Hybridizing Hip-Hop in Diaspora: Young British South Asian Men Negotiating Black-Inflected Identities

JOURNAL
T H E I N T E R N AT I O N A L
of DIVERSITY
in Organizations, Communities & Nations
Volume 10, Number 5
Hybridizing Hip-hop in Diaspora: Young British South Asian Men Negotiating Black-inflected Identities
David Drissel
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THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF DIVERSITY IN ORGANISATIONS, COMMUNITIES AND NATIONS http://www.Diversity-Journal.com First published in 2011 in Champaign, Illinois, USA by Common Ground Publishing LLC www.CommonGroundPublishing.com. 2011 (individual papers), the author(s) 2011 (selection and editorial matter) Common Ground Authors are responsible for the accuracy of citations, quotations, diagrams, tables and maps. All rights reserved. Apart from fair use for the purposes of study, research, criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright Act (Australia), no part of this work may be reproduced without written permission from the publisher. For permissions and other inquiries, please contact <cg-support@commongroundpublishing.com>. ISSN: 1447-9532 Publisher Site: http://www.Diversity-Journal.com THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF DIVERSITY IN ORGANISATIONS, COMMUNITIES AND NATIONS is peer-reviewed, supported by rigorous processes of criterion-referenced article ranking and qualitative commentary, ensuring that only intellectual work of the greatest substance and highest significance is published. Typeset in Common Ground Markup Language using CGCreator multichannel typesetting system http://www.commongroundpublishing.com/software/
Hybridizing Hip-hop in Diaspora: Young British South Asian Men Negotiating Black-inflected Identities
David Drissel, Iowa Central Community College, IA, USA
Abstract: This paper theorizes that hip-hop has become a key factor in the subcultural negotiation and construction of hybridized, black-inflected identities among South Asian young men in the U.K. Indians, Pakistanis, and Bangladeshis are examples of ethnic minority groups living in the Desi Diaspora (i.e., South Asian migrs and their descendants who are physically detached from their ancestral homelands). British Asian rappers and their relatively youthful diasporic fans appear to be involved in a complex process of reconfiguring and synthesizing relevant idioms and vernaculars found not only in global hip-hop and their ancestral homeland, but also their host countrys local environment. Because of hip-hops primary ties to African-American culture, British Asian teens and young adults have been exposed vicariously to black concerns, argot, and values including respect, coolness, and authenticity (keeping it real). This paper reveals that hip-hop and related identity markers of blackness and masculinity are especially appealing to British Asian young men, many of whom are enamored by the cultural positioning of African-American rappers as rebellious, powerful spokesmen for a beleaguered minority underclass. This paper analyzes a wide variety of qualitative sources, including the transcripts of previously published interviews with British Desi hip-hop artists and the lyrical content of selected rap songs recorded by Muslims, Hindus, and Sikhs in the U.K. Keywords: Hip-Hop, British South Asians, Desi Diaspora, African Diaspora, Muslim Diaspora, Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Youth Subcultures, Rap Music, Bhangra, Jihad, Black-inflected, Collective identities
Introduction
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IP-HOP FIRST EMERGED in the impoverished neighborhoods of New York Citys South Bronx during the late 1970s, but has since evolved into an international pop-culture phenomenon that includes a multibillion-dollar music and fashion industry. Initially reflecting the pervasive fears, concerns, and muted aspirations of African-American and Hispanic ghetto youth, hip-hop has elaborated on universal themes of racism, poverty, oppression, authenticity, and rebellion in a wide array of global settings. Often serving as a lightning rod for controversy, hip-hop has been both praised and panned, depending on the sociopolitical vantage point of the observer. Even though numerous social scientists, music critics, pop-culture commentators, and media pundits have characterized hip-hop in relatively positive terms as a potentially liberating and empowering force for oppressed minorities and poor people around the world;1 many others have depicted it in highly negative terms, contending that the reputedly gang-inspired rap music of hip-hop tends to glorify narcissism, hedonism, intolerance, misogyny, and predatory violence.2
Allen (1996), for instance, argues that rap music appropriately focuses public attention on the needs and aspirations of impoverished people living in predominately black and brown communities. 2 DeGenova (1995), for example, contends that hip-hop in general and gangsta rap in particular have encouraged predatory, violent behavior and nihilism in society. The International Journal of Diversity in Organisations, Communities and Nations Volume 10, Number 5, 2011, http://www.Diversity-Journal.com, ISSN 1447-9532
Common Ground, David Drissel, All Rights Reserved, Permissions: cg-support@commongroundpublishing.com
THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF DIVERSITY IN ORGANISATIONS, COMMUNITIES AND NATIONS
Over the past few decades, globalization as epitomized in this instance by mostly U.S.based corporations producing and marketing rap music and related movies, music videos, clothing, and accessories to virtually every market in the world has played a significant role in shaping and galvanizing the growing popularity of hip-hop, while purveying the media-enhanced impression of a distinctly Americanized, hegemonic social trend. Nonetheless, it is a misnomer to depict hip-hop as a single monolithic culture tied exclusively to its American origins. Nor is hip-hop merely the latest U.S.-spawned pop-culture commodity that is embraced passively by youthful consumers worldwide. Though mimicking American pop-culture trends is undoubtedly a factor in hip-hops global appeal and ascendancy, an eclectic mode of multicultural syncretism often occurs. Around the world, young people have adapted hip-hop to address their particular local concerns and collective identities, thus exhibiting a dynamic form of glocalization; i.e., cross-cultural interactions that effectively synthesize the global with the local.3 Simply put, globalized culture produces difference because of the different everyday life contexts of the consumers (Klein, 2003, p. 43). Accordingly, hip-hop often undergoes a process of recontextualization,4 which involves borrowing cultural objects from one environment for the purpose of applying them in a different social context. Lull (1995) refers to this cross-cultural process as the hybridization and indigenization of rap, contending that American hip-hop is often fused with national/local discourses to produce distinctly new style formations and collective identities. Even within the U.S., local and regional variations in hip-hop are quite pronounced.5 Boyd (2003) argues that it is precisely this series of moves from the local, to the regional, to the national, and even to the global that demonstrate this expression of hip-hops cultural identity in the broadest sense, confounding any attempts to read blackness as monolithic (p. 19). Hip-hops dialogic framework is inherently flexible and malleable, effectively transcending boundaries of race, ethnicity, language, and geography. However, hip-hop invariably contains a distinct style that reflects its predominately African-American inner-city origins, no matter what the locale of its current permutations. While the core essence and elements of hip-hop are shared by all members of the hip-hop culture, the aesthetic is adapted to suit multiple national cultures, localized conditions and grievances, Motley and Henderson (2008, p. 248) note. Consequently, the hybridization of hip-hop includes not only the adoption and consumption of global commodities, but also the reconfiguration of black-inflected frames of reference by various community artists, entrepreneurs, and consumers. As Bennett (1999) observes, Such appropriations have in each case involved a reworking of hip-hop in ways which engage with local circumstances (p. 5). Several scholars have postulated that marginal youths are the ones most likely to recontextualize hip-hop for their own distinct locales, given their exposure in music and film to African-American experiences of prejudice and oppression. Osumare (2007) asserts that hip-hop engenders a connective marginality that links young people of various historically oppressed groups around the world. Hip-hop, an extension of African-African popular culture, then, becomes a global signifier for many forms of marginalization, he explains (p. 173). Rose (1993) states that many African-American hip-hop artists have become de
3 4 5
For more on the global hybridization of popular culture, see Nilan and Feixa (2006). I am borrowing this term from Androutsopoulos and Scholz (2002). For instance, there are long-standing differences between the East Coast and West Coast American rap styles involving lyrical themes, accents, etc.
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facto political activists, railing against what they perceive to be inherently racist institutions in society (e.g., police departments, prisons, schools). Motley and Henderson (2008) propose that young people in non-American locales have been drawn to the messages of resistance to oppression and struggles against discrimination and racism of the early hip-hop artists of the United States because of their marginalized status (p. 252). Thus, the dominant hip-hop narrative of angry defiance and resistance to authority, communicated by American rappers (especially black males from impoverished backgrounds), apparently inspires marginal youth subcultures6 in other societies to establish their own oppositional identities linked to hiphop.
Research Focus and Methodology

In the case of the United Kingdom, hip-hop/rap music is being produced and performed primarily by members of marginal racial/ethnic minority groups, though many British hiphop (Brit-hop) groups are multiracial or multiethnic. In this paper, I propose that hip-hop is becoming a key factor in the subcultural negotiation and construction of hybridized, blackinflected identities among British South Asians (referred to as British Asians in the U.K.). Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, and Sri Lankans are prime examples of ethnic minority groups living in the Desi Diaspora; i.e., South Asian migrs and their descendants who are physically detached from their ancestral homelands. Building on the work of other researchers in the field (e.g., Maira 2000; Eglash 2002; Dudrah 2002; Huq 2006), I contend that British Asian rappers and their relatively youthful diasporic fans are involved in a complex process of reconfiguring and synthesizing relevant idioms and vernaculars found not only in global hip-hop and their ancestral homeland, but also their host countrys local environment. Because of hip-hops primary ties to AfricanAmerican culture, British Asian teens and young adults have been exposed vicariously to black concerns, argot, and values including the importance of resisting oppression, gaining respect, exhibiting coolness, maintaining authenticity (keeping it real), and representing the local hood (hip-hop slang for neighborhood).7 This paper theorizes that hiphop and related identity markers of blackness and masculinity are especially appealing to British Asian young men, many of whom are apparently enamored by the cultural positioning of African-American rappers as rebellious, powerful spokesmen for a beleaguered minority underclass. Major research questions that I address in this paper include the following: How have global flows of people, ideas, and values, influenced hip-hops reconfiguration in Great Britain, particularly among South Asian young men? What social and demographic factors have encouraged British Asian males (and more specifically British Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs) to adopt black-inflected identities and related masculine personas tied to hip-hop? How have rap music lyrics and imagery been reframed to resonate with British Asian diasporic experiences and national/local concerns? How have issues of race, ethnicity, gender,
6
Youth subcultures can be defined as groups of teenagers and young adults sharing certain common cultural features, yet appearing to have values, norms, roles, and attitudes that differ substantially from the larger culture (Johnston and Snow 1998, p. 474). 7 In the alternative argot of hip-hop, the discursive frame of the hood has largely replaced the more pessimistic and exclusionary term, ghetto. According to Murray Forman (2002), As a discursive shift, the turn to the hood involves an intentional, engaged process of cultural recuperation of African-American and Latino dominated space enacted primarily by contemporary urban minority youth (p. 65).
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and religion, intersected and influenced the adoption of hip-hop identities among youthful British Asian males? In order to address such questions, I have analyzed a wide variety of qualitative sources, including the transcripts of previously published interviews with British Desi hip-hop artists and the lyrical content of selected rap songs recorded by South Asians in the U.K. As a distinct type of socio-cultural communication, rap music lyrics and related symbols of the hip-hop subculture can reveal the existence of various personal and collective identities, often in a state of flux. Drawing on framing theory, I have investigated the articulation of African, Indian, Pakistani, Muslim, Hindu, and Sikh frames in British rap music, which have been socially and cognitively organized into interconnected diasporic discourses. By definition, frames are a schemata of interpretations that enable individuals to locate, perceive, identify, and label various events and occurrences within their own life experiences (Goffman, 1974). Importantly, the frames of various British minority groups contradict many of the dominant sociopolitical narratives of multicultural tolerance in the UK. In this regard, British Asian hip-hop acts as a subcultural source of counter-hegemonic information and is framed to resonate with the social experiences, values, beliefs, and concerns of Desi diasporic youth. Such frame alignments are essential components in the micro-mobilization of social movement participants. When individual movement frames are connected to a larger belief system sanctioned by potential movement participants, a frame alignment occurs (Snow and Benford, 1988; Snow et al., 1997). In this paper, I first examine various sociological theories of diasporic minority groups and the history of diasporic South Asians in the United Kingdom. Then, I briefly trace the American origins of hip-hop, focusing on the relative influence of the African Diaspora, the Muslim Diaspora, and various black-inflected/masculine practices and symbols. Next, I describe the British-Desi hip-hop scene and interpret the lyrics of selected songs, with an emphasis on sociological meanings derived from various intersections of race, ethnicity, religion, and gender. I conclude with an analysis of the British-Desi hip-hop subculture, as it relates to negotiations of blackness and constructions of masculinity by British Asian rappers and their youthful male fans.
British South Asians in Diaspora

The term diaspora was first coined over two thousand years ago, applied initially to the Jews in the aftermath of their compulsory dispersal from Palestine to distant locales around the world. Over the years, the concept has been expanded to include other ethno-national groups such as the Greeks, Armenians, Irish, Germans, Gypsies, Africans, Chinese, Palestinians, Indians, Algerians, Tibetans, Moroccans, Cubans, Afghans, Poles, and Vietnamese. All such groups have experienced voluntary or forced migration and permanently reside as minorities in one or several host countries (Sheffer, 2003, p. 9). In addition, diasporas have the following elements in common: an origin in the scattering and uprooting of communities and the sense of a real or imagined relationship to a homeland, mediated through the dynamics of collective memory and the politics of return (Edwards, 2001, p. 51-52). Hence, a diaspora involves the question of origins and is intimately connected to the formation of collective identities (Edwards, 2001, p. 47). Diasporic identities often emerge in response to prejudice, discrimination, and other exclusionary practices found in a given
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host society. Simply put, diasporic citizens are often forced to assume new identities to survive in their new homeland (Rajgopal, 2003, p. 52). Diasporas are not merely historical and descriptive, but also directly influential in the present-era, enabling widely dispersed people to envision themselves as a community (Cornwell and Stoddard, 2001, p. 7). As Sheffer (2003) observes, Members of diasporas establish trans-state networks that reflect complex relationships among the diasporas, their host countries, their homelands, and international actors (p. 10). Thus, diasporic populations tend to develop collective identities that are syncretistic combinations of seemingly disparate ethno-national characteristics, thereby facilitating the formation of new cultures of hybridity (Dwyer, 2000). The South Asian Diaspora8 (also known as the Desi Diaspora)9 is a pan-ethnic social construct based on several successive waves of interconnected migrations of related nationalities (e.g., Indian, Pakistani, Sri Lankan, Bangladeshi,) emanating from the Indian subcontinent. Due to the British domination of the region for over three hundred years beginning in the 17th century, Indians initially migrated to the U.K. through their connections with the British East India Company. Most Indians in this first migratory wave entered Great Britain either as lascars (militiamen and seamen) or ayahs (domestic servants), though others migrated for educational, entrepreneurial, or governmental reasons. Consequently, there were over 40,000 Indian seamen, soldiers, scholars, officials, diplomats, businessmen, tourists, and students in the U.K. by the mid-19th century. The largest wave of South Asian migration to the U.K. commenced in the aftermath of the Second World War, and reached its zenith in the early 1960s. Such migration was fueled in part by a precipitous decline in the size of the male blue-collar workforce resulting from World War Two. In addition, there was rising demand for relatively low-skilled manual laborers in various industries such as railways, foundries, and textile mills. Many white Britons had deemed such work to be undesirable for themselves in the post-war era, thus creating a new labor shortage that was subsequently filled by migrant workers from former colonies in the British Commonwealth - most notably the newly independent nation-states of India and Pakistan (Robinson, 2005, p.183). During the early 1960s, the British government began to restrict immigration from India, Pakistan, and other former colonies. Nonetheless, South Asian migration to the U.K. continued at a relatively rapid pace for the next several years, due in large measure to the enactment of family reunification measures for spouses and other close relatives of British Asians. By the early 1970s, immigration restrictions were eased temporarily to accommodate the newest major influx of Indian migrants, most of whom were refugees and asylum seekers fleeing Uganda, Kenya, and other African countries due to various forms of political repression and persecution. In contrast to the first post-war wave of migration, this newest wave of refugees tended to be highly educated and engaged in white-collar occupational pursuits. Relatively stringent restrictions on immigration in the British Commonwealth were re-imposed
This term has been used increasingly in academic articles over the last few decades, due to its more expansive cultural-national application compared to the more specific phraseology of Indian, Pakistani, and Bangladeshi Diasporas. For instance, see Rajgopal (2003) and Dudrah (2002). 9 Desi is an ancient Indian Sanskrit word that literally means one from our country. In the modern sense, it refers to the peoples, cultures, and products of the South Asian (Indian) subcontinent. In recent years, an increasingly large number of groups and web pages have used the term, Desi Diaspora, rather than South Asian Diaspora. For example, see http://asiasociety.org/countries-history/traditions/the-desi-diaspora.
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in the 1980s, thus reaffirming the modern British assumption that immigration is a problem, not an opportunity (Robinson, 2005, p. 83). According to recent census figures, the U.K.s ethnic minority population is 4.6 million people, which comprises 7.9% of the countrys total population (Robinson, 2005), though only approximately five percent of Britons describe themselves as non-white (Hesmondhalgh and Melville, 2001). More than two million people of South Asian ancestry currently live in the U.K., thus accounting for approximately four percent of the countrys population. British South Asians include slightly over one million Indians (1.8% of the population) and around 800,000 Pakistanis (1.3% of the population) (Robinson, 2005). According to recent estimates of religious affiliation in the U.K., there are over two million Muslims, approximately one million Hindus, and slightly over 400,000 Sikhs. The vast majority of British Muslims are either Pakistani or Bangladeshi in ethnicity, though a substantial minority is Indian.10 The remainder of the British South Asian population is Hindu (mostly ethnic Indians) or Sikh (mostly ethnic Punjabi/Indians).
Ethnicity, Race, and Religion

While the United Kingdom is a predominately white country, people of African descent with ethnic roots in the former British colonies of sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean have been present in the country for centuries. Beginning in the 1960s, virtually all nonwhite people in Great Britain were generally referred to as black, including not only Caribbean and sub-Saharan Africans, but South Asians too. Like the U.S. and France, Britain effectively had its own unofficial ethno-racial binary. However, this black/white dualism began fragmenting in the popular mindset by the late 1980s with black increasingly being splintered into separate black and Asian identity labels (Archer, 2001). More recently, an increased focus on religion as a source of British minority status has given rise to a more pluralistic social milieu that includes Muslim, Hindu, and Sikh, as important collective identity markers (Modood and Ahmad, 2007). This latest trend has been fueled by the growing salience of a transnational religious identity among Muslims in Great Britain and other countries (Roy, 2004). Correspondingly, the idea of a Muslim Diaspora has emerged in the U.K. and other Western countries. Substantially expanding upon the traditional concept of a diaspora based upon shared ancestral origins within a particular nation, state, or ethnic group, the Muslim Diaspora focuses primarily on a common religious identity. The growing popularity of this incipient religious-diasporic construct has been bolstered by the presence of an ever-increasing number of Muslims living in Great Britain, France, the U.S., and other Western countries, many of whom have never visited their ancestral homelands in South Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, or other parts of the world.11 In addition, Muslims living in Western states with predominantly white Christian majorities generally are perceived as a relatively cohesive, racialized minority group, due in large measure to their distinctive religious rituals and
10
According to recent figures, approximately eighty percent of the British Muslim population is of South Asian origin. 11 According to recent figures, there are approximately 23 million Muslims in Europe, comprising approximately five percent of the population. Europes Muslim population has more than doubled in the past three decades and the rate of growth is accelerating (Savage, 2004, p. 26).
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ethno-national customs. Various forms of social exclusion experienced by Muslims in the West further contribute to such racialized depictions (Sheffer, 2003). Unlike Frances policy of mandatory assimilation/integration, the U.K. officially practices tolerance and multiculturalism. This relatively liberal policy is based on the idea of allowing and even encouraging immigrants to express their ethnic identities within the context of British society. Though Britains approach seems relatively inclusive on the surface, many critics view it as condescending and insufficient. As Huq (2006) contends, The idea of multicultural tolerance itself can be seen as a rather patronizing notion, implying that minorities and their superficial differences are there to be put up with, but only on limited terms as long as they do not get too powerful or have any real influence on society (p. 1920). Khan (2000) postulates that Britains majority/minority relationship is one of power and hegemony, which the dominant mainstream seeks to assert without much regard to the values, culture, and identity of minority populations (p. 30). Modood and Ahmad (2007) allege that British multiculturalism tends to ignore the real social divisions and causes of inequality, while marginalizing or discounting the role of religion and social class in the construction of minority identities and related social problems (p. 188). Compared to the British white population, which has an average 9% rate of unemployment, South Asians have much a higher rate of 21%, according to recent figures. In general, South Asians are more likely than their white cohorts to experience substandard housing and discrimination in education, employment, healthcare, and the criminal justice system (Robinson, 2005). Poverty and related social problems are particularly severe for Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, and other predominately Muslim nationalities in Great Britain. In fact, the unemployment rate for British Muslims is three times higher than that of any other religious/ethnic group (including Indian Hindus). Muslims in particular face a great deal of social discrimination in employment, education, and housing. As a result, they are often clustered in inner-city ghettos, which are perceived to be hotbeds for juvenile delinquency and crime, located mainly in major cities such as London, Bradford, Manchester, and Birmingham. Overcrowded and underserviced apartment buildings are standard housing for a majority of British Muslims, breeding social discontent and resentment of the status quo (Cesari, 2004). Moreover, Great Britain has had a long history of xenophobic and racist movements, which involve various hate crimes perpetuated against South Asians. For instance, Pakibashing, a popular euphemism for violent attacks on Pakistani young men by skinheads and other racist groups, became quite common in the late 1960s and seventies and continues to be a problem in the present era (Huq, 2006). In recent surveys conducted in British public schools, Muslim young men compared to other demographic groups reportedly experienced the highest rates of racial prejudice from their peers and teachers (Archer, 2001). Particularly since the terrorist attacks of 9/11/01 in New York City and 7/7/05 in London, Muslims in Britain have become the primary targets of racist antagonism (Islamophobia) based on ethno-religious and cultural difference (Robinson, 2005, p. 190-191). What has been dubbed the Bin Laden Effect has transformed virtually all British Muslims into a suspect category. Suspicion and hostility has been directed towards Muslim young men in particular, which has contributed to the process of reactive identity-formation (Cesari, 2004). Generally speaking, religion tends to be the primary basis for collective identity formation among a majority of British Asians (Anwar, 1998). However, studies have found that British Muslims (74%) are much more likely than Hindus (43%) and Sikhs (46%) to state, Religion was very important in the way they lived their lives (Robinson, 2005, p. 90). Meaningfully, 205
recent years have witnessed the re-Islamization (return to the fold) of Muslim youth in Great Britain and other Western states. In contrast to their elders, many in the new generation of Western-born and educated Muslims consider their religion to be significantly more important as an identity marker than any specific ethnicity, nationality, or citizenship status. Fundamentalist versions of Islam, in particular, have gained new sources of support among Muslim youth as a result of this generational religious revival (Roy, 2004).
African Diasporic Origins of Hip-Hop

The ideological and demographic origins of hip-hop are linked most obviously to the African Diaspora; i.e., the dispersal of Africans to the West via slavery, colonialism, and immigration. According to Gilroy (1993), the African Diaspora is neither culturally monolithic nor immutable. Rather, it has engendered the formation of transnational cultural hybridities throughout the Black Atlantic. As the result of centuries of slavery and colonialism, Africans were transported to various colonies and countries in the Americas and Western Europe, but in the process developed a double consciousness. In this regard, diasporic Africans are culturally connected not only to the native continent of their ancestors, but also to the adopted land of their birth. Several scholars (e.g., Smitherman, 1997; Keyes, 2008) have traced the origins of hiphop and rap back to the oral communication practices found among black tribes in subSaharan West Africa. Most notably, the traditional African griot or bard is described as a wandering orator/poet/musician that was responsible for delivering commentary on both cultural matters and current events. As Keyes recounts, the bard was a storyteller-singer and above all a historian who chronicles the nations history and transmits cultural traditions and mores through performance (p. 5). Smitherman states that African oral traditions strongly emphasized the power of the word in human life; thus contending that the rapper is a postmodern African griot (p. 4). Leland (2004) adds that the term hip (hipi) originated among the Wolof people of West Africa centuries ago. Literally meaning to open ones eyes, the concept of hip was transported to America by Senegalese and Gambian slaves. In addition, various researchers (e.g., Keyes 2008; Mitchell 2001) have pointed to hiphops diasporic antecedents in the slave culture of the American South, such as the calland-response field hollers and work songs of black slaves. Other hip-hop precursors emerging within southern black culture include charismatic black preaching and ritualized word games such as the dozens and signifyin.12 Such practices were largely transmitted from southern locales to northern urban centers as a result of the Great Migration of the early to mid-20th century. Additional cultural attributes reportedly contributing to hip-hop include scat singing, be bop jazz, skip-rope rhymes, Black Panthers slogans, blaxploitation films, and the music and lyrics of funk artists such as James Brown and George Clinton of Parliament Funkadelic (Mitchell, 2001; Rose, 2008). Importantly, hip-hop was not created in a social vacuum; rather, several distinct multicultural influences coalesced in the South Bronx of the mid-1970s, leading to the formation of hip-hop. From the very start, hip-hop incorporated hybridized frames that were both local
12
As Keyes (2008) explains, The dozens (also known in contemporary culture as snaps) is the oldest term for the game of exchanging insults. Furthermore, signifyin occurs when one makes an indirect statement about a situation or another person; the meaning is often allusive and, in some cases, indeterminate. (p. 10).
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and global, rhythmically articulated by diasporic African-Americans, Jamaican-Americans, and Puerto Ricans, within the street-level social spaces of impoverished inner-city neighborhoods. Hip-hop was diffused in New York City through a cross-cultural communication network, which included ubiquitous graffiti tags on subways and flyers posted on tenement walls, spreading information about an exciting new movement. In an era of modern communication technologies, this network eventually disseminated hip-hop beyond its original diasporic metropolitan base to other American cities in which marginalized black and Hispanic communitiespicked up on the tenor and energy in New York hip-hop (Rose, 2008, p. 26). Several of the earliest pioneers of hip-hop embraced Afrocentric perspectives that included diasporic imagery. Most noteworthy in this regard was Afrika Bambaataa (Kevin Donavan), a former Bronx gang leader who adopted the name of a legendary African Zulu tribal chief (Keyes, 2002). As a result of being inspired by African history and depictions of mighty Zulu warriors in popular culture, Bambaataa established the Universal Zulu Nation (UZN) in 1974. The group became a tribal-like association of DJs, graffiti artists, breakdancers, and homeboys. Acting as a kind of quasi-religious fraternal organization, UZN actively promoted the peaceful resolution of conflicts among gangs, crews, and other inner-city rivals (George, 1998). Popularly known as the godfather of hip-hop, Bambaataa was artistically eclectic and sampled music from Africa, the Caribbean, and even German sources - such as the pioneering electronic band, Kraftwerk. Bambaataas music reflected and reinforced his stated philosophical commitment to global unity. He framed the hip-hop movement as authentically pan-African, which apparently sparked its growth (Keyes, 2002).
Muslim Diasporic Origins of Hip-Hop

Along with the African Diaspora, another important frame found in hip-hop is the relatively new concept of the Muslim Diaspora. One of the most important ideological influences on the development of hip-hop was the Black Muslim movement, which includes such militant sects as the Nation of Islam and the Nations of Gods and Earths. Founded in Detroit in 1930 as a highly patriarchal, black-separatist movement, the Nation of Islam eventually became the best-known Black Muslim faction under the leadership of prophet Elijah Mohammad and his charismatic lieutenant, Malcolm X. Despite subsequent schisms in the movement and Malcolms assassination by rival Black Muslims in 1965, the Nation of Islam made substantial inroads into urban ghettos across the country by the late sixties and seventies. The Last Poets, a group of Black Muslim political activists from Harlem, released several poetic spoken-word albums in the late sixties that combined Afrocentric/Islamic imagery with highly innovative, yet provocative, language. In their most famous piece, Niggers are Scared of Revolution, the group pioneered very rapid staccato-style rhymes; a style that eventually became quite common in rap music. In addition, the group effectively sought to positively re-appropriate the N word from white racists, thus serving as an early model for later-day hip-hop/rap performers to flip the script (i.e., reframe the meaning of the term from pejorative when used by whites to empowering when used by blacks in certain situations). Several of hip-hops subcultural pioneers embraced the Black Muslim movement and were particularly inspired by the poetic polemics of Malcolm X and the brash boasts of Mohammad Ali (Mitchell, 2001; Rose, 2008). In the South Bronx of the 1970s, the Nation
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of Islam became highly influential among former gang members (most notably, Afrika Bambaataa), due in large measure to the sects efforts to deter street violence and end gang warfare (Keyes, 2002). By the early 1980s, many hip-hop artists were citing both Afrocentric and Black Muslim influences. For example, the Long Island rap band, Public Enemy, often utilized the political slogans of the Nation of Islam, Malcolm X, and the Black Panthers. Using angry countercultural tones, the band embraced both black pride and the African Diaspora in the context of opposing oppression. The bands 1989 single, Fight the Power, claimed that white rednecks had sought to dominate blacks for the past four hundred years; i.e., from the beginning of African slavery in North America to the present era. In response to such racist tyranny, the band called for power to the people no delay, to make everybody see in order to fight the powers that be. The song gained wide exposure after being featured in Spike Lees highly popular hip-hop laden film, Do the Right Thing (1989). In recent years, a growing number of African-American hip-hop performers have embraced Islam. Though the Nation of Islam is still a major factor in hip-hop, many performers have converted to more mainstream and relatively inclusive versions of Sunni Islam. Muslim American rappers such as Chuck D, Ice Cube, Nas, Mos Def, the Wu Tang Clan, Black Star, the Roots, Common, Eve, and Paris, often incorporate various Islamic themes and messages into their songs, CD liner notes, and public interviews. Several hip-hop aficionados contend that the language of rap and the Quran are very similar in structure and style (Alim, 2005, p. 266). Mos Def (Dante Smith), who converted to Islam at age thirteen in his native Brooklyn, claims that both hip-hop and the Quran contain concise lyrical meanings that are easily disseminated in highly cadenced fashion. Hip-hop and the texts of Quran are both forms of poetry, he states, and both possess a rhyme scheme that conveys essential information (quoted in Halila, 2005, p. 38). Islam has even been described as hip-hops official religion (Alim, 2005, p. 264).
Masculinity in Hip-Hop
The origins of hip-hop are predominately male and masculine, due in large measure to the fact that the earliest performers were mostly African-American and Hispanic young men (including many former street-gang members).13 Even the term rap in African-American argot initially referred to any type of highly romantic or sexualized comments and dialogic interactions, typically involving a male suitor attempting to win the affections of a woman (Kochman, 1972). By the late 1960s, the term had been effectively reinvented to mean any kind of strong, aggressive, highly fluent, powerful talk (Smitherman 1997, p. 4), thus emphasizing masculine identity markers. As Kiesling (2004) observes, Power is one of the defining characteristics of masculinity in most societies (p. 232). The reconstructed masculine meaning of the term was best exemplified by The Temptations politically charged R&B hit, Ball of Confusion (1970), which included the male-centric lyric, rap on, brother, rap on. According to Smitherman, One finds both uses of the term in todays black speech community, and of course, rappers represent both meanings in their artistic productions (p. 4).
13
It was not until the late 1980s that any major female stars emerged on the American hip-hop scene. Salt N Peppa and Queen Latifah were two of the earliest female hip-hop acts; releasing their debut albums in 1988 and 1989 respectively.
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Early in its history, hip-hop began featuring not only DJs sampling and mixing musical snippets and beats from mainstream records, but also MCs (masters of ceremonies) jivetalking over and between records. Initially hired to oversee dances and aid in crowd control, MCs were depicted as powerful (i.e., hyper-masculine) figures that quickly gained cult followings based largely on their verbal skills. Indeed, rapping MCs soon overtook DJs in both fame and popularity. As Strode and Wood (2008) have noted, rap quickly became an integral part of the hip-hop experience, due in large measure to its onomatopoetic articulation of forceful, but highly relevant, rhyming words. According to the authors, rap music transforms language into action by either moving people (both emotionally and physically) or offering an alternative way to perceive and live in the world (p. 3). Significantly, early hip-hop was largely based on a highly competitive atmosphere that encouraged hegemonic forms of masculinity. Ritualistic hip-hop events and practices included gang-inspired (though mostly non-violent) turf wars between rival DJs/MCs, spirited contests between breakdancing crews (whose participants were known as b-boys and b-girls), and graffiti tags spray-painted by rival crews. There were also regularly scheduled public battles between competing rappers, which typically involved spontaneous freestyle exchanges. Such battling included a series of verbal-rhyming exchanges designed to enhance the status of one rapper at the reputational expense of another. Competitors often employed seemingly satirical sexist and heterosexist insults (e.g., bitch, faggot) for the purpose of inflicting symbolic emasculation on their male opponents (Fitzpatrick, 2007). In each of these endeavors, the main purpose was to achieve respect within the subculture by dominating and humiliating rival rappers. Such hip-hop-related pursuits provided the arena for the expression and affirmation of masculinity, LaBoskey (2001) observes. A related rationale for such competitive activities was to dominate a particular neighborhood, at least symbolically. Indeed, the neighborhood is especially important as an identity marker for youth, as localized spatial orientations tend to depict non-residents as suspicious or unwelcome outsiders. Such territoriality can be best understood as a spatial strategy to effect, influence, or control resources and people by controlling area (Sack, cited in Hesse et al., 1992, p. 172). Numerous demographic factors have been found to fuel spatial territoriality, including differences in status, social class, race, ethnicity, religion, subculture, and local street-gang affiliations; which tend to be strongest among young men living in lowincome locales (Cohen, 1988). Thus, identifying with ones neighborhood can become a form of defensive street masculinity, especially when young men perceive of themselves as threatened or under assault by spatial outsiders or dominant majority groups (Watt and Stenson, 1998, p. 253). Hyper-masculine pursuits associated with drug dealing, pimping, gang banging, and gun slinging provided lyrical fodder for the emerging sub-genre of gangsta rap, beginning in the late-1980s. The crack cocaine epidemic, widely heralded in the media as a modern-day black plague, had the effect of conferring prestige and respect to delinquent ghetto-entrepreneurs, at least among their subcultural cohorts in the hood. Rap artists such as N.W.A. (Niggas With Attitude), Public Enemy, the Wu Tang Clan, and Tupac Shakur tapped into the growing discontent and anger of black males in particular. With unprecedented numbers of black men facing arrest and incarceration, sympathetic scholars and other observers portrayed gangsta rap as a poetic reflection of the hoods harsh new realities. Rose (1993), for instance, described gangsta rappers as modern-day prophets of rage, rebelling against hegemonic racist attitudes and institutions in the U.S. 209
Paradoxically, hip-hops growing allure to white American teens in suburbia was largely due to its black ghetto mystique and distinctly subcultural focus on achieving power and respect in the hood, which included such iconographic features as gangs, guns, and greed. These hyper-masculine symbols seemed to resonate with alienated young males in particular, apparently eager for salacious entertainment and fantasy escapism in a reputedly authentic urban milieu.
British Hip-Hop Reconfigurations

Beginning in the early-1980s, hip-hop started moving overseas, which was initially viewed with disdain by many West European cultural-purists who depicted rap music derisively as simply another hegemonic fad in a long line of American pop-culture imports (Androutsopoulos and Scholz, 2002). Though some of the earliest rap music produced in Great Britain and other West European countries had indeed mimicked American musical styles and lyrical approaches, much of the rap in such countries was soon recontextualized to better reflect local environments and influences. As Mitchell (2001) has observed, hip-hop produced outside of the U.S. typically combines African American slang and rhythms with local vernaculars, indigenous musical idioms, and concerns and sensibilities that are unique to particular cultural settings. The British hip-hop subculture has certainly been influenced by the original American archetype, but much of the scene developed separately in parallel fashion in the early 1980s, due to the presence of sound systems and dubbing styles first imported to the U.K. by black Jamaican immigrants. Many of the themes of American gangsta rap, such as gunplay and car jacking, were relatively alien to British culture and met with little success in domestic rap forms. Consequently, the blackness of British rap initially relied more on the AfroCaribbean diasporic experience, while focusing its social critique primarily on neo-colonialism, imperialism, and institutional racism rather than gang-related violence or misogyny (Hesmondhalgh and Melville, 2001). South Asians first became intimately involved with the emerging British hip-hop subculture in the early 1980s, primarily as graffitists and breakdancers. Very few were involved in rapping or music production initially, though circumstances changed by the early nineties with the creation of South Asian rap bands. One of the first such bands was Hustlers HC, founded in 1991 in West London. Composed entirely of Sikhs, the band largely embraced the look and style of African-American homeboys in the hood, while lyrically asserting ethnic pride in their diasporic South Asian roots and Sikh religious identity. Notably, Hustlers HC is one of the few non-black British rap bands that have succeeded in crossing over and garnering popularity among Afro-Caribbean hip-hoppers (Hesmondhalgh and Melville, 2001). In the song, Big Trouble in Little Asia, Hustlers HC focuses on localized issues such as British racism among the white majority and the need for pan-Asian solidarity to counteract such exclusionary practices. Utilizing ghetto tales akin to African-American rap, there is a clarion call for pan-ethnic unity among diasporic South Asians, including Sikhs, Hindus, and Muslims. However, the song is also critical of those who sell-out, including fellow Asians the band labels coconuts; i.e., those who are brown on the outside but white on the inside. Thus, Hustlers HC is framing their collective identity as authentically South Asian; i.e., keeping it real, which is one of the core values of global hip-hop. As the band raps: 210
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Hey yo I see big trouble down in Little Asia For an Asian growing up things get crazier and crazier For my culture does not fit in with yours Your corrupt culture makes my rich culture look poor.
The Asian Underground

The mid-to-late 1990s witnessed unprecedented chart success for what became known as the Asian Underground (or Asian Kool), which was strongly influenced by the musical genre of bhangra . As an indigenous form of folk music that originated in Indias Sikhdominated Punjab region of northwestern India, bhangra was later fused with hip-hop, reggae, dub, soul and other black musical genres by diasporic second-generation Asians seeking to create a new hybridized musical form (Maira, 2000). British South Asian artists such as Talvin Singh, Punjabi MC, Cornershop, and the Asian Dub Foundation (ADF) became prime examples of this new hybridized movement. Importantly, this scene tended to open up a musical dialogue between Asian diasporic (especially Punjabi) music and African diasporic sounds in Britain. In this respect, the racial hybridity of the scene offered possibilities for the non-exhaustive identifications of British and black and Asian as politically available to Asian youth (Dudrah, 2002, p. 566). Panjabi MC, who combines hip-hop with bhangra, is the son of first-generation Indian Sikh immigrants from the Punjab. Born in Coventry, England as Rajinder Singh, he first started identifying with hip-hop as a young teen, subsequently trying his skills as a rapper in the early 1990s. His parents strongly disapproved of his new hobby, being overly concerned about their son standing out in the mostly white, working-class town of Coventry. In particular, his parents feared for his safety, concerned that racist skinheads would likely target him if he were dressed in hip-hop attire. Due to his relatively unique status as an Indian rapper, others in the hip-hop scene often referred to him by the nickname, Panjabi MC. Though his initial musical compositions were mostly pure hip-hop (i.e., African-American) in style, he quickly began to include vocals and instrumental samples from traditional Indian music.14 Panjabi MCs first major single, Rootz, has a twin diasporic theme, expressing pride in his Indian homeland, while at the same time reflecting the (hip-hop inflected) title of Alex Haleys classic African diasporic tome and famed mini-series. The song, released in the early nineties, includes sexually charged lyrics and black argot in the style of American hiphop, which generated controversy among religiously devout Muslims in particular. Visiting India for the first time in the mid-1990s, Panjabi MC collaborated with native Punjabi musicians. Consequently, he released his first major hit single in the U.K. in 1997, Mirza Part 2, which mixes Punjabi- and English-language lyrics. More recently, Panjabi has collaborated
14
For more on Panjabi MCs background, see http://www.bna-germany.com/panjabi.html?&L=1 and http://www.answers.com/topic/panjabi-mc
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with the African-American rapper, Jay-Z, on the highly successful Beware of the Boys single in 2003, thus propelling him to international fame and stardom. Similarly, the Asian Dub Foundation (ADF) often incorporates musical instruments, melodies, and beats from South Asia, Africa, and the West in syncretistic fashion. The band, which started out as a community youth organization, recorded their first album in 1994. ADF is directly involved in anti-racist activism and emphasizes common concerns of AfroCaribbeans and South Asians in their songs and statements. Several of ADFs songs have South Asian diasporic themes, such as Rebel Warrior, which was released in 1995. Bidrohi, a poem written in the 1920s by Kazi Nazrul Islam, an advocate for Indian Independence, inspired the song, which focuses on various forms of prejudice and discrimination directed against South Asians in the contemporary U.K. ADFs best-selling 2003 album, Enemy of the Enemy, contains the track Fortress Europe, which is a blistering critique of restrictive immigration policies in Britain and other countries. Like many anti-racist campaigners in the U.K., members of ADF advocate that the sociopolitical category of black should include South Asians, along with Afro-Caribbeans (Swendenburg, 2001). Founding member Pandit G (John Pandit) contends that black-inflected identities for British Asians convey both coolness and a capacity for rebellion. There is no strong white Western notion of cool amongst youth (in Britain), he observes. Largely black identity is mixed up with being anti-establishment (quoted in Otchet, 2003).
British Asians Negotiating Blackness

Social scientists have speculated on the underlying reasons why diasporic South Asians in the U.K. (especially young males) increasingly are constructing black-inflected identities, while at the same time tending to avoid any explicit self-identification as black. Gilroy (1987) observes that black styles, music, dress, dance fashion, and language become a determining force shaping the styles, music, dress, dance, fashion, and language of urban Britain as a whole (p. 155). Huq (2006) contends that British Asians are reconfiguring what it means to be Asian by adopting urban black stylistic codes such as American hip-hop derived fashion and language, often ironically (p. 24). However, Muslim and Hindu South Asians apparently have adopted such black-inflected hip-hop identities for substantially different reasons; responding to their own particular social/personal needs for collective-identity affirmation, while reacting to disparate societal stereotypes involving the intersection of ethnicity, gender, and religion. Significantly, research has revealed that the white majority in England increasingly perceives South Asian Muslims with great suspicion and fear, viewing them as the ultimate other. Largely due to the relatively recent terrorist attacks in New York City in 2001 and London in 2005, Muslim young men in particular are increasingly stereotyped as militant, aggressive, and macho. Indeed, there is a polarized representation of Asian Muslim men as either Islamic fundamentalists or drug-related criminals (Ramji, 2007, p. 1173). But while public discourse in Britain often attributes such negative hyper-masculine traits to young Muslim males, other South Asians (particularly Hindus) tend to be perceived by the majority as effeminate, due mainly to their mostly middle class status and positive reputation as achievers in school (Archer. 2001, p. 81). In the case of Muslim youth, the transnational identity of being Muslim has mostly superseded the trans-ethnic British concept of non-whites having a black identity, at least
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within Britains official demographic discourse (Dwyer, 1999). Nevertheless, black-inflections have continued unabated within British Muslim identities and even grown more acute in recent years, due apparently to the appeal of cool black imagery and suave (i.e., romanticized) depictions of masculinity in hip-hop. Like the slang term hip, the subcultural concept of cool reportedly has African Diasporic/African-American origins.15 Meaningfully, a new hybridized identity has emerged in Western Europe that is often described as Cool Islam, which is designed to promote a more modern, decidedly less fundamentalist collective identity for young Muslim men in particular (Sardar, 2006). Framing Islam as cool is an apparent attempt to counteract popular stereotypes of Muslim young men as overly traditional, anti-Western, puritanical, menacing, and socially-repressed. In many respects, Cool Islam is directly linked to hip-hop and a black-inflected identity that is reflected in the musical tastes, values, and attitudes of British Muslim young men. In Great Britain and other West European countries, cool (i.e., black-inflected) Muslim fashions have emerged recently that incorporate syncretistic hip-hop/Islamic slogans on colorful t-shirts, jackets, and baseball caps, which are often written in Arabic script. Examples include Islam 4 Real, Property of Allah, and 1 Ummah. Hip-hop, which connotes enlightenment (hip) with fun (hop), seems to be tailor-made for the new Cool Islam. According to Sardar (2006): Cool Islam expresses its identity through hip-hop and rap, and is heavily influenced by an underground Muslim hip-hop movement in the U.SCool Islam uses hip-hop to convey a political and religious message: all Muslims are united; Islam is a pragmatic and rational faith; Muslims are not helpless victims, but have creative ways to resist and subvert imperialism. In contrast, non-Muslim British Asian youths apparently have adopted hip-hop and blackinflected identities mostly to counteract seemingly positive stereotypes found in the U.K. and other countries. Maira (2000) notes that Indian Hindu young men are often typecast as passive and emasculated, while black (African) men are typecast as exhibiting hyper-masculine personalities and demeanors. Such socially-constructed machismo becomes the object of racialized desire, and simultaneously, of racialized fear (p. 337). Similarly, Eglash (2002) observes that Indian males are often stereotyped as nerds, thus being perceived as overly concerned with professional advancement and lacking passion and sexual prowess. Essentially, they are depicted as the opposite of hip and cool due, in large measure, to their alleged subservient, emotionless, and circumspect demeanor. Though white majorities are often fascinated by the alleged spirituality of Hindu South Asians, such portrayals focus on the exotic or strange (i.e., alien) aspects of Hindu religious practices. In contrast, black style is framed as the embodiment of authenticity, spontaneity, and localized rebellion, particularly in the guise of hip-hop. Following this logic, whites are socially positioned between the two extremes of black primitivism and Oriental rationalism/exoticism. Thus, Hindu-Indian males living in diaspora are relatively prone to embrace hip-hop, rhythm and blues, reggae, dancehall, and other black genres of music in order to partially shed their exoticized status and effectively achieve a redefined sense of cultural equilibrium
15
For instance, American black jazz musicians and their fans first popularized cool during the 1940s; defining it as a laid back style that was implicitly linked to their diasporic origins.
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in their ethno-religious-gender identities. Rejecting their tradition-bound, desexualized public personas, they are negotiating and reconstructing their collective identity by embracing the overly sexualized, black-inflected subculture of hip-hop.
Global Desi Hip-Hop Network

Collective identity negotiations are evident in the eclectic performances of the British Indian DJ/rapper, Apache Indian (Seven Kapur). Heavily influenced by reggae and other black Jamaican genres of music, he often toasts (raps) in Jamaican patois but also samples Indian music from Bollywood (i.e., Indias Hindi-language film industry). Highly charismatic and multicultural in his public persona, his stage-name effectively synthesizes East Indian diasporic origins with an American Indian representation. The title of his first album, No Reservations (1993), reflects this cultural dualism with ironic wit. Notably, the album was recorded at Bob Marleys studio in Kingston, Jamaica. The album includes raps about controversial issues that relate directly to the Indian/Desi Diaspora, including arranged marriages, the caste system, racism, and AIDS. On the album Time for Change (2005), he combines Rastafarian-influenced songs such as Calling to Jah with Hindu-themed songs such as Om Numah Shivaya. Returning to his diasporic homeland in 1993, Apache Indian performed for tens of thousands of South Asian fans and was greeted by Mahatma Gandhis granddaughter, who compared his potential in India to that of her grandfather (Mitchell, 2001, p. 63). Paradoxically, Apache Indians stage identity has been framed to include a contemplative Hindu Indian mystic/polemicist, an aggressive Native American tribal warrior, and a virile/hypermasculine black-Jamaican dancehall rapper. Importantly, the Desi-Hindu diasporic hip-hop scene has blossomed not only in the U.K., but also in the U.S. and other countries that have significant South Asian populations. Prominent Desi hip-hop artists based in the U.S. include The1Shanti, DJ Rekha, Malabar, MC Kabir, DLo, and Karmacy. Hip-hop has provided an important outlet for the expression of South Asian American identity, states Ajay Nair, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania who is an expert on Desi hip-hop. We no longer need to succumb to the narrow definitions of South Asian Americanness constructed for us. Hip-hop allows us to define the world as we see it.16 In recent years, several Indian-American hip-hop artists have collaborated closely with their hip-hop counterparts in Britain, along with popular musicians and record producers in India. As a result, they have forged new transnational network linkages and alliances that have facilitated the growth of a Desi-diasporic identity that includes both South Asian-Hindu and black inflections. Prominent Desi hip-hop MC, The1Shanti (Marko Dutta), was born in Brooklyn to IndianAmerican parents but developed a strong interest in hip-hop at a young age. The title of his first album, Blaxploitation (2000), revealed strong affinities with African-American culture and related multicultural conceptions of blackness. He joined the Desi hip-hop collective, the Dum Dum Project (DDP) in 2001, which released the hybrid-entitled album, Spiritual Bling. By combining spiritual with bling (i.e., hip-hop slang for flashy or ostentatious jewelry), the album is framed as a cultural synthesis of two seemingly antithetical attributes:
16
Quoted in Desi Hip-Hop, available online at http://www.littleindia.com/news/137/ARTICLE/1340/2006-10-12.html
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Hindu exoticism and hip-hop authenticity. The1Shanti rapped on many of the albums tracks, including the popular 2003 single, Punjabi Five-0. The single, which combines Indian raga music with hip-hop beats, quickly zoomed to #1 on the BBC Radio One charts. During his stint with DDP, The1Shanti relocated to London and began collaborating with noted Indian film composer and record producer, A.R. Rahman, and various Bollywood singers such as Asha Puthli. After traveling extensively and promoting Desi hip-hop fusion in Mumbai, Bangkok, London, New York, and other global cities, hip-hops pioneering diasporic godfather, Afrika Bambaataa, dubbed The1Shanti India Bambaataa in 2006. Hip hop is the most influential force of our generation, The1Shanti said in response to being bestowed the honorary title. Bambaataas blessing lets me know Im playing an important role in pushing the boundaries of how far hip hop can grow.17
Hip-Hop G-Had
Fun-Da-Mental - one of the best-known British South Asian rap groups - emerged in the early nineties and was originally signed by British Asian-owned and operated Nation Records. Composed of second-generation British Pakistani Muslims, the band emphasizes both Afrocentric and Islamocentric themes by explicitly identifying with the Black Panthers and the Black Muslims. The groups 1993 single Wrath of the Black Man, for instance, samples a Malcolm X speech and mirrors the hyper-masculine black rage of many American rappers. Going further, the bands 2006 album, All is War, prominently features the syncretistic term G-had, which synergistically combines the African-American gangsta frame with the Muslim term jihad (which means struggle or holy war). Labeled by the British media as the Asian Public Enemy, Fun-Da-Mentals raps are inspired by black militancy but lyrically focus on South Asian/Middle Eastern issues. Though the name of the band is a reference to Islamic fundamentalism, it is tied paradoxically to the seemingly contradictory themes of pleasure (fun) and thought (mental). The bands primary symbol, the crescent, evokes not only Muslim diasporic religious imagery, but also the national flag of the members parental-Pakistani origins (Hesmondhalgh and Melville, 2001). The band samples Indian film music extensively, thereby seeking to fuse AfricanAmerican and South Asian idioms. Several of the groups best-known songs (e.g., Mother India, Mother Africa Feeding Sista India) reflect diasporic longings for an ancestral/cultural homeland, thus mirroring the African diasporic frames enunciated by many black rappers in the U.S. Countryman, filmed in Pakistan by members of the band, narrates the story of a South Asian migrant who encounters discrimination and substandard housing upon arriving in the promised land of Great Britain (Mitchell, 2001). The bands lead singer, Aki Nawaz, recounts in a recent interview that he was born and raised in a relatively small English city that was highly segregated and often torn by racial strife. As a result of experiencing social exclusion and xenophobia directly, Nawaz claims that he decided to dedicate his life to opposing racism in all its forms. Im of a Pakistani background but Ive been brought up in Bradford and that gives you a cruder political view, he says. The great revolution, or whatever you want to call it, has to happen in the West (quoted in Saini, 2004).
17
Quoted in Afrika Bambaataa Passess the Torch To The1Shanti As India Bambaataa, available online at http://www.prleap.com/pr/46756/
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One of the main themes found in Fun-Da-Mentals music is the multicultural frame of the Asiatic black man - a hyper-masculine, racialized-hybrid loosely based on the teachings of Elijah Muhammad. The white devil, a Black Muslim term of derision, is alluded to in raps by the band and blamed for racial oppression throughout the world. Embracing both African and Asian diasporic frames in the song Tribal Revolution, the band calls for a black revolution from Kingston to Brixton, and from Bombay to L.A., to the roll of the dhol (a traditional Indian/Punjabi drum). The song, Meera Mazab, explicitly endorses Muslim pride, as illustrated in the lyrics, I was born a Muslim, and Im still livin as a Muslim/My spirituality determines reality. The focus of the song is on the need for panIslamic unity and collective opposition to American/British/Christian hegemony, particularly within the Middle East and South Asia. Such lyrics further demonstrate the bands belief in a common Asian/African/Muslim struggle against the West: Im a soldier in the name of Allah, so put down the cross and pick up the X Back in the days of the slave ships you had us whipped, raped and lynched Took away the Quran, you gave us a Bible, telling me Jesus is calling Selling me books of make believe stories where people like me dont seem to have glory Theyre retailing Christianity and feeding you insanity Fun-Da-mental employs relatively strong and angry language in critiquing the West and even compares Osama bin Laden to Argentine Marxist Ernesto Che Guevara in at least one song (Che Bin), thus revealing a revolutionary stance towards the U.K. and other Western countries. By referring to soldiers of Allah, the band is framing their sociopolitical agenda in the traditional hyper-masculine idiom of war. Though Fun-Da-Mental seems to stop short of advocating suicide bombings and other terrorist tactics, various songs (most notably, Cookbook DIY) propose that there is a moral equivalency between Western preemptive invasions and aerial bombing campaigns of Middle Eastern countries on the one hand and unconventional attacks on Western targets by frustrated, alienated Muslims on the other. Its like a mafia who say for us to do anything is legitimate but any resistance towards us is illegitimate, Nawaz claims in a 2006 interview. So you have legalized terrorism and illegal terrorism (quoted in Brown and Torres, 2006). Other British Muslim rappers overtly promote a radical Islamist ideology in their songs and videos. For instance, Blakstone is a multiethnic hip-hop group with diasporic roots in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and several other countries. Some experts have noted that Blakstones lyrics mirror the views of Hizb ut-Tahrir (Party of Liberation) - a pan-Islamist political movement that advocates the reestablishment of an Islamic Khalifah (caliphate), i.e., a theocratic empire ruled by Islamic law (ONeill, 2006). The band often emphasizes the need for a united ummah (or community of Muslim believers) to stand in opposition to blasphemous Western nations they describe as kuffars (unbelievers). Lyrics from the song, Bring Back Islam, include the following: No Khalifah. Where are we heading? Without Islam were stressing, implement Allahs blessing, thats what I am addressing. Apart from this kuffar scheme. bring Islam back to the scene. Lets unite the ummah, following only the Quran and the Sunnah. Even
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if all the kuffars got together, they still couldnt stop this ummah. We love Islam more than we love life. Even more ideologically extreme than Blakstone is the British-Pakistani hip-hop group, Sheikh Terra and the Soul Salah Crew. The video for their best-known song, Dirty Kuffar, was widely distributed on YouTube and other video-sharing sites beginning in February 2004. Paradoxically, the video features ski-masked rappers toting both guns and the Quran. In an obvious attempt to inflame passions, the video includes CNN video footage of American soldiers gleefully shooting Muslims in Iraq, Chechens killing Russians, and the Twin Towers exploding while manic laughter is heard in the background. Towards the beginning of the video, the hybridized phrase G-Had flashes on the screen, superimposed on a background of al-Qaidas black flag. Meaningfully, bin Laden is shown in a favorable light, morphing into a great lion. In the video, the rappers encourage their fellow Muslims to throw them (kuffars) in the fire where they will burn, burn, burn. One scene shows a roadside bomb blowing up an American tank, with the caption kill the crusaders. Several different political leaders from around the world are labeled kuffars in the video, including George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Tony Blair, Vladimir Putin, Ariel Sharon, and Hosni Mubarak. One scene includes footage of Ronald Reagans attempted assassination. The video effectively fuses radical Jihadist imagery with hip-hop, thereby incorporating many American rap themes of hypermasculine rage, defiance, and gunplay. Thus, the video generates a hybridized black-inflected frame that is designed to appeal to diasporic Muslim young men in particular. In contrast, several relatively moderate (yet religiously observant) Muslim hip-hop artists in Great Britain and elsewhere have overtly rejected the approach of Sheikh Terra and other extremist rappers. Rakin Fetuga of the British Muslim rap band, Mecca2Medina (M2M), for instance, contends that violent Jihadists are attempting to hijack Muslim hip-hop. He alleges that songs such as Dirty Kuffar only fuel dangerous stereotypes about Muslim youth among the British populace. As he explains, Some people actually believe that Muslims are terrorists, just as some ignorant young Muslims believe that violence is religiously justified. It is important to engage with these two groups (quoted in Mumisa, p. 2007). In sharp contrast to militant Islamist hip-hop groups promoting a violent struggle against the West, many of the songs of M2M frame Islam as a religion of peace. Moreover, M2M emphasizes that they have Muslim-diasporic ties with hip-hop artists around the world. For instance, the band refers to Raihan - a highly popular Malaysian-Muslim rap group in the song, Raihan Do You Know Him? Employing black-inflected/hip-hop argot, M2M raps, P.E.A.C.E Islam, Islam is all about peace. M2M and Raihan in the house.
Conclusion
Over the past few decades, the popularity of hip-hop has exploded worldwide and generated myriad sub-genres and musical variations, thanks in large measure to hybrid experiments conducted by subcultural entrepreneurs; i.e., rap musicians and their fans in a variety of global locales. Young people of different races, religions, and ethnic backgrounds have gravitated to hip-hop, for a variety of personal, socio-cultural, and political reasons. In particular, many British South Asian young men have been enticed by hip-hops perceived ability to generate respect and admiration from their subcultural peers - most notably as
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rappers, b-boys, graffiti artists, and knowledgeable aficionados and fans of the coolest rap bands. In effect, such young men are seeking to accumulate subcultural capital, which refers to the interactive processes of achieving in-group prestige within a subculture. Put simply, subcultural capital confers status on its owner in the eyes of the relevant beholder (Thornton, 1997, p. 202). Accruing subcultural capital involves spurning both high-culture standards and the pop-culture mainstream, while maintaining personal tastes deemed to be authentic by ones subcultural peers (Weinzierl and Muggleton, 2003). The potential for achieving subcultural capital, particularly when dwelling within a country that stereotypes and marginalizes you, is undoubtedly alluring to British South Asians. Rather than blindly cloning the African-American model, British Asian rappers have synthesized particular frames of global hip-hop with their own musical traditions, idioms, issues, and symbols. Though Britains hip-hop subculture has managed to retain much of the original blackness and hyper-masculinity of the American archetype, Desi-diasporic rappers have effectively transformed those characteristics to express their own lived realities. Indeed, this paper has clearly demonstrated that much of the allure of Desi hip-hop is based on its intimate association with African-diasporic imagery and angry defiance in the face of adversity, along with the related diasporic fascination with a real or imagined homeland in South Asia. Physically detached from their native ancestral lands, British Asians appear eager to identify with this theme, as evidenced in the lyrics of Desi rap songs and texts of interviews analyzed in this paper. Recontextualized to better reflect the demographic and sociopolitical conditions of Great Britain, hip-hop has been appropriated by British Asian teens and young adults living in a state of social exclusion and cultural flux. In essence, diasporic youth are negotiating ways in which to bypass their respective host countrys restrictive social stratification system. Diasporic frames have played a major role in diffusing locally produced, recontextualized forms of hip-hop among young British Asian men. Faced with widespread prejudice and economic marginalization, many have sought to establish their own unique identities that reflect the hybrid character of their existence. Moving beyond the bipolar model of global versus local, the collective identities of British Asians reflect what Bhabha (1994) has termed the third space in which cultural identities are located, contested, and elaborated. The perceived exoticism associated with many diasporic people of color is compounded by stereotypes that are particularly pronounced regarding British Hindus. The model minority tag, though generally depicted as a positive stereotype, paradoxically perpetuates the image of Indian men as desexualized, passive, and disembodied figures. British Hindu young men tend to resent such depictions and apparently find solace in assuming a black-inflected/masculine identity via hip-hop. Wanting to be perceived as hip or cool, such youths have appropriated hip-hop as a means for reconfiguring their identity. In contrast, British Muslim youth appear to have created, embraced, and consumed blackinflected hip-hop music and related commodities for other reasons. Probably a majority of British Muslim youths identify with hip-hop as a strategic means for counteracting negative stereotypes that depict them as threatening and overly traditional (i.e., socially repressed). Muslim hip-hoppers in the U.K. have thus incorporated African/Asian/Middle Eastern frames into a broadly defined black-inflected philosophy, which is designed to bolster their emerging transnational Muslim identity. This identity is reactive in some respects, being a collective
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response to Islamophobia, poverty, job discrimination, overcrowded housing in the British hood, and related social problems found in Great Britain. The Cool Islam movement, as expressed in hip-hop and related fashion trends, frames Muslim youth as hip and effectively Western-oriented; thus seeking to counter negative stereotypes of Muslim young men as inherently fundamentalist, dangerous, and puritanical. On the other hand, radical British Muslims have effectively utilized the hyper-masculine image of the gangsta which has been glamorized in hip-hop folklore for years, as a new symbol of subcultural defiance directed towards the West. In effect, the inner-city thug has become the global revolutionary for many alienated Muslim young men. In sum, diasporic South Asians are effectively located in the British multicultural zone of ethno-racial ambiguity and are attempting to renegotiate their collective identities. British Asian young men appear to be seeking an authentic sense of national entitlement and cultural belonging. Hip-hop, with its multivariate connotations, brings them this affirmation, albeit in subcultural form. Embracing a black-inflected masculine identity via hip-hop is one sure way to assert a more dynamic persona, challenge authority, informally register dissent, and implicitly defy stereotypes both negative and positive. In this sense, complex hybrid identities are being constructed in the context of subcultural values and diasporic discourses, drawing simultaneously from South Asian, African-American, and British frames of reference.
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About the Author

Prof. David Drissel David Drissel is a professor of social sciences at Iowa Central Community College in Fort Dodge, Iowa. His undergraduate work included a double major in political science and sociology. His graduate studies focused on comparative politics, international relations, social change and development, and social movements. Research interests include transnational social movements and computer-mediated communication, nations/states undergoing political/economic transition, youth subcultures and collective identities, the global politics of Internet governance, juvenile delinquency and subterranean values, diasporic youth and social networking, and the role of interactive media and popular culture in mobilizing social networks. Professor Drissel is a two-time Fulbright Scholar who has studied extensively in China and the Czech/Slovak Republics, among many other countries. A frequent speaker and conference participant, he has had several papers published in various academic journals and compilations. He is an alumnus of the Oxford (University) Roundtable in Great Britain, where he presented a paper which was later published in the Cambridge Review of International Affairs.
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EDITORS
Mary Kalantzis, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA. Paul James, Globalism Institute, RMIT University, Australia
EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD Ien Ang, University of Western Sydney, Sydney, Australia. Joanna van Antwerpen, Research and Statistics, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Samuel Aroni, University of California, Los Angeles, USA. Susan Bridges, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong. Duane Champagne, University of California, Los Angeles, USA. Guosheng Y. Chen, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia. Jock Collins, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia. Bill Cope, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA. Heather Marion DCruz, Deakin University, Geelong, Australia. James Early, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., USA. Denise Ega-Kuehne, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, USA. Amareswar Galla, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. Grethe van Geffen, Seba Cultuurmanagement, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Barry Gills, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. Jackie Huggins, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. Andrew Jakubowicz, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia. Paul James, Globalism Institute, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia. Ha Jingxiong, Central University of Nationalities, Beijing, China. Mary Kalantzis, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA. Jack Levin, Northeastern University, Boston, USA. Cristina Poyatos Matas, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia. Peter McLaren, University of California, Los Angeles, USA. Joe Melcher, Xavier University of Louisiana, New Orleans, USA. Greg Meyjes, Solidaris Intercultural Services, Falls Church, USA. Walter Mignolo, Duke University, Durham, USA. Brendan OLeary, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA. Aihwa Ong, University of California, Berkeley, USA. Peter Phipps, Globalism Institute, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia. Ronald Prins, Bos en Lommer Neighbourhood Council, Amsterdam-West, The Netherlands. Peter Sellars, University of California, Los Angeles, USA. Michael Shapiro, University of Hawaii, Manoa, USA. David S. Silverman, Kansas Wesleyan University, Salina, USA. Martijn F.E. Stegge, Diversity Platform, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Geoff Stokes, Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia. Terry Threadgold, Cardiff University, Wales, UK. Mililani Trask, Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues for the Economic Council of the UN Assembly, Hawaii, USA. Marij Urlings, Inholland University, Amsterdam-Diemen, The Netherlands. Rob Walker, Keele University, Keele, UK. Ning Wang, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. Owens Wiwa, African Environmental and Human Development Agency, Toronto, Canada. Please visit the Journal website at http://www.Diversity-Journal.com for further information about the Journal or to subscribe.
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Hybridizing Hip-Hop in Diaspora: Young British South Asian Men Negotiating Black-Inflected Identities

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JOURNAL

in Organizations, Communities & Nations

Volume 10, Number 5

THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF DIVERSITY IN ORGANISATIONS, COMMUNITIES AND NATIONS

Research Focus and Methodology

THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF DIVERSITY IN ORGANISATIONS, COMMUNITIES AND NATIONS

British South Asians in Diaspora

THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF DIVERSITY IN ORGANISATIONS, COMMUNITIES AND NATIONS

Ethnicity, Race, and Religion

THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF DIVERSITY IN ORGANISATIONS, COMMUNITIES AND NATIONS

African Diasporic Origins of Hip-Hop

Muslim Diasporic Origins of Hip-Hop

THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF DIVERSITY IN ORGANISATIONS, COMMUNITIES AND NATIONS

THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF DIVERSITY IN ORGANISATIONS, COMMUNITIES AND NATIONS

British Hip-Hop Reconfigurations

The Asian Underground

For more on Panjabi MCs background, see http://www.bna-germany.com/panjabi.html?&L=1 and http://www.answers.com/topic/panjabi-mc

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British Asians Negotiating Blackness

THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF DIVERSITY IN ORGANISATIONS, COMMUNITIES AND NATIONS

Global Desi Hip-Hop Network

Quoted in Desi Hip-Hop, available online at http://www.littleindia.com/news/137/ARTICLE/1340/2006-10-12.html

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THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF DIVERSITY IN ORGANISATIONS, COMMUNITIES AND NATIONS

THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF DIVERSITY IN ORGANISATIONS, COMMUNITIES AND NATIONS

THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF DIVERSITY IN ORGANISATIONS, COMMUNITIES AND NATIONS

About the Author

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