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Native Hip Hop And Performance As Resurgence Analysis

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Indigenous Hip Hop and Performance as Resurgence by Frank Waln tells his story on how hip hop impacted and changed his life. He begins by discussing his first interaction with hip hop music from a scratched CD he found on the road by Eminem’s Marshall Mathers LP. Surprisingly, that was his first time ever hearing rap or any other form of different music compared to his traditionally music. He stated that used to hearing music country music from the radio stations and the ceremony/pow wow songs from his reservation*. The express the way he felt when he first heard Eminem rapping “My mind was blown… I felt like Eminem was telling my story and getting all his pain out through music. I wanted that for myself” (Waln 2015). Waln explains how and why urban Indigenous youth relate and identify themselves with hip hop*. Its stated that his peer can easily connect to hip hop because of the cultural elements and similarities seen in Indigenous culture. Likewise, to hip hop there’s is a storytelling, a strong bass or drum and powerful voice, Waln states these elements are all similar, to the Indigenous culture. Waln believes aboriginal people could relate to Hip …show more content…

This caused many years of built up colonial rage. Resulting into Waln peers using substances abuse and violence to mass their anger and frustrations (Waln 2015). Political Indigenous artists used hip hop as an outlet to express their colonial rage and to build a “framework for resurgence” (Waln 2015). Waln states that this is the same way African American use it to express the racist discrimination they face daily. It also states that hip hop has helped many Aboriginal youth in finding their “self-agency” which is allowing them to slowly heal (Waln 2015). Giving positivity enforcement, encouraging them to express themselves and their story to the world (Waln

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