Border Crossing, Contested Communication, and Solidarity in Domestic Hip Hop Documentary

• In Event: Yugoslav Memories III: The Impact of Popular Cultural Memory Work in Post-Yugoslav Spaces

Abstract

Drawing on documentaries and related music videos, this paper will demonstrate how hip hop production throughout post-war, post-Yugoslav spaces recruited diverse publics over the past two decades. Domestic rappers are regularly praised for their abilities to either solidify, or alternatively, question the expansion of a shared hip hop scene experienced as cohesive across the borders of Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Serbia. Hip hop’s communication media and modes thus both evoke and substantively transcend memory politics—video and beat production, DJing, and rapped narratives about the past all contribute to the building (or breaking) of transnational and other forms of solidarity in an awkwardly interconnected artistic scene.

Author

• Owen Kohl, Grinnell College