Hybrid Identities in Quebec Hip-Hop: Language, Territory, and Ethnicity in the Mix

Montreal is the metropolitan hub of the province of Quebec, a French-speaking island in officially bilingual, but de facto majority English-speaking, Canada. The current youth generation represents a variety of ethnolinguistic backgrounds—French and English Canadian, but also many different immigrant-origin groups, including large Haitian and Hispanophone populations. Young adults and adolescents share French as a common language through schooling. In Quebec, hip-hop, a privileged literary–artistic and political medium for this generation, not only reflects its multilingual, multiethnic base, but also constitutes an active and dynamic site for the development of an oppositional community that encourages the formation of new, hybrid identities for youth. The authors draw on interviews with rappers of Haitian, Dominican, and African origin, and analysis of lyrics by these MCs, to highlight ways in which the discourses of “conscious” Quebec hip-hop promotes particular ideologies and identities in a context of migration/resettlement and globalization of youth culture.

Publisher: Routledge _eprint: https://doi.org/10.1080/15348450701341253