Hawaii Hip Hop by D

     As we have seen time and time again, hip hop and reggae are genres and lifestyles that often emerge from social conditions that are less than desirable. In Jamaica, when reggae first came about, songs often reflected the oppression and poverty of the country. In New York, hip hop was born in a similar fashion. The living conditions were bad at the time. Young men and women were involved in gangs and violence because their family's were unable to provide the financial and emotional support that young people needed. As a result, they joined these gangs and made their own families. Eventually, however, they grew tired of the dangerous lifestyle and burying their friends. Hip hop was born when DJs like Kool Herc would throw block parties. They would highlight the breaks in different jazz, soul, and disco records and create their own flavors. These block parties, though people were often faithful to their favorite DJs, were opposite from the gangs because they incorporated different people from different neighborhoods. Soon enough, MCing or rapping would become popular. DJing is a form of expression by creating different and unique styles, while rapping allowed people to speak on the trials and tribulations, good and bad, and their own personal world views.    

      Similarly, when hip hop reached Hawaii in the early 1980's, people welcomed the lifestyle. As we learned from the BBoys that came into class, hip hop is a form of expression. It allows people to interpret and move to the music by using their own style and experience to the table. Skill-Roy was telling us that in 1983, when he first started dancing, they used waxy paper cups at super markets to practice their moves. This shows their interest to improve, and also that they didn’t need a lot of money to get going. 

This also happened to be around the time that Hawaii was starting its sovereignty movement. This is important to note because as we have seen, hip hop is a great way to express reform and change. Its beats, drops, and flow allow us to access and show a need for change. As we saw in the reading “Head rush: Hip Hop and a Hawaiian Nation ‘On the Rise,’ the music of Sudden Rush got the whole audience to interact and dance along. “Sudden Rush’s hip hop activism emerged from this self-determination and nationalist movement and in turn , their music has enlarged the terrain of political resistance in Hawaii (pg. 88).”