New Zealand hip hop music
I have to make a confession. I’m a huge fan of Hip-Hop music. You know, Rap. That style of music that was established in the Ghettos. American, German, you name it.
So I was definitely intrigued to check out what is happening over at New Zealand in terms of Hip-Hop culture. I expected it to be at least to be similarly to its big brother in the USA, where artists like Drake fascinate people not only over there, but in all countries in the world, and seemingly casually generate Youtube view counts of up to a billion.
So surely the modern NZ hip-hop is as well-developed as its American counterpart, right? Well, not at all in fact. If you search for “NZ Hip Hop 2016” on Youtube, you’ll find a ton of videos. Of the NZ based Hip-Hop dancing crew “The Bradas”. Then there’s a long time of nothing, and then there’s the newest tracks from artists like Louie Knuxx. With about 6000 views on them. I reckon that New Zealand is a small country and 6000 out of 4 million might be a big number but… none of the big artist actually come close to their releases a few years back, when they were generating close to 100.000 views up to this date, meaning that at least some country wide recognition can be found for a lot of them. Unlike American hip hop artists, New Zealand artist didn’ make the jump over the oceans to become world wide famous and recognised.
Like in America, Hip Hop started to become popular in New Zealand around the beginning of the 80s. Artists in New Zealand started adapting the American hip hop music and blended them with Maori influences into it’s own branch of hip hop music, with tracks like “Poi e” and “E tu”. The first commercial hit in New Zealand was the single “Hip Hop Holiday”, by “3 The Hard Way” realeased in 1994. And, surprise surprise, it sounds like a good 90’s hip hop song is supposed to sound(with a hip, a hop, a hippity hop etc.). And because hip hop music has always also been a more politically oriented music genre(usually talking about the hard life of society’s minorities against discrimination and street life), Moana and the Moahunters(say that three times fast in a row), are showing a lot of dedication against Maori discrimination in the music industry.
So while the New zealand hip hop scene has been lacking in terms of world wide recognition and popularity, this of course by no means should allow any judgements abou the quality of the music. That’s why I think it’s about time we look at some honorable examples.
First up is artist Louie Knuxx, and oh boy, does he look like a piece of art himself. This is no problem though, as it fits his high pitched, raspy voice, forming the picture of a person that has been through quite a bit. The here presented track “Stan Howse” nowadays the currently very popular cloud rap elements(and as it comes to no surprise, it was mixed by none other than Young lean himself), like a slow, chilled beat and voice pitching with a rather simple, kind of offensive text(although he gets my rhyme award for dropping “A no fucks policy, so they don’t bother me “).
For more oldschooley vibes, look no further than Team Dynamite! They bring funky fresh oldschooley beats and good texts with a precise rap technique to the table. In the following track “Coconut Lime”, they team up with the even more oldschooley artist “Che Fu”, whose been a vital part of the NZ hip hop scene since the early nineties. Together, they bring a funky RnB style track and a top notch music video to go along with it as well.
Three is a golden number for most, so why on earth would I ignore the chance to make the legendary “3 The Hard Way” not my third and last pick on this list? And while the comedic value of this odd piece is duly noted(just because of the fact that it’s a 90’s hip hop song), I can’t help but like the catchy tunes. The rhymes are fresh, the beat screams nostalgia like none other, and god dammit, the hook is catchy as all hell. We don’t like hip hop, oh no. We love it, yeaaah~
Yeaaaaaaaah~
