Solution or a “Fake Sense of Integration”?: Contradictions of Rap as a Resource within the Danish Welfare State’s Integration Project

Abstract

During the past decades, rap music and hip hop culture have increasingly been utilized within the context of the Danish welfare state's integration project as a solution to societal problems with youths, who experience being marginalized and "Othered" within Danish society. This article addresses some of the contradictions that are related to this. By approaching the blend of hip hop pedagogy and policies against radicalization and criminalization of these youths through the theoretical lens of social technologies, it can be illustrated how mechanisms of power are conducted within social rap-based programmes. While such programmes are often considered as great successes by funding bodies and users alike, the article critically discusses how the use of rap as a resource for citizenship-building and inclusion of the target group in a broader societal context might entail the risk of actually excluding them.