Regional Rap in Post-devolution Britain

嘻哈音乐和文化，现在已经有30多年的记录，既是一个激烈的政治和社会批评的场所，也是一种美学，影响了音乐、演讲、视觉艺术、时尚和电影。20世纪90年代至21世纪头十年的嘻哈研究的第一阶段产生了许多规范的文章和书籍，为这一蓬勃发展的跨学科领域奠定了基础(Rose 1994；Walser 1995；Krims 2000；Schlos 2004)。随着嘻哈学术进入第二代，在对嘻哈散居群体的关注以及嘻哈文化对世界各地社区的影响方面，仍然存在很大差距。虽然非英语国家的嘻哈研究确实存在(Mitchell 2001，Durand 2002，Rollefson 2015)，但关于非美国英语国家嘻哈的书籍和文章更是稀缺(Bennett 1999，Bramwell 2015)，并倾向于专注于一个地区或场景，而不一定比较地区和更广泛的国家趋势之间的交集。就英国而言，除了伦敦的现场，学术界几乎没有关于英国说唱的报道，这给出了一个不准确的英国地区场景的快照。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(和西南部)、伯明翰(和西米德兰兹郡)和爱丁堡(和苏格兰)。我希望研究城市的特征与其音乐和文化输出之间的关系，研究语言和地区方言，以及这些群体和艺术家坚持和反抗英国人观念的复杂方式。港口城市布里斯托尔受到加勒比海地区的一系列影响，帮助创造了一个充满活力的场景(K*ners，The Scrikes，Buggsy，Reel Me Records)。在伯明翰，说唱现场正在蓬勃发展，创造了一个利基市场，有爵士乐和说唱混合的艺术家(索韦托·金奇)，有唱片公司(EATGOOD唱片)，以及那些向国际观众表演地方性的人(街道，莱斯休夫人)。在苏格兰，斯坦利·奥德(Stanley Odd)和洛基(Loki)等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认同和独立等话语和辩论话题。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这个领域很少受到关注。该项目将音乐学与地理学、语言学、后殖民理论和性别研究融合在一起。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语言的影响和辩论，以及(由所有种族背景的说唱歌手)说唱音乐中的幽默、口音和其他方言。后殖民主义的混合口音反映了英国的帝国历史，当刻板的国家概念并不总是包括这样的声音时，英国参与了一种归属政治。这将是英国第一次对地区性嘻哈进行研究，也是第一次将后殖民理论、音乐学和语言学方法结合起来。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，创建一个嘻哈学者的国际网络。我将在构建网站时发展我的数字工具经验，以及与一名研究助理一起撰写的一篇研究文章。我将与该网站的全球用户合作和众包，并将在布里斯托尔和伯明翰的参与活动中与艺术社区合作。特别是，我将在两个活动中与项目合作伙伴Rise Music合作，并与学校(与我们的教育学院合作)合作。该项目的更广泛影响将是增加我们对说唱的独特地区变体的理解，作为一个地方主义和后殖民主义的政治网站，挑战对英国身份和美国主流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.