In her article "Intermediality, Rewriting Histories and Identities in French Rap" Isabelle Marc Martínez analyzes aspects of French hip hop culture. As an example of resistant cultural manifestations, hip hop scenes all over the world develop strategies to subvert mainstream values and to replace them by new de-localized, contesting identities via intermedial and intertextual processes. In France during the 1990 rap was intended to reassess French national history and national self-perception. Foundational hip hop bands such as Assassin, Ministère AMER, IAM, and NTM aimed at discrediting official narratives concerning the French culture's colonial and social past. hip hop artists, who viewed themselves as poets in a romantic vein, invested themselves with a responsibility that was political, ethical and aesthetic. From this position of poetic superiority, they attempted to alter official narratives by questioning and reviewing the educational system of France. The outcome of these resistant strategies was the forging of new multicultural and multiethnic identities of French culture, which have been in fact partly appropriated by mainstream culture and politics.
Marc Martínez, Isabelle.
"Intermediality, Rewriting Histories, and Identities in French Rap."
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
This text has been double-blind peer reviewed by 2+1 experts in the field.
The above text, published by Purdue University Press ©Purdue University, has been downloaded 985 times as of 03/02/15.
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture is published by Purdue University Press ©Purdue University in open access. Please support the journal: Click here for more information and to make your donation online.