November 30th saw Truant run their 4th UNRULY event at Outernet Venue’s The Lower Third in central London.

Previous events have seen performances from Tokio Myers, Harvey Causon, Ayanna, Romzy, Monster Florence and a HyperTribe showcase, putting artists on stage and giving marketers the opportunity to see new talent in an intimate setting. This November however, the agency revamped the format.

Timed to coincide with International Hip-Hop History Month, the event was dedicated to mark the 50th anniversary of the birth of Hip-Hop and was designed to give marketers a better understanding of the roots and values of this richly diverse culture.

Chris Jefford, co-founder of Truant explains, “It’s important for us, as an agency whose work is often inspired by music, to help brands understand a scene as deeply as possible so that should they engage in it, they do it armed with the knowledge that will prevent them stomping all over - or worse co-opting or appropriating - a culture that means so much, to so many, in a variety of different ways.”

The event kicked off with a panel discussion featuring voices from the culture, brands and artists, and was a lively discussion covering a range of topics from the panellists journeys into the scene, the role and influence of Hip-Hop on UK culture, the changing nature of media, and the pitfalls of brands not engaging properly.

The full panel is available on request, but a summary of the key points for marketers were: 

1. Hip-Hop isn’t rapping. Yes MCing is one of the elements of Hip-Hop - including DJing, graffiti writing, break dancing, and knowledge - but Hip-Hop is a complex culture of values, identities, stories and communities that live and breathe the culture every day.  It’s a way of life, not a musical genre, and engaging requires brands to understand this innately. 
2. Hip-Hop is different wherever you find it. Yes of course, Hip-Hop came over from the US, but the role that the UK played in accepting it, amplifying it, and ultimately adapting it has created a whole new scene here in the UK, giving UK audiences a sense of ownership that they never had when the scene broke. Gone are the days of UK rappers rapping in US accents, the scene now is fiercely UK - with regional differences apparent depending on where you go. “If London is New York, then Manchester is Atlanta in terms of Hip-Hop..” as Aaron Fairweather noted.  And if you don’t know what that means, see point 5. 
3. Hip-Hop has always been DIY or die. From the pre-internet outset of the culture, Hip-Hop could only exist because of the hustle of the early protagonists. Flyer culture, pirate radio, mixtapes from the back of cars, that was the reality of building a community of passionate followers. And in the digital age, which this has transformed, the fundamentals remain the same and the hustle is still real, albeit that audiences are being built across digital channels as well as IRL. 
4. Hip-Hop broke brands, not the other way around. As Jay Davidson so brilliantly put it, “Hip-Hop made brands famous, not the other way around. We’ll always be the dopest, the coolest dressed, I’d see a Kangol hat and want it not because it was Kangol but because it was LL Cool J.” Brand partnerships in this space have to understand that they will 100% play second fiddle to the culture itself, but if accepted and embraced, there are huge opportunities to be seen and to add value. 
5. Hip-Hop needs to be deeply understood to be engaged with properly. Hip-Hop culture has a low tolerance for fakes, for exploitation, or for anything that smells of being uncool. There is a weight of knowledge out there for brands and marketers to get their heads around, and it’s important that they do. “Research isn’t just seeing how many Instagram followers an influencer has.” as Danny Fahey said on the panel - taking time to understand the values of the culture is of paramount importance to creating a partnership that is valuable to the culture and the brand.

Once this lively panel was complete, Truant introduced 3 performances from MCs from across the UK. First up was SANITY, hailing from Birmingham, followed by Verbz and Coops from South and North London respectively.

And the packed crowd were given a final treat with Pitch92 playing a bespoke Hip-Hop 50 mix to end the night.

“We’re the only agency in town that is putting this sort of event on,” Jefford added, “and we’re very proud of that. This was never about us doing something to tell everyone what we do, it was designed to show that we care. That we care about engaging with culture properly, that we care about advising our clients professionally in these spaces, and that we care about the impact of any brand engaging in a fan culture. A lot of brands want their agency to help them with ‘culture’ - not many do it properly, we’re one of the few that do.”