Digital media, subcultural activity and youth participation: the cases of protest rap and graffiti in Portugal

Abstract

Over the last decade, we have witnessed the emergence of an academic debate surrounding the relationship between youth and the 'new media', with a particular emphasis on the social uses of different digital technologies within the sphere of youth activity. A specific area of research has been dedicated to studying the use of digital media in the context of the so-called youth subcultures. With this article we expect to contribute to this ongoing debate, by examining the problem through an analysis of two interconnected case studies: protest rap and illegal graffiti. Both cases may be defined as subcultures, insofar as they are characterized as alternative, subterranean, and to a certain extent, subversive movements. The empirical ground for this discussion is based on several investigations, with a qualitative basis, carried out by the authors in the course of over a decade in Portugal. This extended time frame allowed ample access to a diversified and matured analytical material and enabled a better perspective of the developments and the mutations involving the appropriation of the digital media. Our researches have shown that digital media and technologies have been gradually integrated in these urban youth subcultures, accomplishing several strategic roles. ARTICLE HISTORY

Clashing cyphers, contagious content: The digital geopolitics of grime

“…The city is weaponised as a territorial marker of authenticity and, as such, the territorialisation of the city by artists renders it vulnerable to attack by competing artists. Place matters for grime artists, as place associations serve to (re)create distance and difference between artists, and provide vantage points from which friction can be reproduced (Simões & Campos, 2017). For example, in his initial Fire in the Booth performance, Bugz territorialises the cypher by establishing himself as the foremost representative of Manchester's grime scene: They say I put Manny on the map So I hashtag 0161 3 […] You're lookin' at Manchester's best …”

“…In doing so, however, Chip also creates an opportunity for Bugz to leverage the spatio‐temporal contingencies of digital reproduction to use these associations against him. In this sense, rather than the place‐based cachet of grime artists “collid[ing] with the acceptance of a ‘virtual’ realm apparently disconnected from the real world” (Simões & Campos, 2017, p. 27), the interplay between virtual and real, online and offline, becomes part of the competitive friction that is reproduced through the territorialised logics of the cypher. Specifically, the decoupling of space and time enable them to be deployed as creative tools through which the cypher can be reterritorialised, and new forms of friction can be (re)produced.…”

“…In doing so, he can be seen to rebut the effects of Bugz's spatial manoeuvres. Online sharing platforms like YouTube promote a more “dynamic and interactive” style of content distribution that reduces the distance between artists and their audience, and also “enabl[es] rappers to follow and assess the impact their works have” (Simões & Campos, 2017, p. 25). That said, digitally mediated cyphers remain slower, and less reactive, mediums for battle than face‐to‐face engagement.…”

“…Specifically, I consider how two artists – one based in London, the other Manchester – engaged in a “clash” using the content‐sharing platform, YouTube, to exchange music videos in ways that reproduced friction between themselves and the cities they represent. While existing scholarship has done much to unravel the resistant nature of urban music (Forman, 2000; Lamotte, 2014; Simões & Campos, 2017; Woods, 2019b, 2020a, 2020b, 2020c), there has been no consideration of how digital technologies can be catalysts for the reproduction of agency and affect. Moreover, in view of the need to understand the “interdependence between digital circuits and the ‘real’ worlds to which they refer” (Simões & Campos, 2017, p. 171), this paper develops an understanding of the interplay between different representational registers, and their geopolitical effects.…”

“…While existing scholarship has done much to unravel the resistant nature of urban music (Forman, 2000; Lamotte, 2014; Simões & Campos, 2017; Woods, 2019b, 2020a, 2020b, 2020c), there has been no consideration of how digital technologies can be catalysts for the reproduction of agency and affect. Moreover, in view of the need to understand the “interdependence between digital circuits and the ‘real’ worlds to which they refer” (Simões & Campos, 2017, p. 171), this paper develops an understanding of the interplay between different representational registers, and their geopolitical effects. Affective content is contagious content, meaning the content produced by grime artists provides unique insight into the ways in which “affect is central to an understanding of our information‐and‐image‐based late capitalist culture” (Massumi, 2002, p. 27).…”