I was at an alt-media conference, and they showed part of a doc on Palestinian hip hop. The dudes were all in baggy jerseys and the girls had tank tops and teased out hair. They rapped (very poorly) over the beat to "I Got 5 On It." When it got to the discussion part, a lot of people in the audience were actually very critical of what I think the presenters thought would play to the "base." They asked what the Palestinian hip hop crew was bringing that was different, why they were so derivative, why people who had been immersed in HH culture for a long time should support what looked exactly like wiggers ripping shit off in the 90s, except with another language. Jeff Chang said something about how everyone had to go through a phase where they just copied everything before they started doing their own stuff (and to be fair, it's a lot to ask from an occupied people), but it didn't seem to satisfy people. It seemed like, yes, on one hand they are using it to "get their message out," but a huge part of it was more about expressing a modern youth identity through the consumption of cool hip hop culture. The makers of the documentary had little to say, I guess they thought "oppressed people rapping" would be enough.
Actually, here, I found part of it.
i see what you/the alt media people are saying, but with this example you are talking about "the first rap crew from gaza".
here is a country who has not been so saturated with the hip hop culture (at least not from within, and i doubt if much foreign stuff has gotten through and been widely disseminated) to the point of boredom. maybe for them the hip hop ideal, which paved the way for the identity of such a large proportion of the world's youth (despite its original "golden era" confinement) is only beginning to realise the possibilities of their own freedom of expression now, in 2007 or whenever that film was taken. does that mean we should knock them down just for being late?
as for bringing nothing new, well - obviously they are talking about the issues which affect them, and its here i think that hip hop needs a deeper connection than "background music". i fundamentally believe that hip hop is not solely about aesthetic, but that there is some sort of message that the artist is trying to communicate. obviously this is true for other scenes, nothing "special" about hip hop etc... and the message is not necessarily radical, empowering or political, it could be ordinary, everyday, stream of consciousness etc... but if that point is to be accepted, that the song carries a message as well as aesthetic intent - then i think ignorance of the language cannot be overlooked. you mentioned that in french rap you could not distinguish whether the accents of the rappers had any north african influence, they definately do - the maghrebin french rappers do not speak like bougy parisians. and i think this is an integral point to the appreciation of the music, the understanding of intent etc...
i think development of hip hop can come about lyrically as well as sonically.
that said, i do agree that acts who simply rip off obvious american for prolonged periods of time (as those video's showed) are not bringing anything new, and are boring.
here is a song by Axiom - rising star in french rap, called Ouais Mais - i think he resembles the fusion of his maghrebin origins with the traditional french hip hop aesthetic quite well.
http://www.mediafire.com/?1t3wbm231xn
