Rap, Hip hop and Aboriginal Culture

By Ashley, Dylan, Farhana, Kristi and Sharmaine

Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander people that the following presentation may contain images or

names of people who have since passed away.

Learning Intention

Brainstorm Activity

• What do you already know about rap? (1 minute)

Listening Activity

• 2nd activity : Close your eyes and listen to two pieces of rap.

indigenous rap.mp3

What is Rap and Hip hop?

• “Slang . to talk or discuss, especially freely, openly, or volubly; chat”

• “Slang . to talk rhythmically to the beat of rap music” (www.dictionary.com)

• “Rap is music that consists of topical rhyme verses recited over a recorded or live instrumental background” (http://www.katharinen.ingolstadt.de/projekte/lurz/Rap.htm)

But is it more than this???

Importance of Rap/Hip hop for Indigenous People

• Cultural significance• Highlights Indigenous issues

• “Aboriginal language is never a written language; it’s always an oral and visual language, stories being passed down through rituals, corroborees, song and dance. Yeah, hip-hop fits in quite well with that”(White, 2009, p.5 of reading; 112 of text)

• “This is my lyrical healing… I can’t become a traditional man. I’m a modern day blackfella, this is still Dreamtime for me. Hip-hop is the new clapsticks, hip-hop is the new corroboree” – Wire MC(Local Noise, 2007)

Rap/Hip hop in the classroom

• Self expression & confidence• Gives individuals a ‘voice’• Community values• Creativity• Communication & group work

Using Indigenous outcomes in your planning

INQUIRY QUESTIONSRECEPTION

How do we use artworks to talk about home and community?

YEAR 1Can we capture local Aboriginal historical sites in our art?

YEAR 2How can I express my own culture in an arts work?

YEAR 4What can we make using Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander fibre arts techniques?

YEAR 5How do changes in my life compare to changes since invasion?

YEAR 6How can I represent Aboriginal injustice in an art work?

YEAR 7How can we highlight the aesthetic qualities of natural materials in an arts work?

YEAR 8How can one communicate feelings about place through art?

YEAR 9What do artworks tell us about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people's history since invasion?

Early Years Learning through English

English/ Foundation Year/Literature/ Literature and context ACELT1575• Recognise that text are created by authors who tell stories and share experiences

that may be similar or different to students’ own experiences

Examining Literature• Recognise some different types of texts and identify some characteristic features of

literary texts, i.e. beginnings and endings of traditional text and rhyme in poetry

Elaborations• Recognising that there are different ways to tell stories and there are different

storytellers in all cultures• Comparing experiences depicted in different cultural stories with the students own• Engaging with texts that reflect the social and cultural groups to which the students

belong

Year 5 Learning through EnglishEnglish/Year 5/ Literature/ Examining literatureACELT1608

•Understand, interpret and experiment with sound devices and imagery, including simile, metaphor and personification, in narratives, shape poems, songs, anthems and odes

Elaborations•Discuss how figurative language including simile and metaphor can make use of a comparison between different things, and how appealing to the imagination it provides new ways of looking at the world

•Investigating the qualities of contemporary protest songs, for example those about Indigenous peoples and those about the environment

Year 10 learning through EnglishEnglish/ Year 10/ Language/ Language for interaction ACELA 1564•Understand how language use can have inclusive and exclusive social effects, and can empower or disempower people.

Elaborations

•Identify language that seeks to align the listener or reader

•Identify the use of the first person ( I, we) and second person pronouns (you) to distance or

involve the audience, for example a speech made to a local cultural community

•Identifying references to shared assumptions

•Identifying appeals to shared cultural knowledge, values and beliefs

•Reflecting on experience of when language includes, distances or marginalises others

•Creating texts that represent personal belief systems (such as statements of ethical

judgements, blog entries and letters to the editor)

Early Years Learning through History

History/ Foundation Year/ Historical Knowledge and Understanding/ Personal and Family Histories

How the stories of families and the past can be communicated, for example through photographs, artefacts, books, oral histories, digital media and museums.

Explanation and communicationUse a range of communication forms (oral, graphic, written and role play) and digital

technologies.

ElaborationsEngaging with oral traditions, painting and music of Aboriginal and Torres Straight

Islander peoples and recognising that the past is communicated through stories passed down from generation to generation.

Representing ideas and creating imaginative responses through talking, drawing and play.

Year 5 Learning through HistoryHistory/Year 5/ Historical Knowledge and Understanding/ The Australian Colonies• The nature of convict or colonial presence, including the factors that influenced patterns of development, aspects of the daily lives of the inhabitants (including Aboriginal Peoples and Torres Straight Islander Peoples) and how the environment changed.

Elaborations•Investigate colonial life to discover what life was like at that time for different inhabitants (for example a European family and an Aboriginal or Torres Straight Islander Language group, a convict and a free settler, a sugar cane farmer and an indentured labourer) in terms of clothing, diet, leisure, paid and unpaid work, language, housing and childrens’ lives’.

Year 10 learning through HistoryHistory/ Year 10/ Historical Knowledge and Understanding/ Rights and Freedoms•Background to the struggle of Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander People for the rights and freedom s before 1965, including the 1938 Day of Mourning and the Stolen Generations.•The significance of the following for the civil rights of Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander peoples: 1962 right to vote federally, 1967 Referendum; Reconciliation, Mabo Decision; Bringing Them Home Report (the stolen generations), the Apology.

Elaborations•Describing accounts of the past experiences of Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander Peoples who were forcibly removed from their families.•Describing the aims, tactics and outcomes, of a particular event in the Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander peoples’ struggle for rights and freedoms.

Unit Plan

• Field trip to a recording studio • Visit or Visit from an Aboriginal rap artist • Research Aboriginal rap artists (How Many? Why is this?) • Design a CD cover• Create a hip hop beat• Choreograph a dance routine • Write a verse of rap lyrics• Record the lyrics over the hip hop beat

Exposure to Aboriginal rap music in the classroom can help students to:• Identify Aboriginal peoples traditions, philosophy, and culture• Express their own understanding of Aboriginal identity, relationship

and sovereignty• Expand perceptions about the written word, through explanation

and examination of:• Lyric structure• Figurative language• Performance elements

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPlXXJcI6s4

Lesson plan

• English/Year 5/ Literature/ Examining literature• Understand, interpret and experiment with sound devices and

imagery, including simile, metaphor and personification, in narratives, shape poems, songs, anthems and odes

• Investigating the qualities of contemporary protest songs, for example those about Indigenous peoples and those about the environment

Teachers outcome 1.Students understand that language and music can be used as a means of protest. 2. Students will discuss the literal and figurative meanings and other characteristics of poetry.Students will show their creativity by coming up with an original piece of poetry and music.Students will learn to work in groups

Lesson OutlineStudents will be divided into groupsEach table will be given a strip of paper with a word written on it. students will be given 20 minutes to come up with lyrics and music . The theme of music is rap or hip hop.Students will present their song in front of the class.

Conclusion• Hip hop is a powerful vehicle for the expression of identity and resistance in

contemporary Aboriginal popular music (Cameron White,2009)• it is derived from an indelibly African-American form. Aboriginal Australians ,yet

the particular use of the hip hop form by Aboriginal artists to articulate very local concerns and narratives means that hip hop can be seen as having “always been” a part of Aboriginal culture (White,2009.p.109)

• Australian hip hop does not consist solely of ‘wanna-be gangstas’ mimicking 50 cent’s ‘thug life’.

• ‘This is my lyrical healing. I can’t go and get scarred any more and I can’t become a traditional man. I’m a modern day blackfella, this is still Dreamtime for me. Hip-hop is the new clapsticks, hip-hop is the new corroboree.’- Wire MC

• I believe hip-hop allows us to express the skills that we are born with; everybody can talk, everybody can dance, it’s just that hip-hop helps you to define your words and your rhythm (Wire Mc) Wire MC is a descendant of the Gumbaynggirr nation from the mid north coast of New South Wales.

• …Educators can tap the knowledge about contemporary oppression and resistance lodged in critical hip hop, a subgenre of hip hop…highlights the social, economic and racial injustices prevalent in our society and advocates for Indigenous struggles for social transformation…

(Morrell, 2008) • Recognition of Aboriginal culture and its value as a part of the education of

all Australians is an important first step. Aboriginal children need to be encouraged to be proud of their culture and provided with opportunities to share aspects of it with the other students. Teachers need to develop an understanding of the culture and accept the contribution Aboriginal students can make to the learning process. A recognition of Aboriginal English as a valid means of communication can improve self-esteem. Hewitt,2000,p114

• http://www.indigenoushiphop.com/

• http://www.youtube.com/• http://www.abc.net.au/dustechoes/

Other useful sources

“Change comes from you, from me, from us, and that’s fact”

- The Colli Crew -

References• Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) 2010. Draft shape of the

Australian curriculum, English & History, Canberra: Australian Government.• Blanch, F.R. & Worby, G., 2008, ‘The Silences Waiting: Young Nunga Males, Curriculum and Rap’,

Curriculum Perspectives, vol. 30, no.1, p. 1-23• Local Noise, 2007, ‘Munkimuk’, in Local Noise: Australian Research Council,

http://www.localnoise.net.au/tags/artists/munkimuk/, accessed 1/9/12• White, C., 2009, “Rapper on a Rampage”: Theorising the political significance of Aboriginal

Australian Hip Hop and Reggae, Transforming Cultures e-Journal, Vol. 4, no. 1, April 2009• ‘What is Rap/Hip-hop? definitions slide – http://www.dictionary.com,

http://www.katharinen.ingolstadt.de/projekte/lurz/Rap.htm http://www.indigenoushiphop.com/

• http://www.youtube.com/• http://www.abc.net.au/dustechoes/