Hip Hop in the City 2: Hanoi B-boy Battle

Posted: May 20th, 2009 | Author: Alex Alsup | Filed under: Photos, Thoughts, Video | Tags: b-boy, Hanoi, hip hop, hip hop in the city 2 |

The hip hop scene in Hanoi, Vietnam puts NYC’s contemporary contributions to shame. A bummer for the music’s birthplace. In the states, the debate over hip hop has missed the point entirely for years. Nas and Ghostface talk about “microwave rap” - music that just puts food on the table - and define rap music in the negative. Young Jeezy and Lil Wayne counter with drug and gun charges that prove how real they can still be, microwave or not. Lost in the clusterfuck of aging rappers reaching for a time that wont came back and young ones trying to recreate a time they never knew, is the idea that the only golden age is the one with the people making the music best, right now.

In Hanoi it doesn’t matter that most of the kids listening to hip hop only know the poppiest and most microwavable of the American scene’s music. They’re mostly under 20 years old, and as their English vocabulary expands, so will their palate for hip hop. But the kids in Hanoi know that hip hop is a lifestyle. They know how to live it.

Below are some photographs and video from Hip Hop in the City 2 — the second annual Hanoi hip hop festival; a two-day long event that was held in a little theater at a Vietnamese university in Hanoi. Check them out and come back later to read about Hanoi’s first Vietnamese owned, made, and designed hip hop streetwear shop.

Step your game up, NYC.

B-Boy Battle from Hip Hop in the City 2 - Hanoi, Vietnam from alex alsup on Vimeo.

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