Hiphop över klasserna: En studie om lyssningsvanor, identitet och social hållbarhet bland gymnasieelever

Abstract

Hip-hop as a subject in social science has not been around for as long as many other music genres and this study is therefore able to fill a research gap when it comes to appropriation of this global genre between social classes in the context of Gothenburg. The aim of the essay is partly to investigate how listening habits of hip-hop looks today depending on differences in social class among high school adolescents and what those listening habits can tell us about different forms of appropriation and identification. The study also analyses what social political problems/projects can be deduced from each group's most popular hip-hop lyrics. Appropriation, identity and social sustainability constitute the study's theoretical concepts. The tool for collecting material concerning listening patterns is questionnaires and the approach on identity and appropriation will be analyzed through textual analysis of popular hip-hop songs and questionnaire answers. The results show that there are similarities in which contexts the adolescents listen to hip-hop but they differ in what they use it for as well as the songs lyrical content. The conclusions are that, even though the working class show a higher proportion of listeners that identify themselves with hip-hop music and relate to the political issues raised in lyrics, a part of the middle class also use hip-hop for the same purposes. The textual analysis of both groups most popular hip-hop songs tells us that the working class more often appropriate songs containing subjects as scarcity of food (poverty), unjust access to education and criminality while the middle class appropriate a hip-hop that more frequently raises questions of gender equality and local affiliation.