Non-stop Hip Hop

"Blaa, bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla, blaa"

Nice lyrics innit? This is the catchy chorus line from 'Bla Bla Bla' by Ezkimo, Finnish hip-hop's finest export. I was introduced to Ezkimo (real name Mikko Mutenia) by Niko (obviously) who, always wishing to introduce the world to Finland's finest, whacked it on full blast at the tail end of a house party last week. I gotta say, its not bad at all. Very catchy tune that sort of soups up an oompah band sound with a pretty fat beat. I think you'll like it, so check it out. It should be downloadable. This is Ezkimo by the way. He seems to have a slightly disturbing penchant for Clockwork Orange, but then he is Finnish.

So Mr. Mutenia's blablabla-ing got me thinking about hip hop and how much of a global culture its become. Its pretty crazy when you think about it. Something that started out as an underground music scene the Bronx has spawned into a worldwide phenomenon that could lay claim to being the dominant cultural movement of this generation. If you compare to things like the hippie movement in the 60s, or the more recent punk and grunge scenes, it really stands out by a mile. The hip hop way of life has really captured a generation of kids, teenagers, twenty-somethings and even 'old people' (sorry niggle) everywhere you look. From the way people dress to the way they speak, hip hop's influence is undeniable. When the Finns get hold of things and apply their own wacky twist, you know things have gone global. But surely there are some limits to hip hop's all-conquering spread? Well the great thing about blogs is that they give you the chance to indulge in such whimsical thoughts. It also helps to be a man of leisure so you can spend idle time researching and writing about your whimsical thoughts, so here we go...

I reckon that even if you can find pretty decent hip hop in Finnish, there must be some languages that haven't been yet been rapped in. As a brief aside, Finnish doesn't really lend itself to rappin and rhymin - French on the other hand (a la MC Solaar) flows like honey drizzling onto hot buttered toast. So French and Finnish have beeen done. I've heard German, Venezualan, Brazilian, Japanese and English of course, but what some of the more obscure antiquated languages? Has anyone ever rapped in Latin or rhymed in Gaelic? A mildly exhaustive Google session proved inconclusive. The latin searches were scuppered by the blanket use of the term 'latin' to describe any kind of music with spanish or south/central american links and despite a curious unexplained reference to 'gaelic rapping' on a random blog, I abandoned this line of investigation. My guess is that there's no-one young and cool enough around who knows these vanishing languages and is into hip hop.

I had another thought though - what about sign language? They say killer scratch DJs (like me) talk with their hands, but can you rap with your hands? There's some obvious problems to overcome here, for instance you'd have to be pretty dam quick with the hands to keep up with some MCs and also there's gotta be loads of invented hip hop words that aren't in the signing repetoire (can you sign "fo shizzle ma nizzle"?). There's also the fairly major obstacle of the crowd not being able to hear the beat, which is kind of fundamental. However, a brief googling came up trumps on this one. proGrammar is an artist who is taking hip hop to the deaf and hard of hearing. He has translated his lyrics into American Sign Language and projects himself signing lyrics onto a giant screen while he raps on stage. There's also a professional signer on-hand (excuse the pun) to sign all 'spontaneous interlocation' during the show. I guess this means banter between tracks. Its all very impressive, so check out his site and you can even see a video of sign language hip hop in action.

So there you have it - hip hop conquers all and disenfranchises none. Proof that its more than the music. Nuff said.