Federica Lupati |
Having achieved her bachelor’s and master’s degree at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Federica is today a PhD candidate at Nova University of Lisbon and a research assistant at CHAM. Her research field is cultural and literary studies, focusing on Portugal’s and Brazil’s youth subcultures. She is currently investigating hip hop culture and its female representatives. She is a member of the American Portuguese Studies Association (APSA) and has published some of the outcomes of her research in the Journal of Lusophone Studies and in the Journal of Culture and Religious Studies.
|
when the margin becomes the centre: hip hop culture in Portugal and its female representatives |
After making its appearance in Portugal more than twenty years ago as a subversive, inventive and autonomous practice that allowed local youths to express their state of exception, hip hop culture is nowadays one of the most popular channel through which the young generations, as well as the older ones, articulate their positions within society and overcome various forms of marginality. By allowing their voices to reach a greater public – through visual arts, music and dance – and by spreading its techniques globally, hip hop allows us to observe the powerful outcomes of the struggle between centres and peripheries, between subcultures and mainstream cultures, in urban contexts characterized by inequality, invisibility and prejudice. In this sense, we can say that starting from a peripheral position, hip hop culture has slowly made its way through the complex process of legitimation and has reached a core space within the world of cultural production. It is to say, though, that hip hop culture itself is affected by numerous tensions also related with the abovementioned dichotomy, that influence its reception and determine its directions. In particular, the female voices in hip hop have been increasingly gaining power and influence, globally as well as locally, and despite their still marginal position they have managed to conquer a central role in it by becoming strong and conscious represents of this culture. Their role is jet to be fully recognized, especially when it comes to the Portuguese case and in the present work we would like to observe how the female voices have evolved since hip hop made its appearance in Portugal, and through which representatives hey have achieved important results in this sense. |