The Languages Of Global Hip Hop

Looks at linguistic, cultural and economic aspects of hip-hop in parallel using various frameworks of analysis.

This cutting-edge book, located at the intersection of sociolinguistics and Hip Hop Studies, brings together for the first time an international group of researchers who study Hip Hop textually, ethnographically, socially, aesthetically, and linguistically. It is the harvest of dialogue between these two separate yet interconnected areas of study. A missing gap in the Hip Hop literature is the centrality and an in-depth analysis of the very medium that is used to express and perform Hip Hop -- language. Global Linguistic Flows fills this gap.

This book brings together a range of hip hop scholars, artists and activists working on Hip Hop in the Global North and South with the goal of advancing Hiphopographic research as a critical methodology with critical fieldwork methods that can provide a critical perspective of our world. The authors’ focus in this volume is to present an anthology of essays that expand the remit of Hiphopography as an approach to the study of Hip Hop that is not only sensitive to the social, economic, political and cultural lives of Hip Hop Culture participants as interpreters and theorists, but one that continues to humanize the “whole person” behind the decks, on the mic, rocking on the linoleum floor, painting in front of a wall, and seeking that Knowledge of Self. This book will be relevant to Hip Hop scholars in fields such as cultural studies and history, sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology and ethnography, and race studies, while Hip Hop heads themselves will find parts of this book that represent their culture in ethical and informative ways.

This volume explores and compares linguistic practices among young people in linguistically and culturally diverse urban spaces.

This is the first collection of essays to take a pan-European perspective in the study of hip-hop. How has it traveled to Europe? How has it developed in the various cultural contexts? How does it reference the American cultures of origin? The book's 21 authors and artists provide a comprehensive overview of hip-hop cultures in Europe, from the fringes to the centers. They address hip-hop in a variety of contexts, such as class, ethnicity, gender, history, pedagogy, performance, and (post-) communism. (Series: Transnational and Transatlantic American Studies - Vol. 13)

This book adopts a sociolinguistic perspective to trace the origins and enduring significance of hip-hop as a global tool of resistance to oppression. The contributors, who represent a range of international perspectives, analyse how hip-hop is employed to express dissatisfaction and dissent relating to such issues as immigration, racism, stereotypes and post-colonialism. Utilising a range of methodological approaches, they shed light on diverse hip-hop cultures and practices around the world, highlighting issues of relevance in the different countries from which their research originates. Together, the authors expand on current global understandings of hip-hop, language and culture, and underline its immense power as a form of popular culture through which the disenfranchised and oppressed can gain and maintain a voice. This thought-provoking edited collection is a must-read for scholars and students of linguistics, race studies and political activism, and for anyone with an interest in hip-hop.

Cultural Studies -- Ethnomusicology Why would a punk band popular only in Indonesia cut songs in no other language than English? If you're rapping in Tanzania and Malawi, where hip hop has a growing audience, what do you rhyme in? Swahili? Chichewa? English? Some combination of these? Global Pop, Local Language examines how performers and audiences from a wide range of cultures deal with the issue of language choice and dialect in popular music. Related issues confront performers of Latin music in the U.S., drum and bass MCs in Toronto, and rappers, rockers, and traditional folk singers from England and Ireland to France, Germany, Belarus, Nepal, China, New Zealand, Hawaii, and beyond. For pop musicians, this issue brings up a number of complex questions. Which languages or dialects will best express my ideas? Which will get me a record contract or a bigger audience? What does it mean to sing or listen to music in a colonial language? A foreign language? A regional dialect? A native language? Examining popular music from a range of world cultures, the authors explore these questions and use them to address a number of broader issues, including the globalization of the music industry, the problem of authenticity in popular culture, the politics of identity, multiculturalism, and the emergence of English as a dominant world language. The chapters are written in a highly accessible style by scholars from a variety of fields, including ethnomusicology, popular music studies, anthropology, culture studies, literary studies, folklore, and linguistics. Harris M. Berger is associate professor of music at Texas A&M University. He is the author of Metal, Rock and Jazz: Perception and the Phenomenology of Musical Experience (1999). Michael Thomas Carroll is professor of English at New Mexico Highlands University. He is the author of Popular Modernity in America: Experience, Technology, Mythohistory (2000) and co-editor, with Eddie Tafoya, of Phenomenological Approaches to Popular Culture (2000).

Complementing a burgeoning area of interest and academic study, Roc the Mic Right explores the central role of language within the Hip Hop Nation (HHN). With its status convincingly argued as the best means by which to read Hip Hop culture, H. Samy Alim then focuses on discursive practices, such as narrative sequencing and ciphers, or lyrical circles of rhymers. Often a marginalized phenomenon, the complexity and creativity of Hip Hop lyrical production is emphasised, whilst Alim works towards the creation of a schema by which to understand its aesthetic. Using his own ethnographic research, Alim shows how Hip Hop language could be used in an educational context and presents a new approach to the study of the language and culture of the Hip Hop Nation: 'Hiphopography'. The final section of the book, which includes real conversational narratives from Hip Hop artists such as The Wu-Tang Clan and Chuck D, focuses on direct engagement with the language. A highly accessible and lively work on the most studied and read about language variety in the United States, this book will appeal not only to language and linguistics researchers and students, but holds a genuine appeal to anyone interested in Hip Hop or Black African Language.