Identity construction of black youth: Rap and the ontological proposal afro-peripheral

• Grant number: 17/06366-8
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Effective date (Start): October 01, 2017
• Effective date (End): March 31, 2019
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Sociology - Other specific Sociologies
• Principal Investigator: Priscila Martins de Medeiros
• Grantee: Engel Rodrigues de Lima
• Host Institution: Centro de Educação e Ciências Humanas (CECH). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The project aims to analyze, through videos, how Rap (rhyme and poetry) constitute itself as a way of representation of a black youth, being part of a process of identity construction. In the terms employed by some artists of this genre, there would be a proposal of "new humanism" of the "afro-peripheral" subject, based on the critique of modernity ontology because that would relegate the afro-descendants to a social place of incompleteness and subhumanity. We, therefore, intend to understand, through the videos, the fundamentals of this argument of resistance. So, we will work with three videos from three different artists, one from GOG, one from group X da Questão and one from rapper Yzalú, available on the YouTube platform, each with its artistic peculiarities and different discourses on the valorization of the difference. In a specific way, we will also seek: to comprehend the appropriations that these artists do of the language, symbols and historical African/Afro-Brazilian references, creating, through this, the called ontology of the "afro-peripheral" being; to identify how Rap appears as popular culture and, simultaneously, counterculture of the hegemonic groups, interrogating regimes of representation that go back to the colonial heritage; comprehend the way the discourse on cultural identity construction is elaborated by Rap, without ignoring that there are tensions between this discourse and elements of the modern ontology, present in the videos. In terms of methodology, we will analyze the videos and the lyrics through discourse analysis techniques, also focusing on the theoretical contributions of Cultural and Postcolonial Studies. (AU)