The Kids Are All Right

As an extension of Spectacle: The Music Video Exhibition, which is currently on at ACMI, this Australia Day (Sunday) ACMI will be hosting Australian Hip Hop And The Moving Image – a cross-cultural celebration of how video is used in Australian hip hop. There will be discussions with industry professionals and performances, as well as an extended broadcast of Movement: Clips From Australian Hip Hop Culture on the big screen at Federation Square.

The event will be hosted by MC Yung Philly, whose role as a Project Officer for youth cultural organisation The Push involves developing young talent in hip hop. Since his beginnings in rap, hip hop always has been a powerful positive force in his life. “I always had a bit of a knack for English/poetry, so when rap music came into my life the two kind of blended together and I started writing beats [and] rapping with friends,” he says. “I guess that's where the empowerment came in because I found out that I loved to perform and entertain and part of that entertaining is through rapping, especially freestyle form.”

It's about telling stories, says Philly, and video plays a vital role in the expression of the stories of the young people he works with. This event aims to celebrate the importance of the moving image in the greater realm of hip hop culture. “It explores how video is used in Australian hip hop and how communities [can] utilise hip hop as a powerful tool for young people to engage in,” he says. “Australian Hip Hop And The Moving Image is around a power discussion of various members and various filmmakers that work in community, work with established artists and work with Obese Records, and also artists themselves that were part of documentaries. I guess we'll be chatting about their history, how they go about filmmaking, their creativity, how video is important in documenting young people's lives that may be newly arrived or come from a particular struggle and why video is important for artists themselves in terms of publicity.”

The reach of Australian hip hop is expanding rapidly. Philly puts much of the growth in hip hop culture down to the efforts of established artists to put back in to emerging talent. That a large mainstream arts organisation like ACMI is picking up on the importance of hip hop in Australia is further gratification: “I think it's a fantastic expansion on other organisations that see what this culture of hip hop is doing with Australian music and community. I think it will maybe open a few eyes for some of the ACMI audiences that have not really gathered much insight into what's happening in their local scene with practitioners of hip hop.”