Regional Rap in Post-devolution Britain

嘻哈音乐和文化，至今已有三十多年的历史，既是激烈的政治和社会批判的场所，也是一种影响音乐、演讲、视觉艺术、时尚和电影的美学。嘻哈研究的第一阶段是在20世纪90年代至21世纪初，产生了许多权威的文章和书籍，为成为一个蓬勃发展的跨学科领域奠定了基础（Rose 1994; Walser 1995; Krims 2000; Schloss 2004）。随着嘻哈学术进入第二代，对嘻哈侨民的关注以及嘻哈文化对全球社区的影响仍然存在很大差距。虽然对非英语国家hip-hop的研究确实存在（Mitchell 2001, Durand 2002, Rollefson 2015），但关于非美国英语国家hip-hop的书籍和文章更少（Bennett 1999, Bramwell 2015），而且往往集中在一个地区或场景上，而不一定比较区域和更广泛的国家趋势之间的交集。以英国为例，除了伦敦之外，关于英国说唱的学术研究很少，这对英国的地区情况来说是一个不准确的快照。该项目涉及对英国嘻哈音乐和文化的研究，重点关注三个重要的音乐场景：布里斯托尔（和西南），伯明翰（和西米德兰兹）和爱丁堡（和苏格兰）。我希望研究城市特征与其音乐和文化产出之间的关系，研究语言和地区方言，以及这些群体和艺术家既坚持又反抗英国性观念的复杂方式。受加勒比海影响的港口城市布里斯托尔帮助创造了一个充满活力的场景（K*Ners, The Scribes, Buggsy, Reel Me Records）。在伯明翰，说唱乐坛正在蓬勃发展，爵士-说唱混合艺人（Soweto Kinch）、唱片公司（EATGOOD records）以及面向国际观众的“本地”歌手（the Streets、Lady Leshurr）创造了一个利基市场。在苏格兰，像斯坦利·奥德（Stanley Odd）和洛基（Loki）这样的艺术家正在创作政治抗议歌曲，这些歌曲拓宽了苏格兰身份和独立等话题的讨论范围。除了口音，我还将分析英国说唱战斗场景中的性别语言（例如Don't Flop），因为自由式说唱和性别在该领域很少受到关注。该项目融合了音乐学、地理学、语言学、后殖民理论和性别研究。我还将讨论抵抗方言的作用，以及在多元文化青年英语中使用加勒比民族主义的影响和辩论，以及幽默，口音和说唱音乐中的其他方言（由所有种族背景的说唱歌手）。后殖民时期的混合口音反映了英国的帝国历史，当刻板的国家观念并不总是包括这种声音时，这种口音与归属感政治有关。这将是首个着眼于英国地区嘻哈音乐的研究，也是首个将后殖民理论、音乐学和语言学方法结合起来的研究。该奖学金将使我能够领导和管理一个开创性的研究项目，并提高我作为嘻哈研究领域的研究领导者的地位。我将通过为期两天的研讨会和更大的会议，建立一个嘻哈学者的国际网络。我将利用数字工具建立一个网站，并与一名研究助理一起撰写一篇研究文章。我将与网站的全球用户合作和众包，并将与布里斯托尔和伯明翰的艺术社区合作参与活动。特别是，我将与项目合作伙伴Rise music一起举办两个活动，并与学校合作（与我们的教育学院合作）。该项目更广泛的影响将是增加我们对说唱的独特区域变体的理解，作为地方主义和后殖民主义的政治场所，挑战英国身份和主流美国嘻哈文化的刻板印象。

Hip-hop music and culture, now more than thirty years on record, is both a site of intense political and social critique and an aesthetic that has influenced music, speech, visual art, fashion and cinema. The first phase of hip-hop studies in the 1990s-2000s produced a number of canonical articles and books that set the stage for what has become a thriving interdisciplinary field (Rose 1994; Walser 1995; Krims 2000; Schloss 2004). With hip-hop scholarship entering its second generation, there are still wide gaps in the attention given to the hip-hop diaspora, and the influence of hip-hop culture on communities worldwide. While studies of hip-hop in non-Anglophone countries do exist (Mitchell 2001, Durand 2002, Rollefson 2015), books and articles on hip-hop in non-US English speaking countries are even more scarce (Bennett 1999, Bramwell 2015) and tend to focus on one region or scene without necessarily comparing the intersection between the regional and wider national trends. In the case of the United Kingdom, there is very little academia on UK rap beyond the scene in London, giving an inaccurate snapshot of the UK's regional scenes. This project involves a study of hip-hop music and culture in the UK, focusing on three substantial music scenes: Bristol (and South West), Birmingham (and West Midlands) and Edinburgh (and Scotland). I wish to study the relationship between the character of cities and their music and cultural outputs, a study of language and regional dialects, and the complex ways in which these groups and artists both adhere to and rebel against notions of Britishness. The port city of Bristol, with its range of Caribbean influences, has helped produce a vibrant scene (K*Ners, The Scribes, Buggsy, Reel Me Records). In Birmingham, the rap scene is thriving, creating a niche with jazz-rap hybrid artists (Soweto Kinch), labels (EATGOOD records) and those who perform 'locality' to an international audience (The Streets, Lady Leshurr). In Scotland, artists such as Stanley Odd and Loki are creating political protest songs that widen the discourse and debate topics such as Scottish identity and independence. In addition to accent, I will analyse gendered language in the UK rap battle scene (e.g. Don't Flop), as freestyle rap and gender have received scant attention in the field. The project fuses musicology with geography, linguistics, postcolonial theory and gender studies. I will also discuss the role of resistance vernaculars, and the influence and debates around the use of Caribbean ethnolect in Multicultural Youth English, as well as humour, accent and other dialects in rap music (by rappers of all ethnic backgrounds). The hybrid accents of postcoloniality reflect Britain's Imperial past, engaging with a politics of belonging when stereotyped notions of nation do not always include such voices. It will be the first study to look at regional hip-hop in the UK, and the first to combine post-colonial theory, musicology and linguistic methods. The fellowship will allow me to lead and manage a ground-breaking research project, and enhance my status as a research leader in the field of hip-hop studies. I will create an international network of hip-hop scholars through a 2-day workshop and larger conference. I will develop my experience with digital tools in constructing a website, as well as an article from the research alongside a research assistant. I will collaborate and crowdsource with global users of the website, and will collaborate with artistic communities on engagement events in Bristol and in Birmingham. In particular, I will work with project partner Rise music on two events and with schools (collaborating with our School of Education). The wider impact of the project will be to increase our understanding of the distinctive regional variants of rap, as a political site of localism and postcolonialism that challenges stereotypes of British identity and mainstream US hip-hop culture.