The purpose of this thesis was to examine and explore themes within Swedish gangster rap lyrics. The method was content analysis with the purpose of coding content from every new gangster rap song released in Sweden 2019 to 2023 appearing in the top 50 lists each month in the archive “Swedishcharts.com”. The number of new songs released differed in quantity year to year, and the total number of Swedish gangster rap songs in every year combined was243 songs. The main themes appearing in Swedish gangster rap were discovered as: violence, guns, drugs, misogyny, gangs, and environment. There were also themes appearing that didnot appear as commonly such as: political awareness, police harassment, and ethnicity. The extent to which themes referring to criminality and violence resonated with media representations of the genre was not common. More likely, the subgenre could be interpretednarratively and critically to reveal depictions of difficult environments, with several aspects not mentioned in the media that potentially portray real experiences for the gangster rappers. In cases where the themes could resonate with the Swedish media representations, they were often expressed in a braggadocious or exaggerated way, with possible causes like protecting the authenticity of the genre or potentially articulating difficulties within society. A comparison with how violence and criminality refer to relevant themes in the content analysis showed a nuanced pattern as to whether the media representation of gangster rap was equivalent to criminal activity in society.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:oru-114193 |
| Date | January 2024 |
| Creators | Petersén, Philip |
| Publisher | Örebro universitet, Musikhögskolan |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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