The Internet: Singapore's Link to Hip Hop

The creation of hip hop in Brooklyn, New York, has rippled through the cultural scene across the globe. Coupled with the Internet, the wave moved faster, and has since reached far away places such as the nation of Singapore. Yasser Mattar's article "Virtual Communities and hip-hop music consumers in Singapore" explains how the Internet and other communication devices have helped consumers join a global hip hop identity as well as define their own.

A global identity in Singapore is attained by looking at the use of the Internet. Nearly half of electronic purchases are music related, and many sites like MTV.com contain a heavy influence from hip hop. Naturally, combining the high intake of music with sites that markets a specific genre regularly yields an increased popularity in that genre. In addition to consuming music using the Internet, Singaporeans use the Internet to live in virtual communities. Web forums like Delphi and Yahoo!groups allow users to communicate with an international culture as opposed to just their own. Although from different countries, most users speak a similar language, largely Ebonics, in the chat forums.

Just as international groups meet in chatrooms, so do locals. The local identity forms from the use of the Internet as a meeting place for Singaporeans. Locals can chat about up and coming artists, concert venues, and new releases. The forums also provide a medium in which different groups can disagree "peacefully". Although virtual, the channels and threads can be territorialized and unwelcome users verbally harassed. The local identity of a Singaporean hip hop fan falls into the "authenticity question" by some members of the global group. Mattar found many examples of Singaporeans made second class fans because they were not the originating race. Just as white people who dress "ghetto" are wiggers, Singaporean fans were described as "chiggers".

As well as discovering identities, Mattar relates hip hop to Hodkinson four characteristics of a subculture: identity, commitment, consistent distinctiveness and autonomy. Identity refers to the placement of 'selves" within the hip hop. The characterisitic commitment is most visible during concerts of local artists, displayed on clothing, phonograms, and turntables. Mattar mentions consistent distinctiveness but for an unknown reason, does not go into any specifics. He does say that hip hop as a global identity has distinct characteristics such as Ebonics and hand gestures. The underground 'scene' of Singapore hip hop demonstrates its autonomy by self-producing tapes and videos and organizing concerts.


This article illuminates answers to some question such as, "how can a subculture travel?" and "how does it grow?" In addition to explaning parts of the Singapore hip hop identity, it produced some examples of Hodkinson's characteristics of a subculture, which can be used in future analysis. Mattar's discussion of a subculture's identiy is different from the previous article. Instead of trying to escape and be someone else, Singaporeans want to express who they are, both on a local and global scale.