We're Still Here

• In Event: We're Still Here: Decolonizing Canada Through Indigenous Hip-Hop Culture

Abstract

1. Objectives of the session
During the winter of 2020, a documentary filmmaker and a scholar on youth culture and social justice collected 16 hours of footage from workshops, rallies and protests, artistic performances, and community-based activities launched by several Indigenous Hip-Hop artists and community members across parts of Northern Canada. The session is designed to position the session attendees to understand how the cultural formations and actions of Hip-Hop artists formulate a revolutionary pedagogical project. The project is dedicated to self-empowerment, to subverting settler colonialism, and to building a social order free from hate, hostility, and inequality.
2. Overview of the presentation
The presentation is designed to illustration how Hip-Hop serves as a counterhegemonic outlet in Canada where youth and adults have reclaimed their cultural heritage, have challenged unfair treatment in social and political institutions, and have created Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal movements designed to tackle environmental degradation is Aboriginal Hip-Hop culture. Inspired by various and innovative forms of cultural production—such as break dancing, graffiti art, spoken word, and song—generated by racialized and low-income youth from the dominant culture in the United States for the past forty years, Indigenous Hip-Hop intellectuals offer powerful analyses and critiques of what is responsible for oppression and suffering impacting Aboriginal people’s across Canada. They also engage in collective activities with Non-Aboriginal and Aboriginal groups and provide cultural work in schools and Aboriginal communities in order to challenge systemic oppression and social inequalities, including racism, environmental degradation, inadequate health care, sexism, and poverty.
3. Scholarly or scientific significance
Although there has been increased scholarly attention dedicated to understanding how the settler colonial relationship fuels alienation, suffering and social maladies in Indigenous communities in Canada, there is little scholarly attention as to how Indigenous people have formulated cultural practices and activist activities designed to reclaim their Indigenous identity, to resist the takeover of their land, and to address “the immensity of the social issues that affect them and their communities” (Knight, 2015). This presentation is designed to capture how Indigenous Hip-Hop intellectuals are active in the struggle to subvert the settler-colonial relationship and to build a social world free from hate, suffering, and injustice.
4. Structure of the session
The co-producers of the documentary will show several segments of the documentary in order to provide an overview of the cultural practices and activities generated by several leading Hip-Hop Indigenous intellectuals in Canada, including Ostwelve, Dakota Bear, Joey Stylez, and Jb the First Lady. Next, several of the artists will speak to the impact of Hip-Hop on their identity formation as well as on the role of Hip-Hop in challenging injustice and oppression. The session will end with the audience engaging in discussion on Hip-Hop Indigenous culture, on the role documentary filmmaking plays in bringing awareness to the cultural formations and activist activities of minoritized youth and on the role of documentary in giving voice to minoritized social groups.

Authors

• Bradley J. Porfilio, San Jose State University

• Robert Gliner, San Jose State University