Authors and Rappers: Italian Hip Hop and the Shifting Boundaries of Canzone d’Autore

Abstract

By offering a historical reconstruction of the process of contextualisation of hip hop culture in Italy over the last fifteen years, the article assesses the current status of canzone d'autore and its changing configuration under the impact of rap music. From a theoretical point of view, the conceptual framework combines the sociological definition of 'field of cultural production' elaborated by Pierre Bourdieu with the related literature on social and symbolic boundaries. From a methodological point of view, the analysis is based on the data collected by Club Tenco (a cultural organisation which plays an institutional role within the field of canzone d'autore) as well as on a series of qualitative interviews carried out with a number of Italian rappers and cantautori. Special attention is paid to a very few crucial figures that can be considered paradigmatic examples in the dynamic process of boundary-making of the two cultural (sub-)fields of Italian rap and canzone d'autore.Solo giocando si possono cambiare le regole del gioco . . . Solo cambiando le regole del gioco si può continuare a giocare 1 (Frankie Hi Nrg MC, Verba Manent)

Crossing Divides

“…American music was always only one influence amongst others. Songs, composers, and styles travelled between Italy and Brazil (bossa nova), and between Italy and France (the chanson), as well as between Europe and the USA (Gundle, 2006;Labianca, 2007;Santoro and Solaroli, 2007;Zoppa, 2008).…”

Multi-Tasking and Making a Living from Music: Investigating Music Careers in the Independent Music Scene of Milan

“…The notion of “indie” in the Italian and especially Milanese context implies a contested definition in which processes of professionalization and commercialization can create tensions in the circuits of independent music: the application of Bourdieu’s (1984) notion of field to the context of independent music production in Italy, already developed by several Italian authors (see, for example, Magaudda, 2009; Santoro and Solaroli, 2007) allows us to explain how there is a symbolic struggle occurring between, on one side, the legitimacy of the independent music scene and, on the other side, the more pragmatic tendency towards the integration of independent music in the music industry.…”

“… 2. An Italian literature has developed around the issue of the symbolic and artistic legitimisation of music production, drawing on Bourdieu’s theorization of cultural fields: Santoro and Solaroli (2007) have explained the process of boundary-making in the field of hip hop music and singer-song writing; Magaudda (2009) has described the institutionalization of Italian independent rock music and the symbolic struggles occurring in the field of music production; Varriale (2016) has proposed a revised theory of artistic legitimation and has focused on the role played by music magazines in developing an autonomous music field and in defining new cultural canons. …”

JEZIK, KNJIŽEVNOST, ALTERNATIVE/LANGUAGE, LITERATURE, ALTERNATIVES - Jezička istraživanja

“…), а највећи број истраживања овога типа обављан је на материјалу енглеског језика с подручја САД-а, али су се истраживања током времена проширила и на подручје Европе (на пример, за италијански в. Santoro, Solaroli 2007;за шпански в. Aliagas, Fernandez, Llonch, 2016;за немачки в. Cotgrove, 2018;и др. ), и шире (на пример, за свахили в. Fenn, Perullo, 2000; за кинески в.…”