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1981
Volume 1 Number 1
  • ISSN: 2632-6825
  • E-ISSN: 2632-6833

Abstract

This article argues for an attention to the DIY digital studio as a key site where aspiring hip hop MCs in the contemporary moment negotiate between their desire for individual success and their commitments to various forms of local belonging, not least which includes staying true to a hip hop ethos of collectivity. We follow Sonal, a b-boy and MC we worked with in a studio that we set up in Delhi, India in 2013 to work with aspiring MCs in the city’s scene. We trace his subsequent rise to fame in India to argue for an attention to the DIY studio as the material and metaphoric realization of the digital infrastructures of global capitalism. The studio manifests economic and social opportunities for young men like Sonal in Delhi, and, we suspect, for young people across the world who now have access to social media and inexpensive production hardware and software. Yet, in creating opportunities for individual economic and social uplift, the studio poses a threat to the ideal of a hip hop community that undergirds its possibility even as it opens up opportunities to enunciate commitments to other forms of belonging.

This article is Open Access under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC), which allows users to copy, distribute, transmit and adapt the article, as long as the author is attributed and the article is not used for commercial purposes. To view a copy of the licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
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/content/journals/10.1386/ghhs_00003_1
2023-01-16
2024-12-06
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  • Article Type: Article
Keyword(s): cipher; DIY; India; MC; mediatization; studio; subjectivity
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