The Sociolinguistics of Hip-hop as Critical Conscience

This book adopts a sociolinguistic perspective to trace the origins and enduring significance of hip-hop as a global tool of resistance to oppression. The contributors, who represent a range of international perspectives, analyse how hip-hop is employed to express dissatisfaction and dissent relating to such issues as immigration, racism, stereotypes and post-colonialism. Utilising a range of methodological approaches, they shed light on diverse hip-hop cultures and practices around the world, highlighting issues of relevance in the different countries from which their research originates. Together, the authors expand on current global understandings of hip-hop, language and culture, and underline its immense power as a form of popular culture through which the disenfranchised and oppressed can gain and maintain a voice. This thought-provoking edited collection is a must-read for scholars and students of linguistics, race studies and political activism, and for anyone with an interest in hip-hop.

This book adopts a sociolinguistic perspective to trace the origins and enduring significance of hip-hop as a global tool of resistance to oppression. The contributors, who represent a range of international perspectives, analyse how hip-hop is employed to express dissatisfaction and dissent relating to such issues as immigration, racism, stereotypes and post-colonialism. Utilising a range of methodological approaches, they shed light on diverse hip-hop cultures and practices around the world, highlighting issues of relevance in the different countries from which their research originates. Together, the authors expand on current global understandings of hip-hop, language and culture, and underline its immense power as a form of popular culture through which the disenfranchised and oppressed can gain and maintain a voice. This thought-provoking edited collection is a must-read for scholars and students of linguistics, race studies and political activism, and for anyone with an interest in hip-hop.

Chapter 1: The Linguistic and Lyrical Development of 2Pac in Relation to Regional Hip-Hop Identity and Conflict.- Chapter 2: Dimensions of Dissatisfaction and Dissent in Contemporary German Rap: Social Marginalization, Politics, and Identity Formation.- Chapter 3: “77% of Aussies are Racist” – Intersections of Politics and Hip-Hop in Australia.- Chapter 4: Where is the Love? White Nationalist Discourse on Hip Hop.- Chapter 5: "Who's afraid of the Dark?": The Ironic Self-Stereotype of the Ethnic Other in Finnish Rap Music.- Chapter 6: How the Financial Crisis Changed Hip Hop.- Chapter 7: Dissatisfaction and Dissent in the Transmodal Performances of Hip Hop Artists in Mongolia.- Chapter 8: Counter-Hegemonic Linguistic Ideologies and Practices in Brazilian Indigenous Rap.- Chapter 9: The Death of Dissent and the Decline of Dissin': A Diachronic Study of Race, Gender, and Genre in Mainstream American Rap.