It was the early 1980s in a small beach town in Southern California. A group of white, upper-class tweens rode their Schwinn's to the local pizza/entertainment/restaurant/arcade game centre and began breakdancing to hip hop music in a side room reserved for private parties. The impromptu boogie became so popular that the kids were booked as part of a weekly hip hop night. More and more white, upper-class kids from all across Southern California came to Magic Pizza, not for the food but for the demonstration of how hip hop had permeated this town, previously known for sand and surf. While the hip hop revolution had begun in the United States, mostly in more urban and lower-class communities, it also pervaded middle- and upper-class white communities and moved outside the US. By the mid-1980s, hip hop was global and the personal narrative I describe was commonplace in cities, towns, villages and neighbourhoods across the world.
Marina Terkourafi is a professor of Linguistics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In The Languages of Global Hip Hop, she corrals some of the foremost scholars on hip hop and language and compiles a book filled with reminders of why hip hop was – and is – such a powerful cultural and societal symbol and tool. The title explains what the book touches on, but the substance of each contribution is wonderfully rich and causes one to consider not only the impact of global hip hop, but also how academia attempts to address the evolving world of the genre.
Each contributor in this edited volume introduces the languages of hip hop from their own country or country of study. From Germany to France, Egypt to Hungary, and Cyprus to Norway, each chapter presents the impact of hip hop on that country's culture and its effect sociolinguistically. Rather than discuss the specifics of contributions, I think it best to explain the editor's motive for the book, draw some connections to that motive and the contributors, and assess whether Terkourafi succeeded at her goal. Terkourafi's main motivation for this book is to remind both the layperson as well as the academic community that hip hop's intensely political and insightful critiques of culture, ethnicity and power all help bind communities and connect society globally through their marginality. Of course, she notes that hip hop is not monolithic and some of the violence and misogyny portrayed in the music celebrates that which it should be criticising (p. 3).
However, the language of hip hop is more complex than the work of one or even a handful of hip hop artists. Terkourafi presents hip hop in linguistic terms because the reader can see the examples of social critique from Aristophanes to West African griots to Soviet-produced music. What makes hip hop so unique, and this edited volume so valuable, is the discussion of the cultural phenomena of hip hop. That is, conscious lyrics, gangsta rap, underground, commercial, all have legitimacy in hip hop circles. This universality is what established hip hop's global appeal. Terkourafi employs scholars who recognise this and are able to show the genre's interconnectedness with diverse populations.
Authenticity in music is hardly a discussion related only to hip hop, but the editor ensures that debates surrounding hip hop and authenticity are a key part of this book. It is here that the scholars make their most valuable contribution to this book. Asking why authenticity is exponentially more important to the definition of hip hop, various contributors look at the originator of the music, the lyrics themselves, the musicians involved, the use of sampling, and the implicit political nature of the music. All of this may not necessarily justify the grading of an artist as ‘authentic’, but the scholars do juxtapose issues that raise the question across cultures and countries. It is here, within each contribution, that the global influence of hip hop on language, culture, and politics is most clear. The fact that notions of ‘keeping it real’ or ‘keeping it street’ are universal makes it a particularly ripe topic for debate.
While the marketability of hip hop is part of the media dialogue, scholarly engagement on the issue is of increased importance. This volume outlines the increased number of publications, workshops, town-hall meetings and academic panels on the subject. As scholars become more engaged with the issue, the idea of what is ‘cutting edge’ is continuously defined. The result, replete in the book, is the clear argument that contemporary hip hop in the US and across the world represents the various interpretations of authenticity and marketability.
Overall, the book addresses classic hip hop themes and touches on new directions as well. Some of the contributors use their ethnomusicology expertise, while others rely on their anthropology training. The book is truly an interdisciplinary work worthy of inclusion for anyone studying music, linguistics, sociology, politics, law and beyond. For the first time in language and hip hop studies, Cyprus, Egypt, and Roma rap in Hungary are featured in an academic setting. For those apprehensive about whether the book will require an expertise in hip hop lingo, a glossary of hip hop terms and quick reference of frequently used terms is provided in the volume. This is a very dense book but it is rich with analysis and insight. Terkourafi's ability to find scholars with such diverse research skills yet allied research goals makes this book a joy to read. I suspect that this book may be too philosophically complex for most undergraduates or laypeople, but it is a necessity for graduates interested in a fascinating conversation about linguistics and hip hop.
