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Abstract

In the scholarly and public debates, rap is celebrated and valorized as the creative and 'hybridized' music of minority youth which empowers those on the margins by providing new spaces of identification. This paper aims to disentangle the cultural politics of German-Turkish rap/hip-hop in Berlin and challenges the oppositional and marginal qualities attributed to German-Turkish rap/hip-hop. It argues that depending on the institutions and the structures rap is incorporated into, it might very well move to the 'center' and contribute to the further commodification and reification of 'cultural differences'. The analysis of the institutional framework and the structures that mediated rap to German-Turkish youth illustrates that state-sponsored institutions were actively involved in the popularization of rap among German-Turks and the traces of this institutional relationship are clearly visible both in the discursive field of German-Turkish rap and in the self-images of German-Turkish rappers.

Keywords

diaspora German-Turks popular culture rap/hip-hop youth culture

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Popular Culture,Marginality and Institutional Incorporation

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