ABSTRACT With original authors and audiences from the most disadvantaged and excluded communities... more ABSTRACT With original authors and audiences from the most disadvantaged and excluded communities across Western society, urban music has been equally scorned and sought out for its referencing of, and/or association with, criminal activity. Urban music (such as rap from the United States) can be understood as generating both ‘respectable fears’ and ‘subcultural capital’, appealing to youthful consumers who are seduced by its ostensibly transgressive character. This appeal is linked to the urban communities which incubated and popularised both the music and the ‘street culture’ of its underprivileged population. The wisdom has followed that the more ‘ghetto’ the music, the greater its ability to court controversy and generate record sales. Interestingly, the latest generation of UK urban artistes has bucked this trend, eschewing violent imagery and metaphor, courting a ‘mainstream’ aesthetic and actively referencing ‘respectable’ routes to inclusion such as engaging with education and running small businesses. This paper reflects on British ‘grime’ music, demonstrating that new media and music industry democratisation can alter the manner by which crime and street culture are commodified. It argues that where there is a perception of threat connected to street-level urban music authored by those with supposed links to criminality, the lines between real crime and its mediated representation can become blurred. The authorities and the music industry may respond by effectively criminalising and excluding an entire genre. In the case of UK urban music, artistes have adopted a strategy to succeed within the mainstream industry which, as opposed to US rappers, involves muting their links to street culture.
Rap music and hip-hop culture represents a contested space within contemporary culture in the Uni... more Rap music and hip-hop culture represents a contested space within contemporary culture in the United States, often stigmatized by members of the dominant culture as an offshoot of inner city gang and drug culture. However, this dismissal fails to consider the complex historical, social, and political factors that have contributed to the development and evolution of this form of cultural expression. This article argues that rap music constitutes a resistive occupation, employed by marginalized Black American youth to communicate thoughts and concerns that are often discounted by the dominant culture, and in doing so makes a significant contribution to Black American identities and culture. To support that perspective, the authors critically analyze the conceptualization of ‘culture’ in occupational science, reinterpreting the term through a postcolonial lens that considers the influence of power, domination, and resistance in the production of culture.
Though there were and always have been djs, dancers, graffiti artists, and rappers who were Black... more Though there were and always have been djs, dancers, graffiti artists, and rappers who were Black women, they are placed on the periphery of hip-hop culture; their voices, along with “gay rappers” and “white rappers” devalued and their contribution to the global rise of hip-hop either forgotten or eschewed. This article is an attempt to articulate the existence of Black women who work outside of the paradigms of the “silence, secrecy, and a partially self-chosen invisibility” that Evelynn Hammonds describes. At the center of this article lies an attempt to locate a new configuration and expression of desire and sexuality, opening a door, wide open, to gain a different view of Black women, their sexuality, their expression of it, and the complexities that arise when they attempt to express it in hip hop nation language.
ABSTRACT With original authors and audiences from the most disadvantaged and excluded communities... more ABSTRACT With original authors and audiences from the most disadvantaged and excluded communities across Western society, urban music has been equally scorned and sought out for its referencing of, and/or association with, criminal activity. Urban music (such as rap from the United States) can be understood as generating both ‘respectable fears’ and ‘subcultural capital’, appealing to youthful consumers who are seduced by its ostensibly transgressive character. This appeal is linked to the urban communities which incubated and popularised both the music and the ‘street culture’ of its underprivileged population. The wisdom has followed that the more ‘ghetto’ the music, the greater its ability to court controversy and generate record sales. Interestingly, the latest generation of UK urban artistes has bucked this trend, eschewing violent imagery and metaphor, courting a ‘mainstream’ aesthetic and actively referencing ‘respectable’ routes to inclusion such as engaging with education and running small businesses. This paper reflects on British ‘grime’ music, demonstrating that new media and music industry democratisation can alter the manner by which crime and street culture are commodified. It argues that where there is a perception of threat connected to street-level urban music authored by those with supposed links to criminality, the lines between real crime and its mediated representation can become blurred. The authorities and the music industry may respond by effectively criminalising and excluding an entire genre. In the case of UK urban music, artistes have adopted a strategy to succeed within the mainstream industry which, as opposed to US rappers, involves muting their links to street culture.
Rap music and hip-hop culture represents a contested space within contemporary culture in the Uni... more Rap music and hip-hop culture represents a contested space within contemporary culture in the United States, often stigmatized by members of the dominant culture as an offshoot of inner city gang and drug culture. However, this dismissal fails to consider the complex historical, social, and political factors that have contributed to the development and evolution of this form of cultural expression. This article argues that rap music constitutes a resistive occupation, employed by marginalized Black American youth to communicate thoughts and concerns that are often discounted by the dominant culture, and in doing so makes a significant contribution to Black American identities and culture. To support that perspective, the authors critically analyze the conceptualization of ‘culture’ in occupational science, reinterpreting the term through a postcolonial lens that considers the influence of power, domination, and resistance in the production of culture.
Though there were and always have been djs, dancers, graffiti artists, and rappers who were Black... more Though there were and always have been djs, dancers, graffiti artists, and rappers who were Black women, they are placed on the periphery of hip-hop culture; their voices, along with “gay rappers” and “white rappers” devalued and their contribution to the global rise of hip-hop either forgotten or eschewed. This article is an attempt to articulate the existence of Black women who work outside of the paradigms of the “silence, secrecy, and a partially self-chosen invisibility” that Evelynn Hammonds describes. At the center of this article lies an attempt to locate a new configuration and expression of desire and sexuality, opening a door, wide open, to gain a different view of Black women, their sexuality, their expression of it, and the complexities that arise when they attempt to express it in hip hop nation language.
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