“Out in the Streets”

Abstract

This article provides a socio-anthropological portrayal of the hip-hop narrational mosaics in Greece through the intertemporal exploration of two hip-hop scenes: the rap scene and the hip-hop dance scene. It explores the gray and contested zones of a local hip-hop culture—which reflect on global hip-hop imageries, norms, and antinomies–through permutations and manifestations of difference, hybridization and subcultural capital, and their subversive intersections with race, class, gender, and affective states in contemporary Greece in landscapes of crisis. Drawing on content analysis of rap lyrics and ethnographic fieldwork on rap and hip-hop dance performativities, resonating contemporary Greek society’s precarities, traumas, and ethics, this article explains why hip-hop and street cultures are so popular today in Greece. Furthermore, it highlights their global dynamics and their present and future potential as an empowering and emancipatory space for young generations.