Hip Hop Aesthetics and the Will to Culture¹

Abstract

In this paper, based upon my field work with the self-styled 'Hip Hop Community' in Sydney, in the early 1990s, I examine the material processes by which 'cultural' significance is articulated to a number of key practices, specifically, break-dancing, rapping and graffiti. 1 argue that these practices are understood, within the scene, as being aesthetic practices, which operate to mimetically 'represent' a pre-existing cultural essence-Hip Hop. Using a Peircian semiotic model, I argue that the maintenance of performances of these key Hip Hop practices functions over time, within the Hip Hop community, to affirm the legitimacy, authenticity and reality of the idea of Hip Hop. 2.The Digital Audio Tape used in performance. The basic backing track usually consists of a synthesised drum beat, or a looped drum sample, overlaid with sampled horn riffs, guitar figures, vocal grabs, sound effects dialogue from rented videos:literally anything that can be sampled. In performance, the tape is rolled by a sound mixer usually placed behind the audience. The MC ('Master of Ceremonies', or 'rapper'/ 'rhymer') or MCs deliver their rhymes over the tape, while the DJ scratches and cuts upstage at his turntable console, adding another layer of sound to the mix. I have not seen a local female DJ work with a rap crew in Sydney.6. I have considered the questions of 'truth' and 'authenticity', and their centrality to Hip Hop more fully elsewhere (Maxwell 1994b).