{"title":"Indigenous Hitmakerz in the Arctic: negotiating local needs with global ambitions within commercial music industries","authors":"Ashley Cordes, Christopher A. Chávez","doi":"10.1080/15295036.2022.2121413","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Although music by Inuit peoples is systematically relegated to the margins, recent artists from Nunavut have garnered limited commercial attention. Using a case study approach with critical political economy theoretical grounding, we focus on Hitmakerz, an independent record label based in the Arctic region of Nunavut. We analyze the ways independent music producers negotiate the commercial music system, specifically the symbolic and economic tensions, to promote Indigenous languages and counterhegemonic discourse. We argue that Hitmakerz has successfully negotiated local needs while pursuing global ambitions, strategically blending Inuktitut, colonial languages, pop, electronic, and rap for subversive purposes, and critiquing colonialism in digital forms produced in local environments and exported globally. Under limited conditions, Indigenous artists can exploit the marketplace to their advantage, as demonstrated by Hitmakerz.","PeriodicalId":47123,"journal":{"name":"Critical Studies in Media Communication","volume":"9 1","pages":"472 - 487"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1000,"publicationDate":"2022-09-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Critical Studies in Media Communication","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15295036.2022.2121413","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"COMMUNICATION","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
ABSTRACT Although music by Inuit peoples is systematically relegated to the margins, recent artists from Nunavut have garnered limited commercial attention. Using a case study approach with critical political economy theoretical grounding, we focus on Hitmakerz, an independent record label based in the Arctic region of Nunavut. We analyze the ways independent music producers negotiate the commercial music system, specifically the symbolic and economic tensions, to promote Indigenous languages and counterhegemonic discourse. We argue that Hitmakerz has successfully negotiated local needs while pursuing global ambitions, strategically blending Inuktitut, colonial languages, pop, electronic, and rap for subversive purposes, and critiquing colonialism in digital forms produced in local environments and exported globally. Under limited conditions, Indigenous artists can exploit the marketplace to their advantage, as demonstrated by Hitmakerz.
期刊介绍:
Critical Studies in Media Communication (CSMC) is a peer-reviewed publication of the National Communication Association. CSMC publishes original scholarship in mediated and mass communication from a cultural studies and/or critical perspective. It particularly welcomes submissions that enrich debates among various critical traditions, methodological and analytical approaches, and theoretical standpoints. CSMC takes an inclusive view of media and welcomes scholarship on topics such as • media audiences • representations • institutions • digital technologies • social media • gaming • professional practices and ethics • production studies • media history • political economy. CSMC publishes scholarship about media audiences, representations, institutions, technologies, and professional practices. It includes work in history, political economy, critical philosophy, race and feminist theorizing, rhetorical and media criticism, and literary theory. It takes an inclusive view of media, including newspapers, magazines and other forms of print, cable, radio, television, film, and new media technologies such as the Internet.