Keeping It Real in the Global South: Hip-Hop Comes to Sri Lanka

Introduction

In May 2009, Sri Lanka’s almost three-decade-long civil war came to an end. In the months leading up to it, the tiny island nation received an unprecedented amount of press coverage, including a visit to Bill Maher by M.I.A., the Sri Lankan-British rap artist. M.I.A.’s visit to Maher was not about her music, but rather a public relations mission on behalf of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the insurgents who fought for a separate state within the tiny island nation, and whose struggles she claims as the genesis of her own performances. While her general approach to the civil situation in Sri Lanka – a space that she has not visited since she was a child – and her incoherent dismissal of the complexities of the civil war were laughed off by many, including Maher himself, M.I.A.’s iconic status as the representative of ‘South Asian’ hip-hop cannot be overlooked, especially since her performances and success set a broader context for understanding the relationship between hip-hop as ‘shorthand’ for the politics of the marginalized in a larger global context. M.I.A.’s visit to Maher, as a representative of a group fighting for a separate homeland and her constant invocation of that struggle as the genesis for her music lead us to question how hip-hop is used by hip-hop artists living within the nation, to articulate a politics of reconciliation rather than dissent. We are interested in understanding the pervasiveness and popularity of African American, hip-hop identity as an extension – or the aforementioned notion of shorthand – for blackness, outside the boundaries of the USA. We are especially interested in interrogating the relationship between this constructed identity (as a particular mutation beyond the borders of the USA) and its symbolic value to articulate power within communities that are in the midst of, or are recovering from, ethnic conflict.

Of this, Sri Lanka is a prime example. Several centuries of continued colonization – by the Portuguese, the Dutch and finally the British from whom the country finally gained independence in 1948 – resulted, not only in the civil war, but also in hybrid identities. Within these hybrid identities, there continues to be a simultaneous rejection and fetishization of whiteness, fear and marginalization of blackness or ‘darker’ skin, and a desire to be ‘westernized’ while at the same time a mythical, Sinhala Buddhist, bucolic past is evoked in the name of nationalism. It is within this cultural context that hip-hop has taken on a significant role within Sri Lankan popular music. This essay seeks to understand how this notion of blackness comes to disrupt whiteness within the context of a brown nation. We mark these phenotypical categories not to essentialize, but to articulate the spaces through which hip-hop meanders in Sri Lanka.

‘Keepin’ It Real’: The Role of ‘Authenticity’

The notion of authenticity – ‘keepin it real’ – has permeated every point in the history of hip-hop. Much of this notion of a certain hip-hop ‘realism’ is often sustained through a particular set of identifications including: staying true to oneself, the underground, being ‘hard’, the street, the old school, and blackness (Harrison, 2008; McLeod, 1999). Blackness is especially constructed as a prerequisite to keeping it real and, in spite of it being ‘a floating signifier in that its meaning changes depending on the context in which it is invoked’, it demands, more often than not, that participants identify as culturally black – certainly a certain prototype of blackness (McLeod, 1999: 139). As Shelley Eversely observes, ‘racial authenticity is masquerading as the natural, ontological “truth” about people of color’ (Eversely, 2004: 79). Racial authenticity pervades black culture in that the ‘real’ or ‘authentic’ becomes a cultural stance, a racial positionality, an index of culture, and a barometer of trust of racial group members. As such, black identity relies on the ongoing process of performance, where notions of racial authenticity are achieved through ritualized performative practices. Racial authenticity involves an assessment of the degree to which someone is ‘truly’ or genuinely representative of a particular race and/or ethnic group. Any attempt to speak of black authenticity is an attempt to draw the boundaries of blackness as a racial signifier. To this end, the inclusion and exclusion of subjects from blackness is political and never innocent. Racial authenticity can be read as a way of establishing social credibility while also protecting interests, whatever those interests may be.

Blackness in this sense is not metaphysical, nor is it somatic-biological, but political (Hall, 1996b). It is this politicized performance of and with African American youth culture that has become part of the symbolic universe of youth in Sri Lanka. Incorporation of symbols and objects associated with African American youth culture is evident on album covers, webzines, websites, etc. Wearing baggy jeans, work boots (e.g. Timberlands), sporting jerseys, gold and platinum chains, baseball caps, and do-rags have become increasingly popular in urban areas of the country. This physical appropriation of a particular notion of blackness is complemented and made complete by the use of black vernacular, whether those who use it are diasporic or located within the nation, and it is most clearly visible on various social networking sites. While adopting such symbols as ‘keeping it real’, young people are also appropriating and utilizing them to differentiate themselves from ‘traditional’ Sri Lankan styles without having to look to Britain or white cultural styles more generally.

Blackness also seems to represent a certain set of core values and principles, namely equality, justice, tolerance, peace, and antiracism that Sri Lankan youth can identify with. In essence, blackness here takes on symbolic value that allows them to distinguish themselves from the nationalist ethos of both Sinhalese and Tamils, and the power of hegemonic whiteness that is the legacy of colonialism, creating a ‘Third Space’. Within this Third Space, in keeping with Homi Bhabha’s articulation of such as a ‘liminal’ or ‘interstitial’ space between competing cultural traditions, Sri Lankan hip-hop emerges as a multi-ethnic performance that articulates the realities, frustrations, and hopes of a younger Sri Lanka (Bhabha, 1990). Artists, like Krishan, Iraj, and Gajan, who collaborate on albums, are Sinhalese and Tamil, and their collaborations and sense of community speak to a burgeoning movement by a younger generation to remove themselves from the war that is the legacy of their parents and grandparents. As Krishan states:

We launched unity in music. Showing people from different cultural backgrounds all working as one team for a positive cause. Music is a place where we can bring people together. Regardless of language, regardless of whatever cultural differences, you can unite people through music. We have been having this ethnic conflict for 25–26 years now. We thought we could make a difference by making songs with positive messages. We did a lot of songs like that. We speak on behalf of our community, show what we go through. This is all communicated through the music. Rap is a good platform to promote unity, because rap music is generally rhythm and poetry, and you express what you feel through that music. I think you can do a lot of wonders with rap music. Now we’ve got Sinhalese people appreciating Tamil music and Tamil people appreciating Sinhalese music. When you combine all of them together you could obviously bring people together. (Murder Dog Magazine, 2008)

In many ways, this quote indicates an intervention into a hegemonic language structure that is also practiced socially. While Sri Lanka recognizes Sinhala, English, and Tamil as its ‘official’ languages and government documents and other businesses include Tamil and Tamil language translation, Sinhalese remains the predominant language of the country. For example, while Sinhalese is taught, spoken, and practiced from infancy, there are no Tamil language requirements in most school systems. This kind of (not so) subtle privileging of Sinhalese reflects what Samy Alim (2006) refers to as ‘White Public Space’ – spaces both physical and interactional that elevate and normalize white performance – in his study of the impact of language in US hip-hop culture. In a Sri Lankan context, Sinhalese has become the metaphorical ‘white space’ that Krishan, Iraj, Gajan, and others intervene in. By merging Sinhalese and Tamil within the same rhyme, they force the public to listen to, and appreciate, the convergence of the two cultures.

As part of their effort to nourish a burgeoning peace movement, these musicians strategically use a certain notion of blackness and black politics that speak to a younger generation. But the question remains, what then exactly are these rappers evoking when they call on a black identity to speak for them?

The Subaltern Speaks through Blackness

In his comments on mixed race identities Lewis Gordon observed that ‘To choose blacknesss when one could choose whiteness seems to take the form of a sacrifice that carries complex ethical questions of its own’ (Gordon, 2000: 98). Blackness in this sense is not so much about corporeality as it is about an affirmative behavior to refuse the doctrines of global white supremacy. To do blackness is to gesture toward a particular social heritage of resistance and international solidarity.

On the one hand, the blackness that hip-hop evokes is a form of resistance – a resistance to the archaic notion of contemporary elitist cultural politics that speak to some kind of authentic Sri Lankan identity. This is in keeping with how hip-hop is employed in the USA. Sri Lankan youth experiences with structural and individual racism lead them to associate with a black identity. Racist culture prompts self-defining cultures of resistance. As a result, Sri Lankan youth experience solidarity with other marked black bodies, particularly African Americans and continental Africans, whom they see as inhabiting the same social position in the USA and the globalized racist structure. Yet, while emphasizing their similarities through time and space, many Sri Lankan youth draw cultural distinctions between being Sri Lankan and African Americans. Many resist black/white dichotomization by highlighting their brownness, yet they are sympathetic to black issues. On the other hand, and perhaps more interestingly, this particular blackness is not a simple mimicking of hip-hop alone. But instead, it is a broader manifestation of a symbolic blackness that is articulated through the merging of genres under the umbrella of hip-hop. For example, Iraj and Krishan’s (2004) ‘J-Town story’ has distinct rap beats in its chorus, but earlier has an R&B verse that introduces the song, and before that begins with traditional Sri Lankan lute and drums. ‘J-Town’, in its message and name, also evokes the nostalgia of popular resistance music of the 1990s such as Eddy Grant’s Give me hope Jo’anna, about apartheid in South Africa. Thus, this fusion of R&B, rap, and traditional Sri Lankan music comes together as a particular understanding of blackness as a voice of resistance. As Ellie Hisama writes, to be black ‘is to belong to a political, social, and cultural category rather than a biological one. What sets in motion the dynamic polycultural complexity of these musicians is their dreams of liberation, shared by those who are not just looking for a place to survive, but who are in search of something better’ (Hisama, 2002: 14). In this sense, ‘keeping it real’ is not about hip-hop but about an imagined community of abstract blackness that speaks to the alienation of youth who have grown up in the midst of the civil war. In addition, they also don this blackness as racial marking that is understood as indicating a marginalized identity within the context of the West. Because within South Asia in general, and Sri Lanka in particular, their brown bodies carry no social currency that can translate the marginalization of race – after all, within the brown continent, brown remains neutral. Thus, blackness has the added advantage of helping them, metaphorically, to shed their skin and position themselves against their own brownness, and the powers, both Sinhalese and Tamil, that control and keep the conflict alive. In the end, many Sri Lankan young people express a linked fate, a shared history of oppression rooted in ideologies of white supremacy and racial hierarchy that has motivated them to develop a common narrative of exclusion and struggle, and a shared consciousness. As a result, racial group identity is important for group mobilization – social issues become framed as important for the ‘black’ community, locally and globally.

Why Hip-hop?

The investment of Sri Lankan youth in black popular culture, particularly hip-hop culture, is not haphazard nor is it by accident (Nair and Balaji, 2008). As cultural critic Tricia Rose has pointed out, ‘We do not invest in cultures randomly; cultural exchanges, desires, appropriations, and affinities always speak to already existing relationships, conscious and otherwise – those we want to reinforce, transform, deny, embrace … The cultural traffic in blackness is part and parcel of a legacy of race’ (Rose, 2005: vii).

Young people are often excluded from arenas of power, work, and leisure. Sri Lankan youth, in the age of globalization, are no different. Thus, young Sri Lankans construct places of socialization whose function is to show their differences, simultaneously as victims and active agents, circulating in a geography that escapes the limits of the national territory. To this end, hip-hop might offer to Sri Lankan youth a springboard for the formulation of positive and contemporary forms of identity and cultural practices. Hip-hop allows them to define the world as they see it and as a result hip-hop has become an expression of choice for those who feel alienated, oppressed, and frustrated. In other words, Sri Lankan youth can be seen as searching for a narrative that provides a space for the free play of their imagination. Sri Lankan youth have begun to use hip-hop in order ‘to reach for a new conception of ethnicity as a kind of counter to the old discourses of nationalism or national identity’ (Hall, 1996a: 119). It is a site of alternative traditions. Furthermore, this is part of a new politics so that they ‘feel just marginally “marginal”’ (Hall, 1996a: 119). Identities are discursively mediated constructs. In other words, we come to understand others and ourselves through discourse. Hip-hop in this sense is about the making and remaking of subjectivities and new social ontologies.

For many, to be young and Tamil are in Du Boisian terms stigmata of degradation (Du Bois, 1997). Members of oppressed groups often experience a common fate because of a social identity that they appear to share. Krishan feels that hip-hop can bring Tamil people together. When asked if he considered himself a voice for Tamil people, Krishan has responded by stating, ‘Perhaps. I just think Tamil people, especially those outside of Sri Lanka feel somewhat lost. They don’t know who to follow. I just hope through my music they feel they have someone to identify with’ (Wimal, 2007). In short, hip-hop provides a space for the articulation of group solidarity, for it allows Sri Lankan youth, especially those in the diaspora, to reconnect and identify with their ethnic and cultural heritage, to speak of shared values and goals (of peace), and loyalty to the group. Hip-hop has been influential in establishing an identity for thousands of disaffected and disenfranchised Sri Lankans around the world. For Sri Lankan youth, hip-hop has become a means of cultural expression, where issues of national, ethnic, and racial identity are engaged with and expressed.

Conclusion

Throughout this essay, we have attempted to understand the permutations of hip-hop within Sri Lanka, as symbolic of how particular forms of music come to speak of and for movements of resistance and community. It can be argued that globalization is bringing about, among other things, the uniformization of work ethos, life perspectives, and survival strategies among disenfranchised young people in different societies. The internet and the ease and speed of travel have produced an interplay of knowledge and ideas that is unprecedented. Here, we do not mean to romanticize the development of technology as a panacea for the marginalized. Instead, we turn to the increasing movement of cultural knowledge across physical and metaphorical borders to explain the popularity of hip-hop such a distance away from its birthplace. This would also help explain why youth cultures, especially hip-hop culture, in different countries such as Sri Lanka share many similarities. Although the symbolic universe that is associated with US black culture exerts a powerful and globalizing influence, the relationship between hip-hop music, culture, and identity is not static. The increasing popularity of hip-hop in Sri Lanka and within the diaspora is an excellent example of how the local reinterprets the global – in essence it highlights how western cultural performances from the global North are incorporated as symbols of resistance in meaningful ways in the global South. It also challenges, in unique ways, the belief that the West is being embraced with little critical thought by the East. Examples such as this highlight the limitations of that argument and instead speak to the ways in which particular identities become renegotiated in the process of crossing borders.