Transcultural flows and marginality: reggae and hip hop in Sardinia

Modern Italy ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 199-212
Author(s):  
Susanna Scarparo ◽  
Mathias Sutherland Stevenson

Hip hop, reggae/raggamuffin, and fusions between these genres, emerged in the Italian island of Sardinia in the 1980s and 1990s. In this article, we examine the ways in which these transnational music forms have found fertile terrain in post-colonial Sardinia across generations and cultures through the music of the historic hip hop crew, Sa Razza, the next generation ‘rappamuffin’ artist, Randagiu Sardu, and the Senegalese-Sardinian Afro-reggae musician, Momar Gaye. Through the analysis of selected tracks and video clips we explore how overlapping cultural, social, and political discourses of decolonisation are framed and narrated through language, music, and images as a means of expressing cultural and political agency, critiquing the impacts of exploitation and colonisation, and consciously and self-reflexively reinterpreting and celebrating marginality.

Author(s):  
Ya.M. Yanchenko

The goal of the article is detection and description of the main linguistic peculiarities of the discourse of hip-hop subculture. The lack of research devoted to hip-hop language and high popularity of rap music give grounds to consider this problem relevant to solve. The article examines the factors of the formation of the subculture and their impact on the linguistic representation of the mental world of the hip-hop culture representatives. It is concluded that there is a direct connection between conditions and lifestyle (economic instability, high crime rates, racial decimations) of hip-hop representatives and the use of language. The article confirms the importance of the category of participants in the discourse, which leads to a high level of axiology and subjectivity of hip-hop discourse. The presence of intertextuality, which is manifested both in the structure of the text of rap songs and in their content, is explained. The article describes the specific character of creolization of songs of this genre, which assumes its materialization at two levels: visual (video clips) and melodic (tempo, rhythm of music).


Author(s):  
Priscila Álvarez-Cueva ◽  
Mònica Figueras-Maz ◽  
Pilar Medina-Bravo

Representations of masculinity and femininity within the most listened-to commercial music and its evolution, based on a system of our own elaboration of 11 analytical categories of gender stereotypes that explore gender binarism, are examined. In so doing, qualitative and quantitative content analyses of 50 video clips of the most listened-to songs in two periods (2009 and 2019) are carried out. From a post-feminist critical perspective (Gill, 2007, 2017), the study verifies that gender binarism is maintained over time, albeit with important nuances in both years. The results conclude that the most prominent stereotypes are Western hegemonic femininity, associated above all with romantic narratives (mainly in 2009), and Western pariah femininity including dialogs with elements of greater sexualization (especially in 2019). On the other hand, Western Protestant masculinity is present in most of the songs associated with musical genres such as rap or hip-hop, in both periods; while Occidental assured masculinity, which is evident in 2019, is associated with the need to maintain the heteronormative and hegemonic representation of masculinity, even when not fitting the sexuality of the artist. The article concludes that, in ten years, there is an evolution of the heteronormativity among the most popular music videos, where dominant masculinity stereotype continues to be the heterosexual hegemonic masculinity model, in both the romantic and sexual context, while the representation of femininity shows some confrontation with the traditional model. This study contributes to other work on masculinities and femininities as it establishes categories that may be applied to different cultural products and social realities. Resumen Se examinan las representaciones de masculinidad y feminidad dentro de la música comercial más escuchada y su evolución, a partir de la elaboración propia de un sistema de 11 categorías analíticas de estereotipos de género que exploran el binarismo de género. Para ello, se lleva a cabo un análisis de contenido cualitativo y cuantitativo de 50 videoclips de las canciones más escuchadas en dos cortes temporales (año 2009 y año 2019). Partiendo de la perspectiva crítica postfeminista (Gill, 2007, 2017), se comprueba que el binarismo de género se mantiene en el tiempo, aunque con importantes matizaciones en ambos años. Los resultados concluyen que entre los estereotipos más destacados se encuentran: la feminidad hegemónica occidental, asociada sobre todo a narrativas románticas (principalmente en el año 2009), y la feminidad paria occidental, que dialoga con elementos de mayor sexualización (sobre todo en 2019). Por su parte, la masculinidad protestante occidental se encuentra presente en la mayoría de las canciones de géneros musicales como el rap o el hip hop en ambos periodos de tiempo; mientras que la masculinidad asegurada, que se evidencia en 2019, se asocia con la necesidad de mantener su representación heteronormativa y hegemónica, aunque la sexualidad del artista no encaje en ella. A partir de la muestra analizada, el artículo concluye que, en diez años, ha habido una evolución de la heteronormatividad en los videoclips musicales más populares, donde el estereotipo de masculinidad dominante sigue siendo el modelo de masculinidad hegemónico heterosexual, tanto en el plano romántico como en el sexual; mientras que la representación de la feminidad muestra algunas confrontaciones con el modelo tradicional. El estudio supone una aportación a los estudios sobre masculinidades y feminidades pues establece categorías que pueden aplicarse a diferentes productos culturales y realidades sociales.


Author(s):  
Philip V. Bohlman

‘Diaspora’ explores the effect of human displacement on world music after the ‘discovery’ of the New World by Columbus in 1492, which set off a chain of diasporas. The music of diaspora addresses both place and homelessness, wandering and the dream of return. Three diasporas are investigated, beginning with the Sephardic diaspora, which arose in turn from the expulsion of Jews from Europe; the displacement of Africans resulting from colonial slave trade; and the South Asian diaspora, which draws upon music to represent the post-colonial world. Diasporic music is diverse, including reggae, klezmer, bhangra, Bollywood, and hip-hop among other genres.


2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 104-111
Author(s):  
Rania M. R. Khalil

Abstract The traditional definition of Irishness has been overwritten by internationalization, cultural and political discourses. Globalisation today sets the ground for the redefinition of a “new Ireland” altering the ethnocultural base to the definitions of Irish national identity. Recent cultural criticism on modern Irish studies have described the Irish nation as undergoing moments of crisis and instability within a global context. This paper explores and analyzes the process by which literary dramatic works dealing with Irish national distinctiveness have been put subject to being written and re-written as the Irish nation passes through periods of instabilities and problematisations. Ireland has been affected by conflicting narratives and needed to move “towards a new configuration of identities” (Kearney, 1997, p. 15). Edward W. Said comments on this fracturing of identity as “human reality is constantly being made and unmade” (1979, p. 33). The attempt Irish playwrights have made to address factors affecting Irishness and the violent assertion of national identity addressed in this paper, are considered within a post-nationalist and post-colonial context of dramatic works.


Africa ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 82 (4) ◽  
pp. 556-578 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew J. Eisenberg

ABSTRACTThe Muslim-dominated ‘Swahili coast’ has always served as a conceptual as well as physical periphery for post-colonial Kenya. This article takes Kenyan youth music under the influence of global hip-hop as an ethnographic entry into the dynamics of identity and citizenship in this region. Kenyan youth music borrows from global hip-hop culture the idea that an artist must ‘represent the real’. The ways in which these regional artists construct their public personae thus provide rich data on ‘cultural citizenship’, in Aihwa Ong's (1996) sense of citizenship as subjectification. I focus here on youth music production in the Kenyan coastal city of Mombasa between 2004 and 2007. During this time, some local artists adopted a representational strategy that subtly reinscribed the symbolic violence to which members of the coast's Muslim-Swahili society have long been subjected. I examine the representational strategies that were adopted during this period by Mombasan artists who happened to be members of the Muslim-Swahili society (‘subjects of the Swahili coast’, as I name them), with an ethnographic eye and ear trained on what they say about the ways in which young subjects of the Swahili coast are objectified and subjectified as ‘Kenyan youth’ in the twenty-first century.


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