‘Living underground is tough’: authenticity and locality in the hip-hop community in Istanbul, Turkey

Abstract

Hip-hoppers in Istanbul, Turkey, spend much discursive energy talking and rapping about how the Turkish hip-hop movement is underground, putting a particularly local spin on their uses of a global cultural form. This spatial metaphor has thus become central to local constructions of hip-hop in Istanbul. This paper explores the different meanings the underground concept has for Turkish hip-hoppers through a combination of ethnographic research and readings of locally produced hip-hop texts. Through discourses on and around the underground metaphor, Turkish hip-hoppers use the globally circulating music genre of rap and the associated arts of hip-hop to construct a specifically local identity, re-emplacing rap and hip-hop within the landscape of Istanbul. The paper uses this case study to explore how people can use mediated music in constructing new imaginaries and identities and more specifically how people can use mediated music as a vehicle for the imagining of place.

An empirical study into the learning practices and enculturation of DJs, turntablists, hip hop and dance music producers

“…Studies on Hip-hop performance and production too, are in the main more concerned with the broader discussion of Hip-hop's cultural and socio-political aspects and specific empirical studies into this area of music-making are relatively few (Rose 1994, Norfleet 1997, Katz 2004, Söderman and Folkestad 2004, Schloss 2005and Solomon 2005. Mark Katz investigates the practice of turntablism focussing on the techniques, the technology, the values and the traditions surrounding its practice.…”

Rhythms and Rhymes of Life : Music and Identification Processes of Dutch-Moroccan Youth

“…Or is the urgency to make some kind of Islamic or religiously inspired hip-hop among Dutch-Moroccan rappers simply not there? Even though some Dutch-Moroccan rappers rap about Islam, state that they are inspired by it or use Islamic symbols in their videos 1 , their overall repertoire does not indicate a strong relation between their Muslimness and their artistic and creative performances or productions, as is the case for Islamic American hip-hop artists Native Deen, Soul Salah Crew, the British-Asian band Fun-da-mental, the British rapband Mecca II Medina and, the French rapcrew Médine (Popp 2004;Swedenburg 2001a;Solomon 2005Solomon , 2006Abdul Khabeer 2007). It would be interesting to know to what extent Islam is (considered) an obstacle or an inspiration in the production and consumption of music and musical events by Dutch-Moroccan youth.…”

“…Thomas Solomon (2005; studied hip-hop made by youth with Turkish roots in Germany, as well as hip-hop made by Turkish youth in Turkey. His work shows how national politics in Germany are reflected in the hip-hop productions of Turkish-German youth.…”

»Das Leben Eines Gs« - aktuelle Schnittmuster im deutschen HipHop

“…Diese beiden Aspekte werden häufig mit Hilfe von Begriffen wie »Reterritorialisierung« (z.B. Androutsopoulos 2003;Solomon 2005) verhandelt, verstanden als eine Art lokale und/oder nationale Gegenbewegung zur globalisierten Populär-kultur, oder der Fokus der Beobachtung liegt auf der Ausbildung hybrider migrantischer Identitäten der Aktiven unter den gesellschaftlichen Bedingungen der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, die mit Begriffen wie »Diaspora« (z.B. Kaya 2001) fassbar gemacht werden sollen.…”