NSW Police have been waging a war against hip-hop, in scenes that are reminiscent of Footloose.
: “It’s as if politicians and police don’t understand that the music emerging from these places is a reflection of crisis, not the source of it.”What’s particularly frustrating about the simplistic argument that making, performing or listening to hip-hop leads to an increase in violence is that Australia is having the same debate the US had nearly four decades ago, but seemingly without learning any of the lessons.
Assistant Commissioner Stuart Smith said that “rapper-type” music was being used to recruit “youths” into criminal bikie gangs and a “life of crime”.“The Comanchero bikie gang last year, particularly and proactively procured youths through rapper music,” he said. “They hired a fellow ... and through rapper music investment they procured a significant youth gang problem to carry out violent crime.”
It can’t be overstated how ridiculous these statements sound. “Rapper-type” music? Are we talking about Sydney sensation The Kid Laroi, the boring-to-the-point-of-inane Jack Harlow, or the time Taylor Swift gave us her own posse cut onAnd how exactly does a bikie gang “procure youths through rapper music”? By offering free Spotify subscriptions?
The saddest part of this campaign by NSW Police is that it almost, on accident, identifies the problem. There are marginalised young people in western Sydney, growing up in suburbs that have been denigrated by politicians, police and the media, who come from migrant backgrounds and are often told they will amount to nothing.
Hip-hop music, whether it’s from Compton, Brooklyn or Mount Druitt, is a reaction to that, not a cause of it. By focusing on the symptom, NSW Police are making it clear that they don’t really understand how to address the problem. They’ve been given licence to use every tool at their disposal to crush the emergence of an exciting generation of artists who are finally being allowed to tell the stories of their communities, and they are succeeding.
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