Hip Hop wakes up the demons - it does with images to the eye what the sonic does as an assault to the ear. With terror alerts and constant announcements at British train stations and airports where the Queen's subjects are called upon to 'report any suspicious baggage'; with stop and search security policing focused upon Muslims (and unarmed Brazilians shot on the London underground); and with restrictions on civil liberties and 'limits' to freedom proclaimed as necessary, it is now clear that spaces for critical debate are mortally threatened in contemporary, tolerant, civilized Britain (as elsewhere). This presentation addresses new work by diasporic world music stalwarts Fun-da-mental and the drum and bass outfit Asian Dub Foundation relating to insurgency struggles, anti-colonialism and political freedom in the UK. The presentation will argue for an engaged critique of "culture" and assess a certain distance or gap between political expression (sound, critique) and the tamed versions of multiculturalism (image, containment) accepted by/acceptable in the British marketplace. Examples from the music industry reception of 'difficult' music and creative engagement are evaluated in the context of the global terror wars and a new paranoia that appears endemic on the streets of the metropolis today...

 

John Hutnyk is Professor of Cultural Studies and the 'Academic Director' of the Centre for Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths College, University of London and is the author of several books including "The Rumour of Calcutta", "Critique of Exotica" and "Bad Marxism: Capitalism and Cultural Studies".

For more information, please contact Tyler Bickford by e-mail at tylerbickford@sent.com