Hip-hop in Canada

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Based upon what you will have read about France and Japan, what might strike you is that hip-hop in Canada evolved gradually if not slowly, although being the neighbor of the hip-hop’s creators. Nevertheless, Canada is a major market in the popular music industry since 84% of Canadians listen to music and a lot them still listen music through radio.One of the reasons why rap music took a while to expand in Canada is that ghettos happened be rare in the cities but I think the real reason is that the music-record labels were afraid to spend money on it, as it was new and pretty risky to invest into such a music style. They did not believe into hip-hop success and maintained harsh prejudices against its perpetrators. Also, the CRTC had very strict rules in the 1990s about what had to be diffused on the radio, since they obliged to broadcast no less than 35% of Canadian music and content. In Québec they demanded that 65% of French content was diffused to the audience. In Much Music, the requirements were lowered at 10% for Canadian content as well as 10% for Musique Plus to provide French content.The hope for hip-hop to expand relied on the three points of emergence of the country: Toronto, Vancouver and Halifax. Indeed, the rappers were located in the most cosmopolitan cities (Toronto, Halifax and Montreal). In the mid-1980s, the rappers who had initiated the syle were MCs such as Supreme, Brother A. Sunshine and Ebony Crew, who became successful on the stage but never recorded in a studio, as record labels presented no interest for hip-hop and rap.

“What is keeping rap from taking off is a general misunderstanding and rejection of this type of music and its audience, not to mention media and public prejudice against the power of black urban music” (309).

Ron Nelson, former rap DJ, director of Advance Productions

Ironically however, Roger Chamberland explains: “Unlike the USA, rap soon moved away from Canadian black communities and had a reverse ‘integration’ effect, its fashions, slang, and behavior adopted by predominantly white, middle-class youth” (Global Noise: Rap and Hip-hop Outside the USA, p.309). Ghettos were rare and hip-hop started to belong to the middle-class youth.The best way to spread hip-hop abroad Canada was to perform on stage, which was initially done by communities of a Caribbean background. In fact, Miche Mee (whose origins were of Jamaica), was a woman who could harmoniously mix rap and reggae and became popular in the mid-1980s. We wished that she could become the next Canadian rap spreader but she failed into succeeding on the international level, as her career in the U.S. did not work.In 1990, Maestro Fresh Wes‘ career became internationally successful along with Attic recording company, which wanted to test the rap market. Consequently, Let Your Backbone Slide (to see video click on the link) was simultaneously successful with MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice. Also, what really boosted hip-hop in Canada and more precisely in Québec is the group Dubmatique with their songs La force de comprendre and Soul pleureur , which had a bilingual approach and seduced the public.I guess that the issues start from the confusion of the French and U.S. influences in Québec and Canadians as well as Québecois face an identity struggle.

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Hip-Hop in Japan

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About Japan, there is a strong stereotypical assumption that Japanese can adapt a product very smartly, though cannot innovate. They are very well known to easily export and import products. In Global Noise: Rap and Hip-Hop Outside the USA, edited by Tony Mitchell, the author Ian Condry reports that rapper MCD has stated the arrival of hip-hop as a “flying spark (tobihi) that traveled from the Bronx across the ocean to light a fire” (222). Condry adds to MCD’s statement saying that: “The image of a flying spark is important, for it reminds us that although popular music styles travel on the winds of global capitalism, they ultimately burn or die out on local fuel” (222).

The history of hip-hop in Japan could not be a better example of effective globalization and assimilation, as it has quickly absorbed the genre. Condry argues that “it offers clues as to the dynamic interaction between culture and economics in the tweenty-first century” (222).

More than globalized, Japanese hip-hop style really gives a sense of its glocalization to a certain extent, as the style does not advocates values such as sex, drugs and violence, but rather mentioned no guns, no sexist connotations and very bit of violence. The only drug they would include in their lyrics would be beer and rarely marijuana, and never cocaine.

Continuously, we speak of globalization because Japan is the second largest recorded-music market in the world and that people from Tokyo identified to the New York East Coast style as they thought that it was the “true” or “original” hip-hop since it was born there. Furthermore, we would speak of glocalization because Japan’s music sales are dominated by Japanese artists even though Western artists are very popular. I was not like that until 1968, as Americans were used to win over the Japanese from the post World-War II era to 1967.

The big hip-hop boom in Japan arrived with the breakdancing phenomenon. After that have come DJing, rap, and graffiti, like in the U.S. The Japanese were essentially influenced by the low-budget film Wild Style in 1983, were especially inspired by the breakdancing scenes. While the movie was distributed and screened in Japan, Rock Steady Crew, featuring in the film, came to the country to perform their talent in Tokyo discos and department stores. From then on, the Japanese started to gather in the street and form group to practice the dance moves. Rapper ECD comments: “Actually, when I saw those guys, I didn’t really understand what the rappers and DJs were doing. In terms of what left a lasting pack, I can’t remember a thing except the breakdancing.” Another movie about dance that had a big impact was Flashdance for the famous breakdancing scene. In this way, I feel that the attraction towards that style essentially resulted from their relationship with martial art and the similarities between breakdancing and martial art acrobatics and the non-violent masculine aggressive moves. No longer after, the other styles took place.

Video of Japanese Breakdance (Youtube)

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Hip-Hop in France

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France is the second largest hip-hop market in the world. The U.S. has since the beginning of the 20th century had an important cultural influence over France and Europe in general. In the realm of music, it has started from jazz influences especially in the 1920s-1930s to the disco wave in the 1970s, passing by rock&roll in the 1950s. Hip-hop quickly crossed the globe from the U.S. to France in the 1980s along with punk, which gave birth to French and Francophone rap.The first recording of French rap occurred in 1982-1983 with the artist Fab Freddy, as he performed Change de Beat, simply meaning “Change the Beat”. A group that was successful in France was Chagrin d’Amour (1982). In Global Noise: Rap and Hip-hop Outside the USA, edited by Tony Mitchell, the author André J. M. Prévos details young rappers’ feelings towards the hip-hop expansion phenomenon:

“They were glad to see that rap, which they knew already, was gaining acceptance. But they were disconcerted because they feared that Chagrin d’Amour’s innocuous rhymes would be seen as a new norm and force them to modify their own lyrics. Other French popular artists of the early 1980s used rap techniques in their recordings but did not see themselves as the originators of a new style” (41)

Although rap content often differed from the U.S. discourse, since it French artists rarely mention firearms or drive-by shootings, the art could still refer to the ghetto lifestyle without necessarily the vulgar lyrics.Prévos reports that it is “by the early 1990s French rappers had truly covered most of the relevant styles found in the repertoires of their U.S. models, including more commercial styles and less vulgar lyrics, originally introduced by Chagrin d’Amour (…) and by French rap artists who, like Benny B. (1992), may be seen as having been inspired by popular U.S. styles such as those of MC Hammer” (44).It is important to notice that most French rappers were of Arabic origin and therefore “could not praise Africa” (46) like the traditional original hip-hop. It would inevitably create political controversies among the Left and the Right wing. Accordingly, the latter confirms why France had a sense of its own identity despite some of its extreme resemblance to the U.S. at a certain point.Since the French did not really have a gangsta style because there are few gangs in France, three major tendencies of rap existed: hardcore (crude and noisy), zulu (presented criticisms against the Western norms), and pharaohism, that the French group IAM invented. Prévos explains that it is “the clearest attempt so far at the creation of a new type of religious space, but not a church, at least in the sense that the word has come to be accepted by compilers of dictionaries” (49). In the cases of hardcore and zulu, both derived from U.S. models, while pharaohism is a pure French innovation.

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