It would not be surprising if, soon, not only the best yodeller, but also the fastest rapper were to come from Japan. Hip hop is booming there and, over the past few years, has built up its own scene. Visual artists, too, are fans of this style of music. In his paintings, Hisashi Tenmyouya calls for hip hop culture not to be simply be taken over, but for connections between Western and Far Eastern sign languages to be created. In his work »Graffiti Scene« (2000), he specifically addresses the writers. They shouldn’t copy the American »wildstyle«, the complex combination of letters, but develop their own forms of expression based on the Japanese imagic tradition. Several works by Hisashi Tenmyouya are included in the exhibition »One Planet under a Groove – Hip Hop and Contemporary Art«, conceived by the Bronx Museum of the Arts in New York and now on display in the Villa Stuck museum in Munich. The Japanese artist’s collage-like pictures show once more how cultural movements that spread across the world usually undergo local transformations. Viewing these syntheses simply as processes of adaptation would be wrong. As is often the case with innovative products, they represent a sophisticated blend of already existent forms of expression.

There have been many cultural studies projects examining the relationship between local and global cultures. As early as 1992, in their study »Media Policy and Music Activity«, Krister Malm and Roger Wallis interrogated the simultaneity of global pop music and newly developed national styles that are often characterized by singing in the language of the respective country. However, Lawrence Grossberg quite rightly warns against any mystification of the local, which often occurs without sound knowledge. »According to this model, the local and the global are mutually dependent. However, it has yet to be determined, and more precisely theorized, what form this »mutual dependency« exactly takes.«1 Specification in particular geographic areas, according to Grossberg, serves not least to create differentiation within the spectrum of saleable goods, a process that can certainly be seen as being in the interests of capitalism. The recently published reader HipHop: Globale Kultur, lokale Praktiken (Hip Hop: Global Culture – Local Practices) can claim to improve knowledge of local cultural productions and back up their relevance with facts. In the opinion of its editor, Jannis Androutsopoulos, hip hop is paradigmatic for the dialectics of globalisation and local contexts. Despite the commercial interests now attached to it, he says, hip hop brings about the formation of important regional structures and acts as a platform of communication in specific social conflicts. According to Androutsopoulos, hip hop provides the repertoire of trademark behaviours with which particularly migrants in different countries often identify. In Stefanie Menrath’s article - a chapter adapted from her book »represent what…«2 -, she gives a detailed account of how hip hop identities evolve. The reader examines hip hop scenes in various German cities (Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, Mannheim, etc.), as well as those in France and West Africa. It distances itself from a purely scientific approach, aiming instead to provide a view of each scene both from the inside and the outside. Hip hop is particularly noteworthy in the context of global/local dynamics, says Androutsopoulos. In comparison with other styles of music, its scope and resilience are exceptional. One reason is its accessibility. The four elements that go to make up hip hop – rap, DJing, break-dance, graffiti – can be performed without formal training and, apart from DJing, without expensive technical equipment. To conclude from all this, however, that hip hop is the most successful global pop culture of all time, as is claimed in the blurb for the book »Is this real? Die Kultur des HipHop«, also published recently, seems somewhat exaggerated. This book by Gabriele Klein and Malte Friedrich highlights the aspect of »realness«, defined by the authors as the »credibility of the performance«, closely allied to the word »authentic«, which, in the book, is interpreted, amazingly, as a cross between original and adaptation. But how can credibility be determined? Isn’t it a perennial misconception to use authenticity as a yardstick of value in the eclecticistic world of pop music? On the other hand, hip hop is judged to be »theatrical« culture. If one however accepts, as the authors do, that everything is theatre anyway and forgeries are equivalent to the original, then, indeed, no distinction need be made any more between reality and fiction.

Although the exhibition »One Planet under a Groove« also views hip hop as global culture, it stresses the dominance of its country of origin through its selection of artists, who all, with few exceptions, live in the USA. It takes its bearings from a thirty-year success story of hip hop as a bestselling export, accompanied by the works of visual artists (such as Keith Haring, David Hammons and Juan Capistran). Critical commentaries such as the video work »Cake« (2001) by Susan Smith-Pinelo, in which the artist highlights the sexism evident in the clips of male rappers, are rather a rarity in the exhibition. But, in the meanwhile, even hip hop in the USA has changed. It has long ceased to be the music of the »black ghettos«. If one looks at the clips that have been shown on music television during the past few years, one is struck by the disappearance of urban elements, in contrast to the theories put forward by the two books mentioned above. The locations of hip hop – at least, as far as the clips would suggest – are now often the countryside or the beach, and its field of action small houses in suburban areas.

For many of the successful protagonists of hip hop, such as The Neptunes, Nelly, Tweet, Bubba Sparxxx, Outkast or Mystical no longer come from the metropolises NYC or L.A.. What is more, hip hop in the USA is now whiter than ever – something that can be seen, for example, by the attention paid to Eminem for years. Princess Superstar, Bubba Sparxx, Gwen Stefani or Justin Timberlake (given the seal of approval by The Neptunes) frequently attain higher places in the charts than the large numbers of Afro-American rappers. Black Eyed Peas recognised this, and engaged a white female singer. And, soon, there they were with their latest single at Number One on the German hit parade.

In other words, a kind of de-Americanisation of hip hop is starting to become evident worldwide, as scenes and markets outside of the USA continually grow in importance. As early as 1990, the cultural theorist Paul Willis said British rap had in the end led to emancipation from America. Along with the significance of local practices, however, it is above all the economic structures that call into question American dominance; yet this is an aspect that is barely touched upon in either of the books mentioned. Of the five major labels, only two are based in the USA. Among the others, Bertelsmann from Gütersloh (probably soon together with Sony) has shown a particular predilection for hip hop. At first, it made itself a name in the USA with Puff Daddy’s company »Bad Boys«. It issued 25 acts on this label before BMG (Bertelsmann Music Group) broke with its former star in 2001 and wound up the New York sub-label owing to its bad sales figures. However, in its subsidiaries Arista (Outkast, The Neptunes) and Jive (Mystikal, Nivea), BMG still has a number of top-class artists under contract.

The fact that a growing number of hip hop protagonists from the USA are entering into strange alliances with German singers and musicians in the hope of regaining a place in the charts is a clear indication of the status of the German-speaking market. For example, Wyclef Jean supported the unspeakable Sarah Connor in her hit »One Nite Stand« (Sony, 2002), and Lil’ Kim worked with DJ Tomekk in »Kymnotyze« (BMG 2002). Xavier Naidoo and RZA, the mastermind of the Wu-Tang Clan, have emerged as a new top-of-the-market duo. After their hit »Ich kenne nichts (das so schön ist wie du)« (EMI, 2003), a complete album featuring the two »spiritual brothers« is now being planned. The way US rappers now earn their money mainly in Europe and shift their economic basis there is, however, nothing new as far as the history of Afro-American musicians is concerned. Techno producers in the nineties and jazz musicians in the fifties and sixties had already provided them with a precedent.

»One Planet under a Groove – HipHop und zeitgenössische Kunst« (One Planet under a Groove – HipHop and Contemporary Art), Museum Villa Stuck, Munich, 18 October 2003 to 11 January 2004.

Jannis Androutspoulos (ed.): HipHop. Globale Kultur – lokale Praktiken. (Hip Hop. Global Culture – Local Practices) Bielefeld: transcript Verlag 2003.

Gabriele Klein / Malte Friedrich: Is this real? Die Kultur des HipHop. (Is this real? The Culture of Hip Hop) Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp 2003.

 

Translated by Timothy Jones

 

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