Performing hip-hop Englishness: The performance of alternative British identities through rap

The proposed research will examine the performance of rap in English social and penal institutions. The origins of rap can be traced back from the first commercial recordings of hip-hop in the 1970s, through slavery, to precolonial Africa. The performed character of rap is of significance to understanding the origins of poetry and the role of oral-poetic forms in maintaining the structure of preliterate societies. Rap is now the most popular poetic form in the world. With artists such as Dizzee Rascal, Roll Deep, Wretch 32, Tinie Tempah, Chipmunk and the So Solid Crew reaching the top of the UK charts, rap music has also entered into the mainstream of British life. UK hip-hop and grime are also politically significant subcultures, through which working-class youths use rap to represent their conditions of urban dwelling. However, there is little scholarship on rap in the United Kingdom. The development of hip-hop over the last 35 years into a mainstream pop music genre and the production of grime as a distinctively British vernacular culture, highlight the importance of examining how the identities of British youths are shaped through rap.

As a generation of Britons have grown up with rap as an ordinary part of their everyday lives, the proposed research will examine urgent questions regarding the impact that rap culture has on the identities of English youths and how state funded organisations influence the articulation of alternative English identities through rap in the wider hip-hop and grime scenes. Through this focus on the performance of rap in these institutions the project will examine the rhetorical and performative techniques used by rap artists to solicit identity from their audience members; to analyse how audience members produce identification in response to rap performances; to investigate the circulation of rap culture within and between different state funded institutions; and the impact of this cultural form on the communities from which young rap artists emerge.

Studies of rap songs have predominantly employed textual analysis in a manner that obscures the significance of performance in this oral culture. Attempts to develop a hip-hop poetics and highlight rap's literary qualities are significant contributions to making rap amenable to incorporation within English studies. However, the textual analysis of rap lyrics fails to account for the mutually constitutive relations between the formal qualities of rap as a performed oral-poetic genre and the social forms produced within rap subcultures. By attending to the interaction between performers, audience members, and the performance context, the research will provide a fuller account of the social, cultural and aesthetic significance of rap. The project will investigate the impact that rap performances have on the identities of children and young adults and analyse how the rhetorical and performative techniques employed by rappers produce identities and identification between and within communities. Through a critical engagement with rap performances in one youth centre, a community centre, a young offenders institution and a prison, the team of researchers, with expertise in literary studies, cultural sociology, performance studies and prisons research, will investigate the impact that rap has on these organisations and analyse how rappers' performances, in institutions funded by national and local governments, produce alternative British identities. The research will address the following questions:

What are the relations between between the rapper, dj, audience members and performance context in rap performances?
How are alternative British identities produced through rap performances in state funded institutions?
How does rap contribute to the culture and ethos within youth clubs, community centres, young offenders institutions and prisons in England?
How are prison rap cultures interconnected with those in mainstream society?

The research will impact upon five distinct groups.

1) Youths and young adults in the youth and community centres will benefit from the opportunity to reflect on their cultural practice through a combination of interviews and workshops organised by the principal investigator and research assistant. The research is aimed at improving understanding of rap in England and how this cultural form shapes the identities of British youths. Through attending the first day of a two-day seminar in June 2016 these youths and young adults will benefit from the opportunity for informal exchange with scholars with interests in an area of cultural practice that is meaningful to these young people.

2) Staff and managers in the youth and community centres will benefit from the opportunity to reflect on their professional practice through a combination of interviews with the Principal Investigator and Research Assistant. The research is aimed at examining how this cultural form shapes the identities of British youths and the impact that it has on a variety of government funded institutions. Through attending the first day of the two-day seminar in June 2016, youth and community centre staff and managers will benefit from feedback on the youth and community centre fieldwork and the opportunity for exchange with scholars with interests in an area of cultural practice that is meaningful to the young people that they provide services to and are responsible for.

3) Prisoners in the young offenders institution and high security prison will have the opportunity to discuss important aspects of their social and cultural lives through interviews, seminars and workshops, in contexts in which such opportunities are rare. The Principal Investigator will organise and lead a series of rap workshops in the young offenders institution and high security prison, providing offenders with the opportunity for reflection on their cultural practices and for personal growth, in institutional contexts that substantially limit educational opportunities.

4) The National Offenders Management Service will benefit from the study of the impact of rap culture on two contrasting prison establishments. The research will deepen our understanding of prison social climates, in ways that have direct impact on the management of prisons. In feeding back results to the high security prison and young offenders institution, we will produce detailed reports of findings for each establishment. In order to maximise the impact on practice, the Principal Investigator and Co-Investigator will offer feedback presentations to senior managers and staff in each establishment. A one day seminar in December 2016, to be attended by academics and senior prison service managers, will explore the implications of the project for the National Offender Management Service.

5) The general public will benefit from the better understanding of the role that rap plays in shaping young people's identities. By selecting rap artists who have achieved recognition at local, national or international levels, to attend the seminar at Cambridge in June 2016, the project will aim to produce impacts in the local communities and amongst the wider audiences of these young people. The Principal Investigator will participate in a live radio interview on the community and internet radio station, Rinse FM. The interview will describe the research process and the main findings. By disseminating our research through this former pirate radio station, the PI will build upon his established relations with cultural practitioners in London's grime 'scene' and target the project's public engagement at an interested and informed audience. The Principal Investigator will also write an article for The Guardian newspaper on the impact of rap culture on state funded institutions, in order to address a wider non-specialist audience. This newspaper has featured number of articles on the development of grime music in England.