The Dialectics of Euro-Asian Hip-Hop

Its a ways off, but I have just agreed to give a talk at Royal Hollaway in May (9th). The details to go into their brochure sent off today are…

The Dialectics of Euro-Asian Hip-Hop: Hybridity, Creativity, and Nations at War.

My recent work takes into account debates about the provenance of hip-hop in Europe. It examines instances of two ‘British Asian’ bands creative engagement with, and destabilisation of, music genres, and takes a broadly culture critique perspective as a guide to rethinking hip-hop journalism. The bands are Asian Dub Foundation and Funˆdaˆmental. Music and ethnicity are the core parameters for discussion, and the idea that musical cultures are variously authentic, possessive or coherent is questioned. The usefulness of academic theories about hybridity (or not) in the face of the war of terror is the wider context.

John Hutnyk is a Reader in Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths College. John.Hutnyk@gold.ac.uk. Recent books include Bad Marxism: Capitalism and Cultural Studies (Pluto 2004) and Hybridity and Diaspora co-written with V.Kalra and R.Kaur (Sage/TCS 2005).

Relevant pre-seminar reading…

1996 Dis-orienting Rhythms: The Politics of the New Asian Dance Music
(co-edited with Sanjay Sharma and Ashwani Sharma). Zed Books, London.
Intro, Chapter 2, last chapter.

1998 ‘Adorno at Womad: South Asian Crossovers and the Limits of Hybridity-talk’ Postcolonial Studies, 1(3):401-426.

2000 Critique of Exotica: Music, Politics and the Culture Industry
(London: Pluto Press)
Intro, chapter 4

2000 ‘Music for Euro-Maoists: On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among Popstars’ in Theory Culture and Society 17(3):141-163

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From: John Hutnyk – Academic Director, Centre for Cultural Studies
Work: http://www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/cultural-studies/staff/j-hutnyk.php
Blog: http://hutnyk.blogspot.com/
Links: http://tawdrysouvenirs.blogspot.com/
Events: http://whats-on-occasionally.blogspot.com/

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