A Musical Mosaic Regional Identity and Midwestern Hip Hop

Hip hop culture integrates the four elements of MCing (rap), breaking (break dance), writing (graffiti) and DJing, though rap has become its most visible and lucrative form of expression. Rappers addressing the Midwest as a region in their music, like Kanye West in Jesus Walks, are rare, especially...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Lied und populäre Kultur 2021-01, Vol.66, p.125-143
Main Author: Rößig, Lara
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Accentuation
Address forms
Culture
Graffiti
Hip hop culture
Hip hop music
Identity
Identity formation
Mediation
Music
Musicians & conductors
Rap music
Regions
Stereotypes
Subtitles & subtitling
West, Kanye
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Summary:Hip hop culture integrates the four elements of MCing (rap), breaking (break dance), writing (graffiti) and DJing, though rap has become its most visible and lucrative form of expression. Rappers addressing the Midwest as a region in their music, like Kanye West in Jesus Walks, are rare, especially compared to references from rappers from the East and West Coast or the South towards their respective home regions. [...]to the Coasts and the South, the Midwest is not a homogenous rap scene with a unified rap sound. Constructing Regions: Big Histories in the South There are four official regions as defined by the US Census Bureau in the United States: the West, the Midwest, the Northeast and the South.2 The Midwest, according to the US Census Bureau, includes the twelve states of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin. The other perception is connected to the idea of a rural, backward, poorly educated, corrupt, miserable and oversexed region with a thick accent and Hillbilly banjo music.9 Especially in modern television, this second image is often conveyed through shows like Swamp People, where the producers use subtitles for their protagonists' English, Hillbilly Handfishin' and Redneck Riviera, a form of southern Jersey Shore.10 These shows highly depend on the mediation of stereotypes, which in turn are based on decade-long observations and the accumulated associations, collected during and rooted in the region's initial identity formation.
ISSN:1619-0548