Words from the City (ATOM Study Guide)

At its best, hip hop music can provide a searing insight into the personal and political preoccupations of its performers. At its worst, it can be a noisy, pumping mess of misogyny, aggression and macho posturing. Natasha Gadd and Rhys Graham's feature-length documentary, Words from the City (2007), offers us a kaleidoscopic vision of this vibrant youth culture. It's a sprawling canvas, with a huge array of fascinating characters drawn from all across the country, and a mosaic-style catalogue of different venues and attitudes. As we journey through this subculture of beats and rhymes, the filmmakers investigate a smouldering mix of ethnic, Indigenous and youth identity issues.

In the skilful hands of Gadd and Graham, hip hop proves itself a rich and rewarding topic, partly because its boundaries shift and change according to the varied perspectives from which it is regarded. One Indigenous performer, Wire MC, notes that for him, hip hop served as a way out of boredom and crime. It is variously represented, positioned and understood as a tool, a lifeline, a weapon, a religion, a means of escape, and a forum for the marginalised and disenfranchised. Across the many stylistic divides, we come to one central concern: this is music to validate personal experience. Hip hop's driving rhythm and beat taps into life's pressures, its frustrations, and its quotidian poetry.