we thought it was real

thought I'd share this final reflection piece for my pop music course. This is an opinion piece and in no way researched, so rip into it!
 

My early teens in Kuala Lumpur coincided with the explosion of Malaysian hip-hop and R&B in Malaysia.The early 2000s were a time where groups like Too Phat and VE ruled the airwaves, kids dressed in baggy t-shirts and baseball caps, and trying to sound black with our ‘Yo!’s, ‘Homies’, and ‘dawgs’.

Too Phat, a rap duo, was the biggest thing at the time. Too Phat’s phenomenal success wasn’t the first time rap appeared in the Malaysian market. They had predecessors and tracks by Tupac, Biggie Smalls, Will Smith and co were already common on English radio stations. What Too Phat managed to do was crossover into the mainstream Malay market with a track that sampled a popular Malay singer with English rap lyrics.
Authenticity was never an issue in those days. Malaysian rap had at its centre a core of middle class youths. We were children of anglophile parents, raised on a steady diet of American culture. What America listened to, we listened to, and considered it ours.This was mimicry at its best.

Rap and Hip-hop, only the latest in a long line of cultural products from Black America, began as a genuine response to the poverty and squalor of the inner cities. A tradition that began as social commentary about discrimination and hardship, hip-hop wasn’t only creative and entertaining, it was also a style of performance that allowed for greater provocation than its older cousins. It was also a style that was self-aware, and conscious of its surroundings, its goals, and actors.

Needless to say, Malaysian hip-hop wasn’t as socially potent. As a genre favoured by entitled youths, early Malaysian hip-hop occupied itself with conflicts of the heart and lifestyle portrayals. Too Phat’s Jezzebelle is one particularly amusing example:

She so fine I treat her so kind 'cause i was so blind
until I caught her humpin' wit' this old man from Oman
Oh my, it sure was sucky but I was lucky
to be Malique, who got more chicks than Kentucky

Malaysian hip-hop shared the same sound as its American cousins, down to the diction (East or West Coast, depending on the rapper’s preference). However, while NWA could rap ‘Straight Outta Compton’ and find audiences all over the globe, Malaysian hip-hop wasn’t able to find much success beyond the Anglo-centric centres of South East Asia.

In my opinion, this could be because Malaysian hip-hop could only be seen as a pale imitation of the genuine hip-hop. While an act like Jay-Z wrote and rapped based on his real experiences of drugs and guns in the projects, the Malaysian sound-a-like rapped about girls, clubs, and having a good time, something difficult to sell to audiences that didn’t care if a performer’s Malaysian.

By 2004, the tide had died down. As international success was proving too difficult to find, Malaysian hip-hop groups turned inward and became more vernacular. While their sound before was consciously ‘black’, groups then started to incorporate local rhythms and instruments. More importantly, they started to rap in their mother tongues.

This process of fusion continues to happen today as both performers and audiences mature. It may not be traditional hip-hop, and not traditional Malaysian music, but it’s an authentic development, and this time it’s ours.