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Market-Driven Memory Loss: Mainstream Trap in the Post-Yugoslav Region
Thu, November 20, 5:00 to 6:45pm EST (5:00 to 6:45pm EST), -Abstract
This paper analyzes popular music as an expression of a geographically specific memoryscape (Phillip and Reyes, 2011; Westwood, 2022). In particular, it examines the development of mainstream rap in the post-Yugoslav space (see Kohl, 2018; Kaluža, 2021) and how memory-related themes—especially those tied to political polarization and past conflicts—are being replaced by an "endless now" of apolitical materialism and hedonism. However, this shift, analyzed through big-data lyric analysis, is not entirely unambiguous. As we will demonstrate, the market-driven Balkan internationalism of regional (t)rap music still implicitly carries remodeled and suppressed (individual and collective) memories.