Right Wing Populism and Hip Hop Music in Norway

Populist performance(s) in contemporary Greek rap music

“…However selective and limited, our examination of two examples from the contemporary Greek scene amply demonstrates that rap performativity encourages the creation and broader appeal of frames of meaning that connote a proto-populist sensibility – and are also opposed as ‘populist’, in the pejorative sense, by the political and cultural mainstream. By claiming to voice plebeian indignation, rap songs introduce antagonism and polarisation, often painted with a desecrating impulse, drawing on the ‘rhetoric of hyperbole and exaggeration, typical of hip hop’ (Naerland 2016, p. 101). Such a registering of socio-political division indicates a direct correspondence to a (proto)populist discursive operation that manages to attract much attention and seems to set in motion an equivalential process of (partial) unification that may, in the future, result in the emergence of a new collective subject with potentially hegemonic pretensions.…”

“…In that sense, a certain part of rap music is no stranger to a politicised discourse, often exhibiting the characteristics of a proto-populist poetic representation: ‘hip hop music may function as a powerful vehicle for the articulation of political sentiments and opinions’ (Naerland 2016, p. 99). It often operates as a vehicle of politicisation by putting forward antagonism and opposition to a status quo , which is perceived as establishing and reproducing exclusion and injustice.…”

“…This oppositional sensibility can obviously take many forms, often contradictory, even when ‘populism’ is invoked (see, in this respect, Papović and Pejović 2015; Naerland 2016). What seems to remain constant is the idea of someone ‘speaking truth to power’ and thus giving voice to the unseen and unheard; the pattern of the ‘truth-teller’ is a very powerful cultural and political tool.…”

The people vs. the power bloc? Popular music and populism

“…As has been argued elsewhere, Trump-supporting fashwave music, for instance, combines musical and cultural aesthetics derived from popular genres such as synthwave, vaporwave and retro culture, with extreme-right content in what might be described as ‘populist retromania’ (Schiller 2022; 2023). Anti-populist efforts have also garnered some attention, including the Belgian 0110 concerts organised in defiance of the radical right Vlaams Belang (De Cleen 2009); Norwegian hip hop in opposition to the far-right Progress Party (Naerland 2016); and Turkish protest music produced and performed in the context of the Gezi Park demonstrations (Way 2016). In addition, some populist figures have performed popular music themselves.…”