ABSTRACT
Graffi ti have been described as a form of ‘transgressive semiotics’ (Scollon and Scollon, 2003, p. 147): while they are often conspicuously authored, they are also crucially not authorized, transgressing public space. Hip-hop more broadly may be seen as a set of transgressive semiotic practices, breaking the rules of dancing, scratching against the groove, rapping against the status quo, tagging the public space. Indeed, Riley (2005) argues for an interpretation of gangsta rap in terms of the ‘transgressive sacred’ (p. 303), which links such forms of popular culture to traditional sites of festivity and ritual that may be seen as either reverential or transgressive (Caillois, 1988; Durkheim, 1961). From its destabilization of notions of authorship and originality to its often aggressive challenges to aesthetics, politics and social norms, hip-hop transgresses a sense of what is possible and permissible, a set of ‘post-apocalyptic’ cultural forms set against decaying, postindustrial urban spaces around the world (Potter, 1995, p. 8). As we saw in Chapter 2, the ‘kaleidoscopic, ludic, open fl avor’ of language in hip-hop can profoundly challenge many assumptions about ownership, community and language use ‘by transgressing fundamental ideas of “speakerhood”’ (Hill, 1999, pp. 550-551).
