Abstract

This paper aims at showing how German language rap in South Tyrol, a bilingual region in Northern Italy, expresses dissatisfaction and dissent. Since the region seems to be so utterly different from American inner cities, and research on it is practically inexistent, the author, herself a native to the area, wished to examine if and how South Tyrolean rap music expresses social criticism and frustration. In a qualitative sociolinguistic investigation, selected lyrics from one particular rap crew, Homies 4 Life, are interpreted and analyzed against a theoretical background, South Tyrol’s history and bilingual and bicultural reality, focusing on the contents as well as language use. Furthermore, the investigation draws on interviews carried out with several hip-hop artists from the area by the author. The results demonstrate how these artists vocalize social criticism and frustration concerning politics, linguistic and cultural segregation between the language groups as well as racism, in both standard German as well as the local Tyrolean dialect, using humor, vernacular language, offensive language, and dissing and boasting.

Highlights

  • This paper aims at showing how German language rap in South Tyrol, a bilingual region in Northern Italy, expresses dissatisfaction and dissent

  • Rap music developed from party music to a discourse of resistance expressed through taboo topics, social criticism, and the use of a resistance vernacular, African American Vernacular English (AAVE) (Smitherman 1997)

  • The following pages form a sociolinguistic investigation that draws on interviews with South Tyrolean rappers combined with a qualitative analysis of local German-language rap lyrics to show how social criticism in the form of dissatisfaction and dissent are expressed through rap in this socio-cultural context via topics and language use

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Summary

Willkommen in Südtirol – Welcome to South Tyrol

In the very north of Italy, bordering with Austria, one finds the bilingual Italian province of South Tyrol, (Südtirol in German, Alto Adige in Italian), rural and mostly Germanspeaking. (Marchetti 2012; Wolf 2011; Zlatevska 2014 a) This kind of environment and climate provides an interesting forum for studies in sociolinguistics and music: South Tyrol is a peculiar territory and its history has strengthened this peculiarity: there is a great variety of cultural traditions connected with three different official linguistic groups (German -South Tyrol, Italian, Ladin). Such diversities and divisions are likely to be represented by local music cultures [...]. Such diversities and divisions are likely to be represented by local music cultures [...]. (Riccioni 2015, 18)

How hip-hop came to Europe
Tracing the Roots of rap in South Tyrol
Methodology
Introducing the artists and their music
The interviews
Data analysis and discussion
The linguistics of social criticism and dissent
Adapting Rap to one’s environment
Political dissatisfaction and dissent
Full Text
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