From the Margins to the Center : Hip Hop and Rap as Infrastructure for the Black Americans in the 1980s and early 1990s

Sammanfattning: This thesis examines whether hip hop, and rap in particular, was an infrastructure for the lower-class of Black Americans in the 1980s and early 1990s to transport their concerns, knowledge, and protest from the margins to the center. It first demonstrates what issues Black Americans from the ghetto have raised in terms of content in the first place. Next is an examination of where and how hip hop created a platform for itself and how the institutionalization process unfolded. Finally, it is discussed whether and to what extent the infrastructure was successful. In general, and in a nutshell, the research revealed that rap had an impact, especially in the late 1980s and early 1990s and more and more hip hop artists appeared in the white American mainstream public sphere. Through various media and in different circles, they addressed topics that were otherwise less part of the discourse of this public, such as racism, the situation of subalterns in the ghetto or Black history. Thus, through rap, this knowledge flowed into the Center. Although women were given far less space to talk about Black feminism, for example, they too had consistently raised these issues.