ABSTRACT
Milpirri is a biennial whole of community performance event that takes place in the remote Warlpiri community of Lajamanu situated at the north edge of the Tanami Desert in the Northern Territory. Far from the inner-city streets—the traditional site of Hip Hop—rap and breaking in Milpirri travel deeper into the desert ‘representing’ cultural sites and Dreaming tracks through remote regions that most people participating in Milpirri have never been to. The role of place in Hip Hop culture has most often been analysed through how the local is represented in lyrics, accent, vernacular or musical sampling to the neglect of embodied senses of place. This chapter explores the intersection of the Hip Hop ethic to represent place and the Warlpiri concept of Country as more than place, as embodied, as kin. This intersection is described in relation to the performance of a Pirlapakarnu (Waterbird) cypher and the rap song based on the same theme. Drawing on Sudiipta's perspective as an anthropologist of Hip Hop and Jampijinpa's perspective as Creative Director of Milpirri, this chapter considers rap and breaking in Milpirri through Hip Hop and Warlpiri frameworks, which highlight the capacities of Hip Hop for maintaining Indigenous embodied knowledge of place.
