1984: Hip-hop’s Histoire Événementielle in Singapore

Abstract

Using Singapore as a case study, this article places hip-hop within a broader historical context as part of a longer historical trajectory of youth culture within urban Asia. Through news reports, reviews, and commentaries from digitalized newspaper collections on the otherwise fragmented practices of breakdancing, deejaying, rapping, and graffiti art, a more concrete chronological trajectory of Singapore’s local hip-hop scene is sketched out. This starts with the year 1984 as the histoire événementielle, marking hip-hop’s historically eventful introduction in Singapore: breakdancing in public suddenly surged after teenagers were inspired by the film Breakin’ (renamed Breakdance in Singapore). From the mediascape to the streetscapes, the film inspired a spontaneous wave of breakdancing on the streets as well as hip-hop-inspired graffiti and rap artistes. The surge momentarily gave Singapore’s youth culture a new breath of spontaneity, visibility, and autonomy in the otherwise meticulously planned and controlled city-state. While the new forms of graffiti were received with shock and the creators rapidly convicted, responses toward street breakdancing were more measured. Departing from draconian clampdowns against youth cultures considered deviant a decade ago, the authorities moved instead to coopt the trends by providing new cultural infrastructures of youth spaces and centers as well as opening public roads for street parties. The spontaneous hip-hop-inspired activities of breakdancing and graffiti art in 1984 generated new dimensions for local youth cultures through the appropriation of public spaces as part of “streetmaking.” That year there was a policy shift from restricting streetmaking to coopting and managing it as part of state-making.