‘We’re just like everyone else!’ Rethinking the cultural politics of the London Asian urban music scene

Abstract

This article engages with the practices of politics and its presence and meanings within the Asian scene. Despite work that has taken youth cultures beyond the framework of ‘resistance’, youth cultures are often still imagined and understood through the lens of ‘resistance’. Yet, within the Asian scene, the tensions, disavowal and ambivalence toward politics point toward a more complex, multilayered understanding of contemporary youth cultural forms. This article takes into account the politics of location and belonging that Asians within this scene are negotiating that are shaping the kind of political outlooks and attitudes that are being voiced. The growth of a middle-class ‘desi’ community in the United Kingdom and the rise of neoliberalism have led to a significant decline in the practice of a radical, deliberative politics within this ‘desi’ scene.