Paper short abstract:

This paper draws on ethnographic research conducted in the Adelaide and Melbourne Hip Hop scenes from 2006-2007. It examines how, when and why Hip Hoppers made distinctions between 'underground' and 'mainstream' Hip Hop and Hip Hop and other music genres like 'Pop'.

Paper long abstract:

'Someone that makes Hip Hop to make money…I just call that pop music, I don't class it as Hip Hop anymore' (Simon, 22 year-old Male Hip Hop Promoter, Adelaide).

This paper draws on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Melbourne and Adelaide from 2006-2007 to explore how Hip Hop fans and artists (primarily MCs, DJs and producers) defined and employed categories like 'underground' 'grass roots' 'popular' and 'mainstream'. I demonstrate that these concepts were frequently understood as binary-oppositions with 'underground' and 'grass roots' being contrasted with 'popular' and 'mainstream'. As the quote from Simon suggests, these oppositions were value judgements that Hip Hoppers used to support claims to authenticity and to draw boundary lines. I argue that contestations about what was or was not 'authentic' were heightened at the time of my study, a period when Australian Hip Hop music was steadily growing in popularity and several Hip Hop artists were reaching new levels of commercial success and acclaim. These changes were understood by my participants as a potential threat that needed to be mitigated. In particular, the possibility of economic gain ('making Hip Hop to make money') was viewed as a corrupting force that could dilute the artistic, political and cultural value of Hip Hop or 'dumb it down'. In this paper I examine my participants struggles to produce and/or consume Hip Hop that fit within their conceptualisation of 'underground' (authentic) Hip Hop and to avoid the perceived perils of 'mainstream' success or becoming 'pop' (inauthentic).