The Vigorous Local: Culture Industry, Hip-hop and the Politics of Resistance in the Age of Globalization

This book elaborates on how music has become a significant means of communication in the process of globalization, and how it integrates the aggrieved populations to speak through and to express their antagonistic stances. In addition to the discussions of globalization, this study analyzes the medium of music along the areas of media and identity politics. In this respect, it deliberates on the 'global' and 'local' features of hip-hop. Although born in the ghettos of Bronx, New York, this global youth culture has been adopted by other minority youths in order to voice their anger and frustration towards the exclusionist practices of the state, as well as racism and discrimination they face in their host countries. Accordingly, the second and third generation Turkish youths in Germany and South Asian youths in Britain have revealed their rage through the subversive lyrics they employed. Therefore, these lyrics can also be regarded as narratives that indicate these immigrant youths as representatives of resistance and defiance.