implicated in this morass.'

Although space has not allowed me to ex-plore many important international hip hop sites,such as France, Senegal, and Brazil, the threenations/cultures touched upon in this essay offerinsights into the widely-varying approaches andutilization of hip hop culture across the map.Russian youth seem particularly self-consciousabout their whiteness vis-a-vis their appropriation

of black rap and hip hop style. However, the Sovietpoliticians, who could not "bust loose" in a hiphop manner, blatantly "bought" rappers likeHammer to get Russian youth support. Japan's DJKrush, in his reaction to the jigger mimesis phe-nomenon, offered insights into a self-authenticat-ing and validating process predicated on an inter-nalizing of black aesthetics. His perception isbased on culture as intertext and its evolution as acontinual reforming process. A potential salutarycultural appropriation process, as black perfor-mance aesthetics becomes globally pervasive, isat the heart of the internationalization of hip hopyouth culture, even as it interfaces with other his-torical, economic, technological, and socialissues. Hawaii's Sudden Rush view themselves ascultural workers for liberation, a paradigm thathas been crucial to many freedom movementsthroughout the globe. According to RichardSchaull's 1993 Foreword, history as a problem tobe actively worked out and acted upon in order"to overcome that which is dehumanizing" wasthe overriding concept behind Pablo Freire's sem-inal text. Pedagogy ofthe Oppressed (14). Messagerappers, from Public Enemy to Lauryn Hill tothose in the hip hop diaspora like Sudden Rush,are vitally-affecting pedagogues who augmentcultural and political awareness as artists of con-science and consciousness. Music artists whotake a political stand, while avoiding didacticism,can be crucial counter-hegemonic forces.

Simultaneously, I am quite aware that, asJames Clifford asserts, "local" can be a relativeterm. In his Routes: Travel and Translation in theLate Twentieth Century (19) he asks, "How is sig-nificant difference politically articulated, andchallenged? Who determines where (and when) acommunity draws its lines, names its insiders andoutsiders?"" In fact, I interchangeably conceiveof hip hop as a culture and a subculture. Althoughit is often perceived as marginal by the main-stream of many societies, it is central to severalgenerations cross-culturally, as well as to today'sglobal commodification. Its boundaries are veryfluid in many respects. Ultimately, my own cher-ished research methodology can be viewed asconstituting the very subject I am attempting tostudy. Yet, I found hip hop youths to be very com-fortable with their own ambiguities and the seem-

180 Journal of American and Comparative Cultures

ing contradictions within their culture. Hip hop'scomplexity, in itself, creates its own story, and inthe process eliminates any one neat and tidytheory that could contain or solely represent itsnature.

As each intemational site works out its ownintertextual relationship with hip hop culture, itprovides a passport, a conceptual ticket to travelacross America's racial divide to critically engagenot just the Hip Hop Nation, but the Hip HopGlobe. Each hip hop diasporic site has its ownissues based on national culture and history, his-torical relation to the United States, and its ownperceptions of African Americans. The hip hoppassport is not a ticket to a pollyanna DisneyWorld, but rather it is a cultural bridge to exploreother hip hop sites inhabited by young peoplewho have their own issues of marginalization, bethey class, culture, historical oppression, or simplybeing youths in an adult-dominated world. Globalhip hop culture becomes a vital pathway throughwhich these connective marginalities can beengaged and explored. At the beginning of thenew millennium, hip hop culture provides a per-petual source of individual and cultural discoveryfor youth, as the world, in spite of itself, throughthem, dances toward a global village.

Notes

'Quoted in Chuck D, Figitt the Power: Rap, Race,and Reality. New York: Delacorte P, 1997.

^The term "underground" in hip hop refers to thenon-commercial means of production and distribution ofCDs and remix tapes, as well as the less commodifiedbreak dance and graffiti communities. It is a widely usedterm that encompasses many levels of the non-commer-cial arena of rap including the smaller record labels thathandle their own world-wide distribution for artists whodon't want to or have not yet signed with one of themajor record labels.

I would like to thank scholar and dancer CelesteFrazer Delgado of Miami for information about musicby these three emcees, and about Spanish speaking rapin general.

Tor a recent study that places Hammer's hip hopdance style in specific black dance tradition that reachesback to slavery, see W. T. Lhamon, Jr., Raising Cain:Blackface Performance from Jim Crow to Hip Hop.Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1998.

'Although Hammer has been credited with introduc-ing melody and dance to rap in the late 80s, he seems tohave been a victim of hardcore rap fans' scathing indict-ment of him as a "glitzy sell-out," and his own financialmismanagement. After reportedly earning $33 millionbetween 1990-91, he became legally bankrupt by the late90s. However, in 1999 he attempted to make a come-back, emphasizing Christian rap themes. See LeeHildebrand, "Anatomy of a Bad Rap: The Rise and Fallof MC Hammer," East Bay Express 9 Oct. 1998,32-3.

'Wood explains that there is a significant populationof Africans from Ghana, Kenya, and Nigeria living inTokyo. They are the owners of the popular black clubsfrequented by Black U.S. servicemen. He also explainsthat the businesses must be recorded in the Africans'Japanese wives' names, "in compliance with Japaneselaw."

'Spence D, "Dancer's Delight: Interview with DJKrush," duplicated from The Bomb 43 (1995). Online.Internet. 12 Sept. 1998. http://www.msu.edu/ user/oku-murak/n.

"Although different in usage, a fetishizing of "black-ness" is created by blackface jiggers, just as it was by19th century white American minstrels like Al Jolsonand Harlan Dixon. Minstrelsy provided a humorous, butdegrading, psychic release from the caste of race inAmerica in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Today'sglobal hip hop stage provides Japanese blackfacers,speaking ko-gyaru-go, with a psychic release that isbased in Japan's generation gap.

'Predominantly my hip hop field study has beenHawaii. I conducted extensive research on the hip hopscenes on Oahu and the Big Island from 1997-1999,receiving an Individual Research Grant from the HawaiiCommittee for the Humanities to study high school ageyouth. The school study was supplemented by interviewswith hip hop professionals throughout the two yearperiod.

'"Kutmaster Spaz (spaz@xtremeradiohawaii.com)"Hip Hop Interview." E-mail to author. 2 March 1999.

"Sudden Rush, "True Hawaiian." Ku'eff, Way OutWest Enterprises, WOWCD 9702, 1997.

' According to the Recording Industry Associationof America (RIAA), from 1987 to 1997 hip hop's marketshare of all pop music sold increased ten percent. Thisrepresented a 150% increase as compared to a 13.7%decrease for rock music during the same period.

' I would like to thank Professor Mark Helbling ofthe University of Hawaii at Manoa's Department ofAmerican Studies for sharing this reference with me.

Beat Streets in the Global Hood 181

Works Cited

Abumaraq, Salam. "Traditionalists Say West Bank isTurning into a Little America," Honolulu Star-Bulletin 31 July 1999: A8,

Antonucci, Mike. "Planet Rap: The World Turns to Hip-Hop." San Jose Mercury News 4 Oct. 1998: G 10.

Austin, Joe, and Michael Nevin Willard, "Introduc-tion:Angels of History, Demons of Culture," Eds. JoeAustin and Michael Nevin Willard. Generations ofYouth: Youth Cultures and History in Twentieth-Century America. New York: New York UP, 1998.

Clifford, James. Routes: Travel and Translation in theLate Twentieth Century. Cambridge, MA: HarvardUP, 1997,

D, Chuck. "The Sound of Our Young World." Time 8Feb. 1999: 66,

Erianger, Steve. "The Many Accents of Rap Around theWorld: Russia—Of Dog Cosmonauts and LeatherJackets." New York Times 23 Aug. 1992: B 22,

Gargan, Edward. "The Many Accents of Rap Around theWorld: Vanilla Ice in Hindi." New York Times 23Aug. 1992: B22.

George, Nelson. Hip Hop America. New York: Viking P,1998.

Hall, Stuart, ed. Representation: Cultural Representa-tions and Signifying Practices. London: SAGE,1997.

Hildebrand, Lee. "Anatomy of a Bad Rap: The Rise andFall of MC Hammer." East Bay Express 9 Oct.1998: 32-33.

Jones, Quincy "Technology Brings Music to Our Ears,the World." USA Today 22 June 1999 :10E.

Kristof, Nicholas D. "Rappers' Credo: No Sex, Please!We're Japanese." New York Times 29 Jan. 1996: A-4

Lhamon, Jr,, W, T. Raising Cain: Blackface Perform-ance from Jim Crow to Hip Hop. Cambridge, MA:Harvard UP, 1998.

Lipsitz, George, Time Passages: Collective Memory andAmerican Popular Culture. Minneapolis: U ofMinnesota P, 1990.

Perkins, William Eric, ed., "Youth's Global Village: AnEpilogue," Droppin' Science: Critical Essays onRap Music and Hip Hop Culture. Philadelphia:Temple UP, 1996.

Shaull, Richard. Foreword. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. ByPablo Freire. 20th Anniv. Rev. ed. New York: Con-tinuum, 1993.

Spady, James G. Nation Conscious Rap. New York: PCInternational P, 1991,

Stanley, Alessandra, "Russians Vie for Votes, andAnything Goes." New York Times 16 Nov. 1995: 1,8,

Walt, Vivienne. "A Worldly Senegalese Singer Likes toStay Home." New York Times 24 June 1998: E2,

West, Cornel, "Black Culture and Postmodernism."Remaking History. Eds. Barbara Kruger and PhilMariani. Seattle: Bay P, 1989.

Wood, Joe. "The Yellow Negro," Transition, An Inter-national Review 73 (1998): 40-66.

Halifu Osumare is an Assistant Professor of Dance andAmerican Studies at Bowling Green State University.She has a Masters in Dance Ethnology from SanFrancisco State University and a Ph.D. in AmericanStudies from the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Herforthcoming book, tentatively titled African Aesthetics,American Culture: Hip Hop in the Global Era, is in pub-lication at Wesleyan University Press.