Hip-Hop in Australia

Narrative Interview Reflection

Frank TremainLeave a comment

For my BCM313 narrative interview, I decided to chat with my mentor and work colleague from AUD’$, Matthew Craig. Born and raised in Melbourne, Matt and his brother Junor started AUD’$ in 2016 and it’s since become Australia’s number one hip-hop connect. I joined their small team at the start of 2020 as a way to exercise and improve my skills, build a journalistic portfolio and help with the globalisation of Australian hip-hop and R&B.

In the subject of ‘The Future of Work’, we’ve studied our own and others’ values in the workplace and how they portray these through their storytelling. Our interview discussed Matt’s career, the challenges he’s faced and how these experiences have shaped and strengthened the most important values to him, which he lists as “community, culture and growth.”

For anyone who’s had a conversation with Matt, it wouldn’t be hard to guess considering every decision embodies these values both personally and professionally. Even during my presentation, peers utilised the practice of outsider witnessing to guess his top three values within the first couple of minutes (Carey & Russell, 2003). Using Michael White’s map of outsider-witness, I reflected back on when I first met Matt and realised that the way I had identified these values in him was through the category of embodying responses which refers to the expressions that resonate with the outsider witnesser and become an identified part of their own values (Carey & Russell, 2003).

In BCM313, I’ve taken a lot of inspiration from Kate’s interviewing style that we were lucky enough to see in action while she interviewed UOW’s Vice-Chancellor Patricia Davidson (BCM313 Week 7 Workshop, 2021). Her therapeutic style of interviewing is something I adopted in my interview with Matt and will continue to experiment with for future interviews I conduct through my work alongside him. The emphasis on active listening and the absent but implicit enriched the conversation and allowed me to dig deeper than the stories I had already heard from Matt, creating a more thoughtful and rewarding experience for both the talent and myself (Freedman, 2012).

From the interview I conducted with Matthew Craig, I gained a better understanding of Matt and the AUD’$ values and how these were formed from his determined work ethic and influenced by the hip-hop culture he’s been a part of for most of his life. Delivering the presentation allowed me to articulate the AUD’$ future, the relationship between myself and Matt and the shared love we have for the work we do.

Frank Tremain.

References:

Bowles, K & Davidson, P 2021, ‘BCM313 Week 7 Workshop’, University of Wollongong, accessed 31 October 2021, available at SOLS.

Carey, M & Russell S. 2003, ‘Outsider-witness practices: some answers to commonly asked questions’, The International Journal of Narrative Therapy & Community Work, accessed 31 October 2021, available at <https://narrativepractices.com.au/attach/pdf/Outsider_Witness_Common_Questions.pdf>.

Freedman, J. 2012, ‘Explorations of the absent but implicit’, The International Journal of Narrative Therapy & Community Work, accessed 31 October 2021, available at <https://dulwichcentre.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Explorations-of-the-absent-but-implicit-by-Jill-Freedman.pdf>.

Advertisement

The Silver Linings of COVID-19 & Australia’s Music Industry

Frank TremainLeave a comment
Image Supplied: Reyko.

In the 2017 Melbourne Live Music Census, the Victorian capital was revealed to house more live music venues per capita than any other city in the world. Better than London (1 per 34,350), New York (1 per 18,554) and LA (1 per 19,607), Melbourne had one venue per 9,503 residents. Not only that, but the study also estimated that the 73,000+ annual live gigs across Melbourne in 2017 had created 18,331 part-time jobs for musicians, DJs, venue staff, production staff and security personnel.

Yet fast forward to today and Victoria has experienced four state lockdowns and contributed to 68 per cent of the countries COVID cases with more than 26,000 jobs lost in the Victorian Arts and Recreational Services sector from February to August. Melbourne, like the rest of the world, continue to endure the devastating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

One of the thousands of Melbourne creatives impacted by the pandemic is artist and producer, Reyko (stylized as REYKO!).

Before the first lockdown, Reyko and his Hip-hop collective New Wave Infinity ambitiously invited 60 local artists and producers to collaborate on their debut project, All Corners. Recorded across the first week of 2020, Reyko spent the remainder of the year in lockdown, mixing and mastering the collaborative album and beginning to record his debut solo EP, BEHIND TIRED EYES. 

Image Supplied: Nick Rae.

The streaming profits from All Corners were donated to The Healing Foundation, a charity that supports Stolen Generation survivors, families and their communities. Though with the inability to tour and gig, Reyko’s livelihood as a musician was severely affected and the Melbourne creative was forced to adapt to the indefinite challenges of COVID-19 and reconsider his career approach.

In the initial stages of Melbourne’s first lockdown, New Wave Infinity member and music video director Nick Rae felt the music community showed unprecedented support towards one another.

“We had some really cool stuff like there was this movement where everyone would start to share each other’s stuff and their profiles and pushing the message of supporting creators. We started to think outside the box on how we can keep this movement going but as we progressed weeks later I think we saw a shift in general people becoming far more isolated and normalised to that concept.”

As more lockdowns followed, and the Australian music industry remained vulnerable, Nick Rae shared his experience post-lockdown in an Instagram post detailing the impact of the pandemic on his mental health and career as a videographer.

“I felt like I fell on my face after lockdown because I had normalised myself to this routine that suddenly changed and there were these expectations to go and now socialise and go work and it took me a long time to adapt back to that,” Rae said.

According to a recent study by RMIT University, the Melbourne lockdowns incited a loss of routine and heavily impacted their mental health issues and opportunities to network. Despite the radical change in livelihood, Rae reflects on his time during lockdown as the beginning of a new chapter in his career.

“Previously, my process was to just film shit that looked cool and smash out videos as much as I could. In lockdown, I got more invested in the art and I looked far more deeper into analysing paintings and visual artwork. I realised I need to be more selective with what I capture, and curate it in a sense that so much more is said in so much less time,” Rae said.

“I feel like I’ve established the seeds of a stronger brand, refined my process and become more open as an artist and that’s what I kind of got from lockdown that I’m still incorporating into my work.”

Outside of their own work, Nick Rae recognises the silver linings COVID-19 presents to the Australian music industry, indicating that the pandemic has reshaped how artists market themselves and instilled a stronger appreciation for collaboration and independency.

“A lot of these artists have home studios that wouldn’t have existed 10-20 years ago and a lot of artists would’ve halted completely. But because we have access to that, a lot of people have created a new catalogue. From what I’ve seen from my bookings and artists reaching out to me, a lot of them have explored different sounds and have tried to drastically tried to increase their sound and branding. They made so much improvement in such a short amount of time.”

Sharing the same sentiment, Reyko believes creatives will approach their future in the industry with a higher regard for time and opportunity.

“People are just realising that the lost opportunities of last year are now facing them directly and they have to take it. It’s really good, as bad as everything was, it’s been a wake up call for a lot of people.”

Frank Tremain.

Implications of COVID-19 on the Australian Music Industry

Frank TremainLeave a comment

In 2019, Hip-hop in Australia was entering a new era as the perception of ‘Aussie Hip-hop’ began to be more widely challenged by the success of new styles, trends and faces in the scene.

Chillinit and Nerve solidified Grime’s influence on the scene, Drill began to take dominance with ONEFOUR and Hp Boyz leading the way, and The Kid Laroi released his debut label single ‘Let Her Go’, setting him on an unprecedented trajectory for international success.

Image: Danny Howe/Unsplash.

Owner of Melbourne’s Marshall Street Studios, Bennett Ferguson, attributes the success of local Hip-hop in 2019 to the work from artists in the last decade, who gained national recognition and challenged unflattering stereotypes of the genre.

“2019 was when a lot of things started to break out and do big numbers but I think that’s a culmination of what happened in the ten years before it. That’s just when time meets opportunity and the right group dropped the right track,” Ferguson said.

There was no telling the height local Hip-hop was beginning to reach, but on January 25th 2020, its projection was stunted by the announcement of Australia’s first four cases of COVID-19.

By the end of March, community transmission increased significantly and the Australian government shut their borders to non-residents, closed non-essential services and introduced lockdown restrictions. Melbourne in particular, was hit the hardest by the pandemic, with lockdown restrictions being reinstated throughout the months of winter, the start of the new year, and now, during June of 2021, their lockdown has been extended for a further seven days.

Dr Catherine Strong and Dr Fabian Cannizzo from RMIT University investigate the impact of COVID-19 on the music industry in their research paper, ‘Understanding Challenges To The Victorian Music Industry During COVID-19’. According to the study, “the impact of this on musicians, venue owners and operators, road crews and production companies, and associated professionals and personnel from managers to PR to labels and beyond, was immediate and devastating.”

Key Findings:

  • 44 per cent of respondents lost all their music-related work in the pandemic, with those in full-time employment dropping from 34 per cent to seven per cent.
  • 57 per cent of respondents were worried about paying for basics like food and rent
  • More than 80 per cent of respondents thought their involvement in the music industry would be different post COVID-19, with almost three in five considering leaving the industry all together

Source: RMIT University.

Image: Jon Tyson/Unsplash.

AUD’$ editor Matthew Craig describes the “domino effect” caused by the initial cancellation of live music.

“If they’re not having shows they’re not having advertisement and that impacts us. It just impacts down the supply chain. This whole industry is so reliant on the live sector,” Craig said.

Although the full extent of COVID’s impact is yet to be revealed, I Lost My Gig Australia, an initiative by the Australian Music Industry Network and Australian Festival Association, has recorded a total revenue loss of $345 million. In their follow-up survey with 1,556 participants, 66 per cent of respondents had received no other targeted industry support outside of JobKeeper and JobSeeker.

Craig believes the governmental support to creative arts in Australia has always been treated second-rate to sport.

“NSW starting putting on their own lineups competing with private enterprises who are already doing the same thing. So not only was it no shows but now you can return to shows with restrictions and compete with the government who are putting on shows,” Craig said.

WhatsLively is a live music culture and discovery entity dedicated to bringing more eyes on live music in Australia. Co-founder Trishanth Chandrahasan agrees that the support from the government has been underwhelming.

“JobKeeper has kept people afloat but that’s all its really doing, it’s not helping artists. I mean they get some form of it but they’re relying on shows to make money,” Chandrahasan said.

Despite the challenges faced from COVID, there have been a handful of silver linings in regards to the future of the Australian music industry. The innovation of artists has aided Hip-hop in Australia to continue globalising and evolving in diversity and popularity.

From the normalisation of local line-ups and online accessibility, to a greater respect for time and work/life balance, Chandrahasan believes the pandemic has also helped revolutionise live music.

“I think it’s going to play a large role in changing the way we buy tickets, the way we enter and also what happens during a gig. I think the ticket is going to hold more importance, before it was just your pass to get into a venue but I think now it’s going to be more linked to your identity so it’s going to have a bigger link to who you are.”

Frank Tremain.

Rapping Up Our History: Briggs, Nooky & Kobie Dee

Frank TremainLeave a comment

This week’s episode of Rapping Up Our History is a bit different to our previous ones. For the last episode, I wanted to give flowers to as many artists’ as possible, including Briggs, Nooky and Kobie Dee. These artists have been very vocal this year so we take a look at two of Nooky and Kobie Dee’s latest drops, as well an older cut from Briggs as A.B. Original.

Unlike episodes one and two, we’re able to look at three different approaches to providing social commentary through Hip-hop. Briggs directly tackles the issue of Australia Day on January 26 as part of the the A.B. Original duo with Trials. On 432-0, Nooky demands change in Australia and the injustice that occurs for Indigenous Australians while in police custody. Lastly, Kobie Dee delivers an uplifting anthem in his song Still Standing featuring Liyah Knight.

For me, I’m more likely to listen to Kobie Dee than any of the other artists as I think he’s one of the more unique artists right now. His storytelling and delivery is on another level and his social commentary extends further than Indigenous issues. Young adulthood, dealing with issues of masculinity and drugs – these are topics that I can resonate with and form a first hand connection. That does not retract from his other work or Nooky or Briggs’ work, however, it helps to build that initial relatability to which I can then be bridged into more specific issues of racism and injustice.

All three artists’ killed their respective tracks and are powerful commentators in today’s scene. Briggs has set the stage for a lot of artists and is still making impactful statements while Nooky is definitely your favourite rappers’ favourite rapper.

I’d love to hear what you thought of the each track and how you connected with it. This has been the last episode of Rapping Up Our History and I hope you’ve learnt something or at least left with a couple of new tracks for your playlists.

Frank Tremain.

Rapping Up Our History: Ziggy Ramo

Frank TremainLeave a comment

This week’s episode of Rapping Up Our History is focused on Ziggy Ramo and his debut album, Black Thoughts. Though he released an EP under the same name in 2016, the Sydney-via-Arnhem Land rapper returns with a full-length project that challenges White Australia through passionate storytelling and confronting themes.

In Hip-hop as Social Commentary in Accra and Dar es Salaam, Clark investigates the the genre as a tool for social commentary in Africa. He states, “In Ghana, many of the lyrics are reflections on society and the behavior of Ghanaians themselves. They are more social commentary than direct attacks on the political or economic system.”

What makes Hip-hop so powerful in Australia is that we’re able to speak on any issues that we like. While I can’t directly speak on Africa, Clark hints that it is much more dangerous to provide social commentary against political or economic systems. Whereas in Australia, Ziggy Ramo was able to perform and spread his message on a national scale through the ABC. I still feel as though there is controversy around forcing him to change what song he performed, but I understand the ABC’s argument and decision. That being said, the freedom that Australians have allow Hip-hop as a social commentary to touch on any issues and challenge anyone that they see fit and it is this idea that initially drew me to Hip-hop.

I’d love to hear what you thought of the album and how you connected with it. The next episode of Rapping Up Our History is going to be slightly different and will take a look at tracks from Kobie Dee, Briggs and Nooky.

Frank Tremain.

Rapping Up Our History: JK-47

Frank TremainLeave a comment

This week’s episode of Rapping Up Our History is focused on JK-47. Earlier this year, the Tweed Heads artist released his debut album, Made For This, showcasing his skilled lyricism and strong social message.

In Perspectives on the Evolution of Hip-hop Music (2015), Basham concludes that Hip-hop has undergone a change in the genres short lifespan and produce promising evidence that it has positive impacts for social issues. While I agree with Basham, that this change hasn’t cancelled out the other themes of Hip-hop, I think the impact that the music has had on social issues has grown exponentially and spread internationally (Basham, 2015).

JK-47 is not the first artist to shine a touch on the racial injustice incurred from Indigenous Australians, but he delivers a strong voice to the conversation and is able to do so across rich lo-fi and boom-bap centric instrumentals. Hip-hop in Australia has an even shorter lifespan than its American counterpart, but we’re already mirroring the strides they’ve made.

The album has a mix of high energy braggadocios and solemn introspection that sees JK-47 at his best. One of the key themes in Made For This is his struggle for identity. In Andrew Green’s The Ethnography of Hip-hop Nostalgia, Hip-hop in Mexico is analysed and attributed for preserving the Mexican identity (Green, 2017). While the history of Indigenous Australians is vastly different, I feel as though Hip-hop in Australia is helping Indigenous artists like JK to regain and redefine their identity.

I’d love to hear what you thought of the album and how you connected with it. The next episode of Rapping Up Our History will take a deep dive into Ziggy Ramo’s Black Thoughts.

Frank Tremain.

Ethnographic Digital Artefact Pitch

Frank TremainLeave a comment

I will be researching Hip-Hop in Australia and its use of social commentary for Indigenous Australians. This is a subject I am extremely passionate about and will be beneficial to my portfolio as a music journalist.

In Winter and Lavis’ Looking, But Not Listening? Theorising the Practice and Ethics of Online Ethnography (2020), they believe listening allows researchers to account for how people are speaking online (Winter & Lavis, 2020). This is predominately how I will be carrying out my study, by observing the music on platforms like Spotify and YouTube, and the response to this music on social media such as FaceBook and Instagram.

As part of my auto-ethnographic study, I will be exploring how this particular type of music makes me feel and what I gain from it. My digital artefact will take place on my YouTube and on this blog where I will review albums from Indigenous artists that are tackling issues of social injustice. I think this research will help me and my audience better understand the experiences of Indigenous Australians and will measure how useful the medium of Hip-Hop is as a social commentary. Here are a few of the questions that I’m looking to discuss throughout my research:

  • How do people (fans or non-fans) react to this music?
  • What are the similarities or differences between each song/album and what impact does this have?
  • What do I learn from the music and how does it make me feel?
  • What is the future of this music in regards to social change and the genre of Hip-Hop in Australia?

I have researched this topic more broadly in other subjects and I am on track with my Gantt chart in identifying artists and albums. I have also already begun reading secondary research that has been insightful in how to ethically conduct my ethnographic research.

If you would like to keep up with my digital artefact, you can subscribe to my YouTube and my blog where I will be uploading a series of reviews.

Frank Tremain.

Background Research & Ethical Concerns

Frank Tremain1 Comment

In week one, Hip-Hop in Australia was identified as a media niche that I am interested and have experience in. In the following week, I began to map this niche out. Last week, I began to problematise my media niche and narrowed my topic down to Hip-Hop in Australia and its social commentary for Indigenous Australians. In this week’s blog post, I will consider the ethical concerns of conducting an ethnographic study and begin to source the background research for my digital artefact. Although ethnography was initially challenging to understand, my research for the previous blog posts have taught me a lot.

Background Research

Kevin C. Holt’s Emcee Ethnographies: A Brief Sketch of U.S. Hip-Hop Ethnography (2019) is one of the main secondary sources that will be referenced throughout my digital artefact and has already helped shape the direction of my work. Holt references many other ethnographic studies of Hip-Hop and while none explicitly focus on Australia, the approaches and theoretical frameworks used can be applied to my own study. For example, Holt begins by defining Hip-Hop through analysing how other ethnographers have categorised it either as a musical genre, a cultural movement, an aesthetic or even a feeling (Holt, 2019). This conversation could be included in my first audio episode for my digital artefact, where I could start to define Hip-Hop in Australia and decide what aspect will be focused on for my study. With my problematisation in mind, it’s more likely the musical genre will be analysed to determine the feeling and potential social and cultural change that this has.

Additionally, this source provides a large variety of other ethnographic Hip-Hop studies that I will be investigating, most notably, a book by Tricia Rose titled The Hip-Hop Wars: What We Talk About When We Talk About Hip-Hop – And Why It Matters (2008). Rose takes an alternative framework by theorising that Hip-Hop as it exists today is only a shell of a more authentic former self and the mainstream music in recent years is exempt from the realm of Hip-Hop (Rose, 2008). This will be an interesting source to contrast my auto-ethnography and to help define the genre in Australia.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B2_VVL_DpQw/

In Andrew Green’s The Ethnography of Hip-Hop Nostalgia (2017), Green explores “the way that Hip-Hop musicians in Mexico City use their creative practice to perpetuate musical traditions associated with indigenous and national identity” (Green, 2017). This will be a useful source in approaching ethnographic research while focusing on one country. Although the observations that Green makes are primarily achieved in person by being at concerts and conducting interviews, my study will be done entirely online by analysing the online public discourse along with my own auto-ethnographic study.

Ethical Concerns

Ethnographers “tend to explain relationships or attitudes or social events by looking for their connections to other-things-happening in a defined analytic whole” (Arnould, 1998). This quote fits perfectly to my media niche and though I’m excited to begin my research, its important to recognise the ethical concerns. In Winter and Lavis’ Looking, But Not Listening? Theorising the Practice and Ethics of Online Ethnography (2020), they believe listening allows researchers to account for how people are speaking online (Winter & Lavis, 2020). This is applicable to the subject of my research such as the music, as well as the reaction to the music from publications and the public. By actively listening and observing, I will be able to make gain insight into my media niche, however, there are still issues of anonymity.

Although the majority of my research will be conducted online, there are still users who are not entirely anonymous but I can avoid any ethical issues by not directly quoting to referring to certain users but instead paraphrase their comments and draw conclusions from my observations across multiple social media platforms. Another ethical concern that I have is using incorrect terminology and discuss the subject matter carelessly. Due to the nature of the topic, I will make sure to use the appropriate language and approach the media niche with empathy and understanding. Furthermore, as an ethical researcher I will ensure I remain respectful and responsible before, during and after my research.

In the next week or so, I will be releasing a pitch video summarising my four blog posts before beginning to release episodes of my digital artefact. Stay tuned!

Frank Tremain.

Planning & Problematising

Frank Tremain1 Comment

For any new readers, I am doing an ethnographic study on my media niche, Hip-Hop in Australia. In the first week, I identified this niche and the definition of ethnography while in the second week, I began to map this media niche out. This week’s blog will begin to problematise my media niche and plan my research approach.

Problematising My Media Niche

After discussing my ideas with Chris, I’ve decided to narrow my niche further and investigate the use of Hip-Hop and its social commentary for Indigenous Australians.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-06-07/kobie-dee/11175436?nw=0

Hip-Hop first began during the 1970s in The Bronx to unify minorities through a creative outlet in New York City. Shortly after, the genre became a form of social recognition and status for African-American and Latino youth and was a vehicle for collective uplift and social critique of policies and politics that disadvantage minority groups (Petchauer, 2011). As stated in my previous blog, Hip-Hop in Australia didn’t really begin to find success until the early 2000s.

Similarly to the inherent nature of Hip-Hop in America, Hip-Hop in Australia has grown into its own form of social commentary. To problematise this media niche, my ethnographic study will analyse and investigate the use of social commentary by Indigenous Australians and the response from publications, Hip-Hop fans and Australians in general. This research will help readers better understand this niche by demonstrating its importance on providing minorities with a voice and educating audiences on social issues. Ideally, the research will also map the interconnected relationships of Hip-Hop to Indigenous Australians. The audience of this research will include:

  • Avid fans of Hip-Hop in Australia
  • Casual music fans or Australians wanting to understand the social significance of Hip-Hop
  • Myself and future employers, as this project aligns with my career

Planning My Research Approach

The research plan for my digital artefact will begin with listening to as many albums and songs related to the experience of Indigenous Australians. Some of the key artists I will be looking at over the next couple of weeks include Ziggy Ramo, Briggs, JK-47 and Kobie Dee.

Following this, I will then observe the response to the media niche from publications, Hip-Hop fans and casual music listeners. This observation period will include reading reviews, watching interviews and taking notes and screenshots of online comments and posts. All of this can be done through social media on my phone and laptop.

“Auto-ethnography is an intriguing and promising qualitative method. Although working through these challenges can lead to the production of an excellent text, the intimate and personal nature of auto-ethnography can, in fact, make it one of the most challenging qualitative approaches to attempt.” – Sarah Wall (2006).

As a white Australian, I feel as though I am the target audience for this type of Hip-Hop music regarding the experience of Indigenous Australians. While I’ll leave it to my research to dive deeper into this, I recognise that auto-ethnography will work effectively in making observations on my listening experience including how the music makes me feel and what I can learn from it (Wall, 2006).

Made with Microsoft Word.

This Gantt Chart details the research schedule I will undertake throughout the semester. I will first begin by recording and presenting my pitch in week five, followed by identifying artists, albums and related news to the media niche. Then, I will monitor comments and online discussion surrounding the problem before collecting secondary sources and beginning my digital artefact and report. Secondary sources can be used with observation to triangulate emerging findings and used in conjunction with analysis to substantiate the findings (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). This means I can use studies relating to Hip-Hop in America and compare this to Australia, theorising the music’s future impact.

At the moment, I am unsure what form my digital artefact will take but I think I will present it as a two or three part audio series with a blog complimenting each episode. Depending on time constraints and if the nature of my research demands, I could also potentially present my findings as a YouTube series.

Frank Tremain.

Narrowing My Niche

Frank Tremain2 Comments

Last week, I chose the media niche of Hip-Hop in Australia to explore throughout BCM241 for my Digital Artefact. In this week’s blog, I aim to narrow my niche by identifying the key players and the network surrounding the niche.

To visualise the network of Hip-Hop in Australia, I created a mind map that, by no means is meant to represent all the webs of relationships and players, but instead provides examples of some of the aspects that I interact with.

Made with MindMup.

My media niche exists both with an online presence, including the platforms of distribution and social media, as well as an offline presence including concerts, studios and streetwear. I’ve listed some of the key players within the scene, including brands that are often collaborated with, publications that cover the culture and venues where the niche resides. All of these create a network of relations that provide a way for developing an unconventional understanding of social processes (Burrell, 2009).

Although, Internet ethnographies emerged during the 1990s, and were considered detached from the ‘real world’, this media niche is closely linked to people’s offline world and culture (Airoldi, 2018). Hip-Hop has always been more than the music, but “a means for seeing, celebrating, experiencing, understanding, confronting and commenting on life and the world … In other words, is a way of living – a culture” (The Kennedy Centre, n.d.). Though this quote originally applied to Hip-Hop in America, the same can be said about Australia. In the video below, this is expressed from the evident link between Australian culture, Hip-Hop culture and Hip-Hop in Australia.

This niche is incredibly relevant to my career so this research will firstly be valuable to myself. Additionally, this research could interest other creatives within the industry and even just casual listeners who are becoming more and more familiar with the genre as it grows and want to know more about it from an academic stance. By doing so, I would be one of the first to write about Australia in Hip-Hop in relation to ethnography but I have found some articles based on American Hip-Hop which will be useful in directing my research and my approach.

To problematise my media niche, I could aim to create a clearer definition of Hip-Hop in Australia from the type of music and the listeners that it attracts. With the genre being so young in Australia, this would create new fans by helping people understand and educating marketers (like myself) on how to better advertise and work within the industry. In next week’s blog, I will dive deeper into problematising my media niche and how I will approach this so if you have any feedback, I’d love to hear it! After this ethnographic research, I hope to be able to have a more refined understanding of Hip-Hop in Australia that will improve my researching skills as well as benefit my active role in my media niche.

Frank Tremain.