Introduction: “It’s Bigger than Hip Hop”

Abstract

This double special issue explores hip hop activism and representational politics in selected countries from the global north and south. The authors in part one of this double issue offer key examples of the different forms that hip hop activism may take and offer meaningful insights into debates about agency in a media and cultural terrain that is shaped by US cultural imperialism and colonial legacies. Artists may exercise agency via performances that push linguistic, literary, aesthetic and political boundaries that aim to set off critical lyrical engagement with key issues or by confronting such issues sonically as a turntablist. They may also exercise agency in the context of workshops in dialogues between educators, learners, artists, activists and scholars. Effectively, this issue allows us to think about the ways in which hip hop has become a vehicle for marginalized subjects to address their respective political contexts.