No More Bentleys and Rolls Royces: Def Jam’s Fledging Influence in Southeast Asian Hip Hop

Throughout “Rhymes to riches: Def Jam banks on Southeast Asia rap stars,” Joe Freeman of the Jakarta Post outlines the growth of Southeast Asian hip hop as shepherded by the influential American record label Def Jam (home to famous American artists like Jay Z and Rihanna). The past few years has seen a great boom in the success of rappers in the untapped Southeast Asian market, and Def Jam has been determined to capitalize upon this wave.

The key to all this success? Technology—specifically streaming. Streaming has given artists the platforms to progress quickly from passion projects to online viral hits to legitimate live concerts. This is a theme seen throughout Southeast Asia, in the music industry and in other parts of society, with technology giving Southeast Asian culture a boost to emulate Western popular culture. The article describes how at one point in time, Thai music fans living under a conservative regime would not move or dance until they were told it was okay to do so at concerts. But now, since 2018, talent shows like The Rapper or underground collectives like Rap Against Dictatorship (RAD, criticizing the Thai military) have racked up tens of millions of views on YouTube, popularizing rap as a form of expression and art. Other streaming platforms like Tencent-owned JOOX have attracted 290 million users across Southeast Asia, making hip hop and rap even more accessible to fans, with hip hop recently skyrocketing to the second-most popular genre on the platforms. 

As the article describes, all of these relatively recent developments have piqued the interest of record labels like Def Jam, particularly people like Malaysian Def Jam executive Joe Flizzow, who has been spearheading the effort to develop the Southeast Asian rap scene. And from my own perspective, it’s not hard to see why he and Def Jam are so attracted to this part of the world—the new generation of Southeast Asian rappers embody a unique combination of their heritage and local culture within their Western-influenced music. Traces of traditional culture can be found everywhere from the music itself (such as samples of gamelan, a traditional Indonesian glockenspiel-like instrument), to their lyrics addressing social issues like corruption and oppression, local landmarks (a storied hip hop tradition), and even traditional food. In the end, I think this quote by Flizzow sums up the evolution of Southeast Asian hip hop the best: “You are not going to see some Bentleys and Rolls Royces. You are gonna see some Honda NSXs and GTRs… we want to be unique.” And as Def Jam continues to discover more fresh talent, all with their own stories to tell and with great ambition for their careers, the sky is truly the limit for these talented young artists.