Populist performance(s) in contemporary Greek rap music

Abstract

AbstractIn recent years, rap music has been growing rapidly within the Greek cultural landscape. This paper places emphasis on a particular politicised current within the genre, examining closely two recent examples from the Greek context. Although such performances have already been broadly discussed as ‘populist’ within public debate, this paper aims at rigorously assessing this claim. To do so, it first turns to contemporary populism research in order to articulate a consistent and operational approach that can be utilised in the analysis of rap performances. Against the background of a minimal definitional consensus highlighting populism's people-centrism and anti-elitism, this contribution will then focus on (a) the performative dimension of populism and its occasional extra-political conditioning and (b) populist performances within popular music, namely rap. Could one designate rap music as a locus of populist performance(s)? How could such a hypothesis be substantiated through the analysis of concrete examples from the contemporary Greek scene?