Freedom within bars: maximum security prisoners’ negotiations of identity through rap

This paper examines the construction of prisoners’ identity through rap in England’s high security prisons. While hip hop studies has often addressed rap’s connection to the social practices of criminalized youths, prison rap cultures have received scant attention. This paper draws on a series of rap workshops and interviews with prisoners to investigate the experiences of black prisoners in high security prisons and how identities are produced and negotiated through rap. Rap is associated with the production of a range of identities and identifications, enabling prisoners to accommodate themselves to the conditions of their incarceration and to challenge aspects of the criminal justice system that they experience as unfair or illegitimate.     

‘Singing acts’ from the deep North: critical perspectives on northern exotics,contemporary ethnic music and language preservation in Sámi communities

This paper discusses the relationship of northernness and performances of contemporary ethnic popular music, within the context of critical geography and postcolonial theory. The focus is on the Sámi ethnic minorities of northern Finland. The North of Finland, ‘nature-Finland’, is understood here as an imaginative region which over the course of several centuries has been constituted through various forms of stereotyping, mystifying, exoticising and othering of Sámi minorities in accordance with the nationalist endeavours of Southern Finland. While these stereotypes and preconceptions of northernness have delimited northern cultural activity, contemporary ethnic music is conceived here as a strategic tool with which stereotypes of northernness can be contested and the work of the preservation of ethnic heritage put into action. The focus is on the works of Inari Sámi-singing rap musician Amoc, Skolt Sámi-singing heavy rock girl Tiina Sanila and the North Sámi-singing hard rock band SomBy. Their music is approached as ‘singing acts’ that work as tools for the preservation of ethnic culture and minority languages and for the deconstruction of stereotypes directed at northernness. The paper claims that contemporary contexts and genres within which singing in Sámi languages takes place may inspire the audience to ponder and reconsider their own ways of perceiving Sáminess and northernness.     

Digital media,subcultural activity and youth participation: the cases of protest rap and graffiti in Portugal

Over the last decade, we have witnessed the emergence of an academic debate surrounding the relationship between youth and the ‘new media’, with a particular emphasis on the social uses of different digital technologies within the sphere of youth activity. A specific area of research has been dedicated to studying the use of digital media in the context of the so-called youth subcultures. With this article we expect to contribute to this ongoing debate, by examining the problem through an analysis of two interconnected case studies: protest rap and illegal graffiti. Both cases may be defined as subcultures, insofar as they are characterized as alternative, subterranean, and to a certain extent, subversive movements. The empirical ground for this discussion is based on several investigations, with a qualitative basis, carried out by the authors in the course of over a decade in Portugal. This extended time frame allowed ample access to a diversified and matured analytical material and enabled a better perspective of the developments and the mutations involving the appropriation of the digital media. Our researches have shown that digital media and technologies have been gradually integrated in these urban youth subcultures, accomplishing several strategic roles.     

出土文献与《荀子·成相篇》

《荀子·成相篇》形式独特,但长期得不到文学史研究者的足够重视。《秦简·成相篇》的发现,吸引了众多学者对以《荀子·成相篇》为代表的“成相辞”的关注。通过二重证据法可以证实：“成相辞”这种艺术形式并非荀子首创,而在《荀子·成相篇》之前就已经广泛流传;民间歌谣与瞽史说唱的相互作用与融合促进了“成相辞”的最终定型。这种研究不仅有助于解决“成相辞”的性质、起源等诸多论而未决的问题,而且有助于重新确立荀子及“成相辞”在文学史上的地位,推动先秦诗歌研究的深入发展。     

Negotiating Risk and Promoting Empowerment through Rap Music: Development of a Measure to Capture Risk and Empowerment Pathways to Change

The purpose of this study was to report on the development and construction of the Individual and Community Empowerment (ICE) inventory, a measure seeking to capture the specific pathways by which either risk-enhancing impacts or empowering impacts of rap music manifest. Data were analyzed via structural equation modeling from a convenience sample of 128 high school and college students. Results found that respondents elicited (1) empowering themes that related to them individually and to the broader community and (2) high-risk themes that may promote risky health behaviors. Implications about research and practice relevance of the ICE inventory are discussed.     

Perceptions of Misogyny in Hip Hop and Rap: What Do the Youths Think?

This article presents the results of an exploratory study conducted at a community forum sponsored by a prominent African American church and a historically Black university. These institutions are concerned with negative messages given to African American females about their appearance and their morals. The data presented describe the population of female (68.6%) and male (31.4%) participants ages 18 to 24 and inform us about their perceptions about hip hop and rap music, especially as they relate to misogyny. This study found that listening habits and age were significant in understanding youths' views about misogyny.     

当代语境下的鄂伦春族“摩苏昆”

摩苏昆是鄂伦春族在漫长的游猎生活过程中创造出的具有鲜明特色的民族文化。对摩苏昆的界定有多种说法:具有说唱性质的、曲艺类、民间文学史诗类、特定长篇叙事歌曲音乐类等,它属于唱一段、讲一段的古老艺术形式,用鄂伦春语讲唱。鄂伦春族由于没有本民族文字,语言的逐渐流失,使古老的艺术摩苏昆面临失传的危险。     

曲艺杂谈

文章着重介绍了一些有关曲艺的历史渊源、音乐表现形式、唱腔结构等基本知识,并对各民族特有的说唱音乐风格加以说明和阐述.     

‘NOTHING POWERFUL LIKE WORDS SPOKEN’

This article examines the rhetorical techniques black British female rap artists appropriate and manipulate when they compose and perform their songs. To this end, this work probes how they explore female agency and respond to political, race, class and gender inequity in their compositions. In all, this discussion corrects the virtual absence of black British female rap emcees from transatlantic discourses by offering a close reading of the hip-hop narratives written and/or performed by Shystie, Tor Cesay, Speech Debelle and Ms. Dynamite.     

Song to Self: Promoting a Therapeutic Dialogue with High-Risk Youths Through Poetry and Popular Music

This article presents the implementation of a specialized poetry therapy intervention that incorporated hip-hop and rap music with high-risk youths. The use of this popular musician group work supported these young people's use of self-disclosure. The intervention also involved creative writing as a means of encouraging connection and self-expression among an often difficult-to-engage population.