Remixing the Hip Hop Narrative: Between Local Expressions and Global Connections

Although hip hop is now a well-established global music genre and cultural form, its history and current impact have not yet been sufficiently studied. The interdisciplinary contributions to this volume address hip hop’s historical and regional struggles for representation of race, gender, generation, place, and language, as well as the tension between authenticity and commercialization. Contributors offer approaches to historicizing hip-hop culture, and present new theoretical perspectives and methodological tools for addressing hip hop’s global impact. This volume targets not only scholars and students but also resonates with recent public debates about identity politics and cultural appropriation.

James Barber, born in 1986, is a PhD student at the Institute of Musicology at Universität Bern. Addressing the Jamaican cultural influence on US hip-hop in New York (1970s-1990s), his thesis focuses on the historical circularity of Jamaican and African American popular music and cultural practice, and proliferating interactions between New York reggae and hip-hop practice from the 1980s.
Christian Büschges, born in 1965, works as a professor of Iberian and Latin American history in the institute of History at Universität Bern. The historian did his doctorate at Universität Köln and was professor of history at Universität Bielefeld. He is currently director of the Center for Global Studies at Universität Bern. His research focuses on Latin American and global history, especially on questions of identity politics, ethnicity, and social movements.
Dianne Violeta Mausfeld, born in 1983, is an associate researcher at the Institute of History at Universität Bern. She obtained her PhD in History at Universität Bern in 2022. Her research interests center around US hip hop, Chicano and Latino history and popular culture, and Pan-American history and culture.
Britta Sweers, born in 1969, has been professor of cultural anthropology of music at the Institute of Musicology at Universität Bern since 2009 and was also director of the University’s Center for Global Studies (2016-2020). Her research interests include the transformation of traditional musics in a global context, global popular music, nationalism and music, as well as soundscape studies.