Gangsterrappen som kulturellt avantgarde?

Med Pierre Bourdieu i det svenska hiphop-fältet

Abstract

Swedish gangster rap has in recent years become one of the nationally most debated cultural forms of its time. The genre appears both as aesthetically innovative and as a symbolic nexus for issues of violence, authenticity, masculinity, youth culture, and social inequality. This article engages with media narratives about gangster rap and discusses possible understandings of the genre with the overarching aim of exploring how Swedish gangster rap can be understood in relation to related fields of cultural production. By attending to different hip-hop generations’ positions in relation to the institutionalization and commercialization of hiphop, the article discusses gangster rap as social critique at the intersection of economic, political, and cultural capital. It shows how the genre, through a complex dynamic between autonomy and external pressures, both reproduces and challenges the structures and power relations that in tur contribute to shape the Swedish hip-hop field.