On Air Highlights

Hip hop – still a platform for protest ?

25 January 2012

Listen and download: MP3

After almost four decades, hip hop is now well and truly an international phenomenon. But does it still provide a platform for youth protest as it once did?

Or is hip hop now just another  form of fashionable expression? It depends on where you are, according to Dr Sujatha Fernandes, author of “Close to the Edge – In Search of the Global Hip Hop Generation”.

The book is based on travels through the United States, Caracas in Venezuela, Havana in Cuba and Sydney, Australia where Dr Fernandes performed once as a hip hop artist with plenty to protest about through her music.

Presenter: Clement Paligaru

Speaker: Dr Sujatha Fernandes, Associate Professor of Sociology at Queens College, New York, USA