Transcultural Voices

Narrating Hip Hop Culture in Complex Delhi

By (author) Jaspal Naveel Singh

Publication date:

29 October 2021

Publisher

Multilingual Matters

Dimensions:

210x148mm
6x8"

ISBN-13: 9781788928137

This book presents the narratives and voices of young, mostly male practitioners of hip hop culture in Delhi, India. The author suggests that practitioners understand hip hop as both a thing that can be appropriated and authenticated, made real, in the local and global context and as a way that enables them to transform their lives and futures in the rapidly globalising urban environments of Delhi. The dancers, artists, musicians and cultural theorists that feature in this book construct a multitude of voices in their narratives to formulate their ‘own’ transcultural voices within global hip hop. Through a combination of linguistic ethnography, sociolinguistics and discourse studies, the book addresses issues including gender and sexuality, identity construction and global culture.

In Transcultural Voices, Singh offers a gripping account of how young male hip hop artists in Delhi, India orchestrate their voices in dialogue and narrative to transform and transgress their gendered and classed positionalities. Singh also powerfully demonstrates what a reflexive and sincere ethnographic approach that foregrounds collaboration can provide to sociolinguistics and the making of linguistic theory. This book will undoubtedly become an interdisciplinary classic and is a must-read for anyone interested in global hip hop, linguistic theory, and the changing contours of urban India.