Introduction

“It’s Bigger than Hip Hop”

Authors

  • Adam Haupt University of Cape Town
  • Quentin E Williams University of the Western Cape
  • H Samy Alim University of California

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/jwpm.36670

Keywords:

agency, en-voicing, hip hop activism, pedagogy, representational politics

Abstract

This double special issue explores hip hop activism and representational politics in selected countries from the global north and south. The authors in part one of this double issue offer key examples of the different forms that hip hop activism may take and offer meaningful insights into debates about agency in a media and cultural terrain that is shaped by US cultural imperialism and colonial legacies. Artists may exercise agency via performances that push linguistic, literary, aesthetic and political boundaries that aim to set off critical lyrical engagement with key issues or by confronting such issues sonically as a turntablist. They may also exercise agency in the context of workshops in dialogues between educators, learners, artists, activists and scholars. Effectively, this issue allows us to think about the ways in which hip hop has become a vehicle for marginalized subjects to address their respective political contexts.

Author Biographies

  • Adam Haupt, University of Cape Town

    Adam Haupt is Professor in the Centre for Film & Media Studies Adam Haupt is Professor in the Centre for Film & Media Studies at the University of Cape Town and the author of Static: Race and Representation in Post-Apartheid Music, Media and Film (HSRC Press, 2012) and Stealing Empire: P2P, Intellectual Property and Hip-Hop Subversion (HSRC Press, 2008). He is co-editor of the forthcoming Kaapse Styles: Hip Hop Art and Activism in Cape Town, South Africa with Quentin Williams, Emile Jansen and H. Samy Alim. He is also co-producing an EP for this book with hip hop artist Bradley Lodewyk (aka b-boy King Voue).

  • Quentin E Williams, University of the Western Cape

    Quentin E. Williams is a Senior Lecturer in the Linguistics Department at the University of the Western Cape, and Research Fellow at the Centre for Multilingualism and Diversities Research (CMDR). He has published papers on hip hop, marginality, linguistic citizenship and performance. He is coieditor of the journal Multilingual Margins: a Journal of Multilingualism from the Periphery, published by the CMDR. He recently published Remix Multilingualism (Bloomsbury, 2018) and co-edited Kaapse Styles: Hip Hop Art and Activism with Adam Haupt, H. Samy Alim and Emile YX? (HSRC Press, 2018).

  • H Samy Alim, University of California

    H. Samy Alim is the David O. Sears Presidential Endowed Chair in the Social Sciences and Professor of Anthropology and African American Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the Founding Director of the Center for Race, Ethnicity, and Language (CREAL). His most recent books include Raciolinguistics: How Language Shapes Our Ideas about Race (Oxford, 2016, with John Rickford and Arnetha Ball) and Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies: Teaching and Learning for Justice in a Changing World (Teachers College Press, 2017, with Django Paris).

References

Alim, H. Samy. 2009. “Introduction: Straight Outta Compton, Straight aus München: Global Linguistic Flows, Identities, and the Politics of Language in a Global Hip Hop Nation”. In Global Linguistic Flows: Hip-Hop Cultures, Youth Identities, and the Politics of Language, edited by H. S. Alim, Awad Ibrahim and Alastair Pennycook, 1–22. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-4932.2009.00581.x

Alim, H. Samy and Django Paris. 2017. “What is Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy and Why Does it Matter?” In Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies: Teaching and Learning for Educational Justice, edited by Django Paris and H. Samy Alim, 157–74. New York: Teachers College Press, Columbia University.

Alim, H. Samy, Ibrahim Awad and Alastair Pennycook, eds. 2009. Global Linguistic Flows: Hip-Hop Cultures, Youth Identities, and the Politics of Language. London: Routledge.

Dead Prez. 2000. “It’s Bigger than Hip Hop”. Let’s Get Free. Loud, DC: Relativity.

Haupt, Adam. 2008. Stealing Empire: P2P, Intellectual Property and Hip-Hop Subversion. Cape Town: HSRC Press.

—2012. Static: Race and Representation in Post-Apartheid Music, Media and Film. Cape Town: HSRC Press.

Williams, Quentin E. 2017. Remix Multilingualism: Ethnography, Hip Hop and the Performance of Marginalized Voice. London: Bloomsbury Press.

Williams, Quentin E. and Christopher Stroud. 2010. “Performing Rap Ciphas in Late-modern Cape Town: Extreme Locality and Multilingual Citizenship”. Afrika Focus 23/2: 39–59. https://doi.org/10.21825/af.v23i2.5005

—2013. “Multilingualism Remixed: Sampling Texts, Braggadocio and the Politics of Voice in Cape Town Hip-Hop”. Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics 42: 15–36. https://doi.org/10.5774/42-0-145

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Published

2018-06-08

Issue

Vol. 5 No. 1 (2018): Hip Hop Activism and Representational Politics

Section

Introduction to Special Issue

License

© Equinox Publishing Ltd.

For information regarding our Open Access policy, click here.

How to Cite

Haupt, A., Williams, Q. E., & Alim, H. S. (2018). Introduction: “It’s Bigger than Hip Hop”. Journal of World Popular Music, 5(1), 9-14. https://doi.org/10.1558/jwpm.36670