Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-vdxz6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-30T18:57:48.008Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Beyond the street: the institutional life of rap

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 August 2020

Richard Bramwell  and
James Butterworth
Richard Bramwell
Affiliation:
Loughborough University
James Butterworth
Affiliation:
University of Oxford
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article draws on ethnographic fieldwork conducted over the course of one year in London and Bristol to examine the performance of rap in English youth centres. Youth centres play a significant role in supporting and shaping rap culture. However, historically dominant narratives within hip-hop studies and hip-hop culture depict rap as a vernacular cultural form that emerges from ‘the street’, and which derives its authenticity through its relation to ‘the street’. We seek to move beyond such discourses and towards a recognition of the institutional processes, structures and networks that shape and sustain rap culture. Our focus on the institutional life of rap leads to an analysis of the various possibilities, limitations and tensions that arise in the coming together of public funding, and social policy priorities, local organisations and black vernacular culture.

Type
Articles
Information
Popular Music , Volume 39 , Issue 2 , May 2020 , pp. 169 - 186
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abrahams, R. 1993. ‘Playing the dozens’, in Dundes, Alan (ed.) Mother Wit From The Laughing Barrel (Jackson, MI, University Press of Mississippi)Google Scholar
Alasuutari, P. 2015. ‘The discursive side of new institutionalism’, Cultural Sociology, 9/2, pp. 162–8410.1177/1749975514561805CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson-Butcher, D., Cash, S., Saltzburg, S., Midle, T., and Pace, D. 2004. ‘Institutions of youth development’, Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment, 9/1–2, 83–9910.1300/J137v09n01_07CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baker, G. 2005. ‘¡Hip Hop, Revolución! Nationalizing rap in Cuba’, Ethnomusicology, 49/3, pp. 368–402Google Scholar
Baker, G. 2011. Buena Vista in the Club: Rap, Reggaetón, and Revolution in Havana (Durham NC, Duke University Press)10.1215/9780822393931Google Scholar
Banks, M. 2007. The Politics of Cultural Work (Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan)10.1057/9780230288713CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bennett, A. 1999. ‘Rappin’ on the Tyne: White Hip Hop Culture in Northeast England’, The Sociological Review, 47/1, pp. 1–2410.1111/1467-954X.00160CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bradley, A. 2009. Book of Rhymes: The Poetics of Hip-Hop (New York, Basic Civitas)Google Scholar
Bramwell, R. 2015. UK Hip-Hop, Grime and the City: The Aesthetics and Ethics of London's Rap Scenes (New York, Routledge)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bristol City Council. 2010. ‘Community Asset Transfer Policy’. https://www.bristol.gov.uk/documents/20182/35144/Community%20Asset%20Transfer%20Policy.pdf/69a22e3e-7ab8-42fc-9de2-8b26f2e7d9eaGoogle Scholar
Brown, H. 1972. ‘Street talk’, in Kochman, Thomas (ed.) Rappin’ and Stylin’ Out (Urbana, IL, University of Illinois Press)Google Scholar
Cermak, M. J. 2012. ‘Hip-hop, social justice, and environmental education: toward a critical ecological literacy’, The Journal of Environmental Education, 43/3, pp. 192–203CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chang, J. 2007. Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip Hop Generation (New York, Ebury Press)Google Scholar
Clay, A. 2012. The Hip-Hop Generation Fights Back: Youth, Activism and Post-Civil Rights Politics (New York, University Press)Google Scholar
Dimitriadis, G. 2009. Performing Identity/performing Culture: Hip Hop as Text, Pedagogy, and Lived Practice (New York, Peter Lang)Google Scholar
Elligan, D. 2000. ‘Rap therapy: a culturally sensitive approach to psychotherapy with young African American men’, Journal of African American Studies, 5/3, pp. 27–36Google Scholar
Emdin, D. 2010. ‘Affiliation and alienation: hip-hop, rap, and urban science education’ Journal of Curriculum Studies, 42/1, 1–2510.1080/00220270903161118CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Forman, M. 2000. ‘“Represent”: race, space and place in rap music’, Popular Music, 19/1, pp. 65–9010.1017/S0261143000000015CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Forman, M. 2002. The 'Hood Comes First: Race, Space, and Place in Rap and Hip Hop Middletown, CT, Wesleyan University PressGoogle Scholar
Fortier, Anne-Marie 2010. ‘Proximity by design? Affective citizenship and the management of unease’, Citizenship Studies, 14/1, pp. 17–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hall, P and Taylor, R 1996. ‘Political science and the three new institutionalisms’, Political Studies, XLIV, pp. 936–5710.1111/j.1467-9248.1996.tb00343.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hallman, H. L. 2009. ‘“Dear Tupac, you speak to me”: recruiting hip hop as curriculum at a school for pregnant and parenting teens’, Equity & Excellence in Education, 42/1, pp. 36–5110.1080/10665680802612642CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoyler, M., and Mager, C. 2005. ‘HipHop ist im Haus: cultural policy, community centres, and the making of hip-hop music in Germany’, Built Environment, 31/3, pp. 237–5410.2148/benv.2005.31.3.237CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ilan, J. 2012. ‘“The industry's the new road”: crime, commodification and street cultural tropes in UK urban music’, Crime, Media, Culture, 8/1, pp. 39–5510.1177/1741659011433367CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kajikawa, L. 2015. Sounding Race in Rap Songs (Oakland, CA, University of California Press)10.1525/9780520959668CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keyes, C. 2004. Rap Music and Street Consciousness (Urbana, IL, University of Illinois Press)Google Scholar
Krims, A. 2000. Rap Music and the Poetics of Identity (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press)Google Scholar
Kuttner, P.J. 2015. ‘Educating for cultural citizenship: reframing the goals of arts education’, Curriculum Inquiry, 45/1, pp. 69–9210.1080/03626784.2014.980940CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morrell, E., and Duncan-Andrade, J.M.R. 2002. ‘Promoting academic literacy with urban youth through engaging hip-hop culture’, English Journal, 91/6, pp. 88–9210.2307/821822CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Negus, K. 1999. ‘The music business and rap: between the street and the executive suite’, Cultural Studies, 13/3, pp. 488–50810.1080/095023899335194CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Olson-McBride, L., and Page, T.F. 2012. ‘Song to self: promoting a therapeutic dialogue with high-risk youths through poetry and popular music’, Social Work with Groups, 35/2, pp. 124–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pardue, D. 2004 ‘“Writing in the margins”: Brazilian hip-hop as an educational project’, Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 35/4, pp. 411–3210.1525/aeq.2004.35.4.411CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pryce, K. 1979. Endless Pressure (Harmondsworth, Penguin)Google Scholar
Regev, M. 2007. ‘Ethno-national pop-rock music: aesthetic cosmopolitanism made from within’, Cultural Sociology, 1/3, 317–41Google Scholar
Rose, T. 1994. Black Noise (Middletown, CT, Weslyan University Press)Google Scholar
Stephens, T., Braithwaite, R.L., and Taylor, S.E. 1998. ‘Model for using hip-hop music for small group HIV/AIDS prevention counseling with African American adolescents and young adults’, Patient Education and Counseling, 35, pp. 127–3710.1016/S0738-3991(98)00050-0CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tillie Allen, N.M. 2005. ‘Exploring hip-hop therapy with high-risk youth’, Praxis, 5, pp. 30–6.Google Scholar
Turner, P. 2017. Hip Hop Versus Rap (London, Routledge)10.4324/9781315544663CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Urpelainen, J. 2011. ‘The origins of social institutions’, Journal of Theoretical Politics, 23/2, pp. 215–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar
White, J. 2017a. ‘Controlling the flow: how urban music videos allow creative scope and permit social restriction’, Young, 25/4, pp. 407–2510.1177/1103308816644110CrossRefGoogle Scholar
White, J. 2017b. Urban Music and Entrepreneurship: Beats, Rhymes and Young People's Enterprise (London, Routledge)Google Scholar