You don't realise how provincial you are until you leave the province. Growing up in New Plymouth funerals for friend's suicides fell between 16th birthday parties and teen baby showers. It seemed that everyone was going to corrective training or jail. It all seemed pretty normal.I think we felt special and perhaps our bigger city hip-hop peers found us novel or peculiar. We may have been geographically isolated but enthusiasm and dumb belief crosses all borders and boundaries. Plus, a touch of naivety will help you on your way.
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Auckland looked like a real city back then. From our coastal vantage point Mareko and Scribe were titan sized: like video game end bosses with special moves. It was intimidating, and everything seemed bigger.
We took pride in being the best from our city, even though there was no one to really compete with. I think I was complacent as well, well, that was until I heard Cyphanetik's "I Am the Slime". I remember struggling to fathom how someone from New Zealand could be that good. It blew my little mind and inspired me to be good, or at least decent.My crew had one show in the pocket before our Auckland debut. It was particularly messy affair at New Plymouth's TSB Showplace that involved too much meth. One of the boys locked himself in the toilet refusing to come out and we were swallowed by a stage that turned into the size of a continent once we stepped out.There were no mentors or examples of what do, we had to learn as we fucked up but youthful resilience got us through.The Auckland community was actually kind and welcoming. People who I looked up to as giants became peers and after a bunch of road trips to summits and battles, the city became my home. In reality the ragtag groups of people that formed a rap community in Auckland were not that different to our little clique of weirdos and outsiders from Taranaki.BreaknWreckWordz had the same vibe just with more direction and motivation.
We took pride in being the best from our city, even though there was no one to really compete with. I think I was complacent as well, well, that was until I heard Cyphanetik's "I Am the Slime". I remember struggling to fathom how someone from New Zealand could be that good. It blew my little mind and inspired me to be good, or at least decent.My crew had one show in the pocket before our Auckland debut. It was particularly messy affair at New Plymouth's TSB Showplace that involved too much meth. One of the boys locked himself in the toilet refusing to come out and we were swallowed by a stage that turned into the size of a continent once we stepped out.There were no mentors or examples of what do, we had to learn as we fucked up but youthful resilience got us through.The Auckland community was actually kind and welcoming. People who I looked up to as giants became peers and after a bunch of road trips to summits and battles, the city became my home. In reality the ragtag groups of people that formed a rap community in Auckland were not that different to our little clique of weirdos and outsiders from Taranaki.BreaknWreckWordz had the same vibe just with more direction and motivation.
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We used our geography as a point of difference, not with any intention but more of pig-headed pride. In retrospect it may have worked in our favour. I wonder if there were others like us who found bridging the provincial/city divide too imposing and never got heard.Still today, there aren't many local rap figures from outside the main centres. There has to be space for those stories. When you meet another small town kid in a city you usually have a bunch of shared experience. Often their towns have characters and places that are identical to ones from yours.I guess it comes down to whether you are willing to travel 300-plus kilometres to prove your point.Rap music didn't travel to our humble shores, so when we finally had some semblance of having our shit together we brought shows down home. They made me as feel proud as going to shows in crazy parts of the world I thought I would never see.I played in many parts of the world I thought I'd never see but New Plymouth remained with me. There were moments in unbelievably beautiful places that caused me to reflect lovingly on the ugliness that I came from. I went from jail cells, drugs and violence to shrimp and champagne on a boat in Prague all because I was deluded enough to think that I could make something out of rapping.To this day New Plymouth is my personal yardstick, a mirror that magnifies my achievementsFollow Louie Knuxx on Twitter.Nov 21 - 27 is NOISEY New Zealand Hip-Hop Week. Head here for more NZ hip-hop content.