ABOUT THE AUTHORIlse Scheepers
Single white female, early twenties, only child of a broken middle class intellectual home, progeny of a lawyer and a journalist, avid hip hopper from when the Beastie Boys released Ill Communication, unconscious hip hopper from when De La Soul released Ring Ring Ring, back when Gangstarr and Tone Loc and Young MC were encouraging us to get nasty in the eighties, and Grandmaster Flash was still played on the radio. Grew up in the mixed working- and middle- class suburbs of Sydney in the early eighties, where dole kids and doctor's kids spat in the schoolyard. Vanilla Ice had a big effect on the bullies at my school, and everybody knew that NWA were the baddest motherfuckers on the planet, even if they didn't really know what Fuck Tha Police was about, beyond the profanity. Graffiti and hip hop were always flavours from an early age, not from parental fostering or encouragement, but rather from observation and affection of the weird symbols, puzzling letterforms and attitude of graf, and from an understanding that the best music to blare from a car or your tape deck had maximum bass, constant cussing, and the glorification badass behaviour. |