ABSTRACT
Leeke Reinders Introduction The study of urban symbols points us to the ways people comprehend, bring order to and make sense of their existence. Urban life, having a tendency to be a fragmented and chaotic experience, is thus rendered clear. Symbols then relate to a sense of order in fragmentation. However, the symbolic urban arena is not a fixed but a contested order. ‘The symbolic order,’ as Peter Nas proclaimed in his introductory work, ‘often proves to be ambiguous, amorphous, fragmented and incoherent, a symbolic configuration of hybrid and shifting deconstructed images arisen from tensions, conflicts and social changes’ (Nas 1993: 5-6). The study of urban symbolism has concerned itself with a whole terrain of symbolic forms, but until now has largely focused on the way symbols materialize into the physical environment, as in statues and monuments. Below, attention is shifted from visual and material symbolizations to a less tangible but nonetheless powerful form of urban symbolism. This chapter deals with the social and textual practice of rapping in Sarcelles, a degraded suburb some fifteen kilometres northeast of Paris. Sarcelles is located in the banlieue, an area caught in the popular imagination as an area which is a concentration of social problems, varying from unemployment to drug dealing and petty crime to prostitution and xenophobia. Youths form a dominant grouping in the city, not only as the category – up to twenty-years-old – forms the biggest age group, but also in the emphatic manner they make their presence felt in the city. Les beurs, as these migrant kids are also known, use obscene words and gestures, go around dressed in trainers and tracksuits, cluster together at suspicious
Hypercity
places, write on walls, and make offensive rap noises. In contrast with what is often assumed, these forms of expression are no empty poses or sloganeering. Below, making use of the notion of the ‘hidden transcript’, we see how young men create a contra-symbolic discourse, in which they claim their dominance. In the first section, some guiding ideas on the social text of rap are formulated, with reference to notions of exclusion and marginality, which dominate the public debate on young people in the banlieue. In the sections that follow several principles of the symbolic language of rap are sketched out. Here, we see how groups of young men use rap as social weaponry, in which they seek the dignity and reputation regular society denies them.1 Symbols, text and the hidden transcript of rap A warm wind wafts across the room. Azzdine sits in the back, his arms folded and legs casually stretched out on the floor. He pricks up his ear and nods approvingly to a monotonous bass sound, coming from the home stereo system. The walls behind him are covered in posters of American pop and movie stars. The floor is filled with bottles, ashtrays and other remnants of yesterday’s party.
