Book: Reflexivity in French Rap, More than a Mirror to the Republic, Emily Q. Shuman
Reflexivity in French Rap
More than a Mirror to the Republic
Emily Q. Shuman
About the book:
The book examines how French rappers hold up a mirror to themselves and to their social world, reflexively playing off the terms of debate over the music’s aesthetic value and place in the French social imaginary. It moves through enduring frames in the reception of French rap, from selectively legitimizing parallels to literary patrimony, to belief in its innate capacity to incite violence, to expectations that it perform racial difference, to lamentations of its commodified nature, to reinforcements of the mainstream media as its principal antagonist. Each chapter explores how French rappers channel these expectations into the lyrical, sonic, and visual qualities of their performances. The book ultimately argues that, in so doing, rappers prove both critical of and complicit with the modes of representation available to them.