Had a conversation over text with Jus1oh about how “Hawaii Hip-Hop” is starting to pigeon hold or in our terms, mynabird grip, Hip-Hop made by the people of Hawaii. Kind of like the term, “Asian Hip-Hop” or “White rapper” or “Female DJ.” It should be if your dope, you dope, and where your from is irrelevant. I try not to refer back to the “back in the days” but back when we were coming up, we made music and stayed creative and had fun doing it. We never once thought, “oh we have to put Hawaii Hip-Hop on the map” or “we have to rep for Hawaii Hip-Hop” or “we gonna make Hawaii Hip-hop”. We made Hip-Hop, PERIOD. Put our tapes and CDs, albums and freestyles. Then we let the people decide, the people of the world….and guess what, according to the countless dubs, emails, and youtubes poppin up of tracks we made over 10 years ago, we make Dope Hip-Hop period.
Without labeling ourselves “Hawaii Hip-Hop” we made Hip-hop first and foremost. The fact we was from Hawaii, made us doper, and thats the truth because aint nobody expect Hip-hop to come out of Hawaii. So when their first impression is “yo this track is fresh,” then the next question is “where these guys from?”, and they find out its Hawaii it makes it that much doper! Kind of like when i first heard Ceschi, hes from Connecticut or OneBeLow who is from Michigan. There music was dope, then you found out they were from places that were not the Hip-Hop hotbed it made it that much more amazing.
In no way am i saying not to rep Hawaii, but why so damn blatant. Don’t blow your load to fast. I myself was born and raised in Hawaii and i am of Royal Hawaiian decent & blood. So basically anything i spit is Hawaii Hip-hop, plain and simple. I don’t sound like im from LA or NY, or from the South. Now this is just my opinion and maybe its the new Hawaii way to let the freak flag fly and say YO YO WE OVER HERE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE PACIFIC, WE RAP, WE MAKE MUSIC, LOOK OVER HEAR! Droppin every cliche Hawaii popular saying and slang along the way. To each its own so if you a rah rah cheerleader or a let your action over beats lead your way, its all Hawaii, your Hawaii.
