Thailand (ประเทศไทย)

Abstract

Thailand’s hip hop culture has developed at a very different pace to other prominent early adopters in the Asia-Pacific. Given its late adoption of hip hop in the 1990s through popular music labels (Kita Music, GMM Grammy, Bakery Music, RS Promotion), local DJs, MCs, aerosol artists and breakers negotiated hip hop in a relatively short period – pressurized under local market conditions and influenced by multidirectional flows of hip hop that extended across the region and beyond. Hip hop in Thailand now draws on local traditional cultural influences while also being inspired by an immense flow of expat workers, tourists and transient visitors annually. It is not surprising that immanently polycultural music cultures like hip hop manifest in a number of ways in the Thai context, stratified by degrees of appreciation of international aesthetics and reverence for local Thai cultural history and customs. While hip hop exists across the country, with prominent communities in Chiang Mai, Chon Buri and Udon Thani, it is most notably diverse and concentrated in Bangkok – the place it began and where many pioneers have created their legacy.