Universiẗat, Diss., 2006--Graz.

Proefschrift--Universiteit van Amsterdam, 2002. / Bibliogr. p. 357-371.

Zugl.: Graz, Univ., Diss., 2006

This ethnographic study describes the digital media ecologies of hip-hop artists in the marginalised township spaces of a town in South Africa. It shows how technology appropriation here is highly contextual and linked to social context, while simultaneously informed by limited digital infrastructure that characterises marginalised communities in the Global South. In describing their social context, the study situates these young people in a post-apartheid space of entrenched racialised inequality, where unemployed black youth have very few economic prospects. Here hip-hop offers protection against despair as it allows a young person to claim a dignified sense of self, which is partly constituted through digital media competency. Through the Black Consciousness philosophy, hip-hop artists in Grahamstown become highly critical of self-defeating narratives rooted in racism, colonialism and apartheid, which often manifest in violent forms of urban masculinity. Instead they find ways to "remix" their identities by incorporating alternative notions of a successful self. These new identities foreground agency and competency, and are informed both by knowledge of African tradition and language, and newly acquired competency in entrepreneurship, artistic genres and digital skills. The study argues that acquisition of digital skills in this space is best conceptualised through the community of practice approach, where skills development is social and linked to a sense of belonging and progress. Just as the hip-hop artists claim agency in remixing their notion of self, they also claim agency in remixing the limited digital technology available to them into various assemblages, so crafting innovative solutions to the constraints of limited and expensive digital infrastructure. Here, through a hip-hop culture that champions overcoming adversity, dysfunctional digital technology is constantly repaired and remixed. Hitherto, research on digital media use in the Global South has predominantly focused on the mobile phone in isolation. This study instead argues for the merits of a holistic digital ethnography, since observations of how these young people combine technologies such as mobile phones, computers and DVD players in everyday life, illustrate how innovation in marginalised spaces may be focused around the remixing of technology.

Despite its continued importance in the maintenance of black identity, hip hop has become a global phenomena popular among all races. In this age of mass cultural exchange, hip hop culture itself endures glocalization, that is it serves the global market, but becomes customized to suit the local culture. Where hip hop was orginally confined to specfic boroughs In New York, hip hop artists are now composing from their own local thresholds in regions all over the United States and worldwide. Virginia USA is a region that is increasingly thriving in regards to hip hop artists, fan base, and lifestyles. The hip hop identities found in Virginia are a product of Virginia's situatedness in the broader hip hop landscape. This study will shed light on the connections among music, place, and identity and specfically delve into Virginia's situatedness between the East Coast and Southern rap sub genres as they relate to Virginia's place based identity. / Master of Science

No description available.

This thesis asks why women gangsta rappers have been excluded from virtually all academic and popular discourses about the genre. While ‘positive’ and ‘empowering’ New York-based female rappers in the late 80s and 90s are often referenced by those concerned with gangsta rap’s misogynistic tendencies, women rappers in Los Angeles who performed alongside male gangsta rappers, were represented on labels managed by gangsta rappers, and were otherwise self-consciously engaging in the gangsta rap style are almost never acknowledged by either the genre’s defenders or detractors. By interrogating this discursive absence, I reevaluate the neoliberal sexual and racial politics of gangsta rap’s censorship discourse and interrogate the rhetorical and representational strategies deployed by female gangsta rappers such as Lady of Rage, Bo$$, NiNi X, Menajahtwa, H.W.A., and Yo-Yo to both contest misogyny and express coalitional affinity with their male counterparts from within the genre itself.

ABSTRACT WORDSMITH: EXAMINING THE ROLE HIP-HOP TEXTS PLAY IN VIEWING THE WORLD by Crystal LaVoulle Originally the voice of a silenced group of inner city Black males, hip-hop culture contains a historical road map that chronicles the experiences of its members. This study attempted to examine hip-hop through the stories of adults who incorporateaspects of hip-hop culture into their daily lives. Specifically, this study investigated, “How is hip-hop a critical element in the lives of poets, artists, and educators who are actively and intimately involved in its music and culture?” Additionally, this study will explore the following sub-questions: (1) What does it mean to be a member of the hip-hop community? (2) How does hip-hop inform the view of the world for participants in this study? This qualitative research study, framed by critical literacy, attempted to fill the void in the scholarship of hip-hop texts. Data collection included in-depth individual interviews, photo-elicited interviews and music-elicited interviews, a group interview, and cultural artifacts. Narrative inquiry and analysis served as both the process and product used to describe the participants’ lives as members of the hip-hop community. Narrative analysis allowed the construction of cipher-styled presentation of the data collected. Using participants’ lived experiences, their individual stories are molded into a concise narrative. This narrative, told by members of the hip-hop community, may provide a context for other researchers seeking to understand the influence of hip-hop on everyday people around the world.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:29:01Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2009-12-04Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T19:37:42Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 silva_rg_me_assis.pdf: 552705 bytes, checksum: 325bcffbf6adf0368b933b0b34164de6 (MD5) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / Esse trabalho teve como objetivo cartografar a Cultura Hip Hop, tendo como foco o Breaking. Nossa prática foi de um exercício de nomadismo na tentativa de acompanhar as linhas que foram tecidas ao longo dos encontros com a literatura, com os grupos que se agenciam com a Cultura Hip Hop, dando visibilidade aos modos de subjetivação, de singularização, aos afetos que escaparam de determinados territórios capturados pela cultura de massa e de estratégias de controle. Nesse processo, afetamos e fomos afetados pela história do Hip Hop que nos foi sendo percebida como narrativas de processos criadores. Tais processos foram sustentados por corpos vibráteis cujas intensidades dispararam movimentos de resistência com linhas de fuga que possibilitaram a produção de modos de existência singulares em relação aqueles produzidos pelos fluxos capitalísticos. Cartografar o movimento do desejo na vontade de expandir a vida através do agenciamento corpo-cidade-ruptura, significou entender que o devir não se repete e que sempre há algo no outro que nos transforma. / The present paper has the object of mapping the Hip Hop culture, being Breaking the focus study. Our practice was an exercise of nomadism in an attempt of following the lines drawn throughout the encounters with the literature with the groups that are influenced by the Hip Hop Culture, giving visibility to the modes of subjectivity, singularity and affections that escaped from certain territories captured by mass culture and control strategies. In this process, we affected and were affected by the history of Hip Hop that was being perceived as narratives of creative processes. Such processes were sustained by vibrating bodies whose intensities shoot resistance movements with lines of escape that allow the creation of particulars ways of existence related to those created by the capitalistic flows.. To map the movement of desire in the will of expanding life through the managing of body-city-breaking meant understand that the change does not repeat and that there is always something in the other that transforms one.

O presente estudo tem por objetivo examinar e refletir sobre a natureza, a origem e a construção conceitual do Hip-Hop. Para tanto, recorreu-se à metodologia de abordagem qualitativa, valendo-se da pesquisa de campo realizada por meio de entrevistas semiestruturadas, com representantes e ativistas reconhecidas(os) do HipHop e analisadas à luz da literatura acadêmica e não acadêmica (teses, dissertações, artigos, livros, revistas), além de outros materiais (documentários, filmes, palestras) produzidos sobre o Hip-Hop. Este trabalho problematiza a caracterização clássica desse fenômeno que, tradicionalmente, aponta quatro elementos como dimensões constitutivas do movimento: DJ/MC, Breaking, Graffiti e Rap. Contrapondo-se a essa descrição rígida, a hipótese desta pesquisa afirma que, por demonstrar um caráter dinâmico e recriador, esse fenômeno cultural, em seu processo histórico, gestou outras dimensões, até o momento, invisibilizadas, ou pouco discutidas pela literatura acadêmica. No processo de investigação, foram identificados outros elementos constitutivos do Hip-Hop, como as gírias, os vestuários, o Streetball e a literatura marginalizada que, assim como os demais, carregam, representam e revelam questões identitárias, políticas e ideológicas, como as étnico-raciais e de gênero, que envolvem a juventude das periferias, evidenciando um Universo em contradição, transformação e reconstrução constantes e em estreita relação com a Educação em seu sentido mais amplo. Desta forma, por sua natureza e condição dialéticas, o HipHop constitui-se em processos marcados por tensões entre os avanços das novas tendências e as resistências a esses avanços, razão pela qual o trabalho foi intitulado O Universo Hip-Hop e a fúria dos elementos. / The present study aims to examine and reflect on the nature, origin and conceptual construction of Hip-Hop. To do so, we used the qualitative approach, using field research conducted through semi-structured interviews with representatives and activists recognized by Hip-Hop and analyzed in the light of academic and nonacademic literature (theses, Dissertations, articles, books, magazines), as well as other materials (documentaries, films, lectures) produced on Hip-Hop. This work problematizes the classical characterization of this phenomenon, which traditionally points to four elements as constitutive dimensions of the movement: DJ / MC, Breaking, Graffiti and Rap. Contrary to this rigid description, the hypothesis of this research affirms that, because it demonstrates a dynamic and recreational character, this cultural phenomenon, in its historical process, has spawned other dimensions, so far, invisibilized or little discussed by academic literature. In the process of investigation, other elements of Hip-Hop were identified, such as slang, clothing, streetball and marginalized literature, which, like the others, carry, represent and reveal identity, political and ideological issues, such as ethnic- Racial and gender, involving the youth of the peripheries, showing a Universe in constant contradiction, transformation and reconstruction and in close relation with Education in its broadest sense. In this way, by its dialectical nature and condition, Hip-Hop is constituted by processes marked by tensions between the advances of the new tendencies and resistances to these advances, reason why the work was titled \"The Hip-Hop Universe and the fury of the elements\".