Abstracts of issue 12-13 (2000)

The Rap Music and the Ideology of Violence and Resist

This article investigates the conditions of the emergence of the rap music, in the context of the social and economic changes in the ’80s. The author asserts that rap is today the most significant and dynamic expression of the urban black people, like the soul was in the ’60s. Rap is born in a historical moment, when the black community lives in extreme poverty and resignation. The author examines in which way this new music comes to give expression to this situation. The musical idiom is discussed both in the levels of form and content, in order to see whether it actually constitutes an anti-authority expression, or another product of the established trade culture.

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