Our article addresses the connection between popular music and far-right populism, as exemplified by the Freedom Party of Austria (Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs, FPÖ). We discuss the specific mainstreaming and normalizing potential of popular music for far-right populist politics, by means of songs that do not qualify as political or politicized music in the sense of carrying a clear political message. We introduce a multi-step methodology that addresses performative aspects of actual situations of reception (fieldwork) and in-depth analyses of the music and its affordances (group analysis). Based on this approach, we argue that these ambivalent, sometimes even contradictory musical performances take on a life of their own within a specific arrangement that we will term an assembled politicity, in the sense of a political potential activated through situational arrangements. In this way, the FPÖ's musical programme affords far-right populist interpretations through music that appears to be unsuspicious.

In ‘Intertextuality and hypertextuality in recorded popular music’, S. Lacasse (in M. Talbot (ed.) The Musical Work: Reality or Invention?, Liverpool University Press, 2000) proposes a model for understanding intertextuality in recorded popular music. His model provides different ways one text may reference another, while simultaneously transforming the style and/or subject of the original text. Style and subject are two of the integral elements that make up a work, yet what is missing from Lacasse's model is the medium through which these elements are presented. This article addresses that gap by introducing three phonomatic referential practices (retronormativity, vinyl aesthetics and analogue allusion) that transform the medium of a referenced work alongside transformations of style and/or subject. It further expands the model by discussing self-quotation as a referential practice. The applicability of the expanded model is demonstrated using the music of Portishead, one of the bands that pioneered the trip hop genre in the 1990s.

Focusing on Manchester, the largest city in the north of England, this paper explores why and how Black rap practitioners have been excluded from performing and promoting rap music in its city centre during the last 20 years. Discussing the intersecting factors of policing of venues and racial bias and class stigma among Manchester's venue owners and promoters, while also scrutinising the city's neoliberal urban expansion and gentrification, the paper analyses the ways in which Black rappers and practitioners have been marginalised but also how they have attempted to resist and overcome these conditions. Drawing on cultural studies, critical race theory and urban geography, while employing qualitative research methods of in-depth interviews, this paper builds on existing research on the marginalisation of Black rap musicians and promoters. It builds on and moves beyond the scholarly emphasis on the policing of rap genres in London to argue that discrimination faced by Black rap practitioners extends far outside the capital and is part of a wider problem of racial capitalism of which policing is but one agent.

The propagation of low-cost music production technologies changes the way recording artists experience the spatial environments and technology of the recording studio. Concomitantly dwindling recording budgets have led to large-format studio closures. Many artists are choosing do-it-yourself (DIY) recording practices with the help of a producer, or self-produced, in non-purpose-built and domestic environments. This research seeks to understand the differences in creative agency and recording experience for performers in various recording environments. I use a practice-led approach to record performers in DIY recording spaces, large-format recording studios and a hybrid combination of both environments. I then use a Lefebvrian theoretical lens to analyse participant interviews and field notes. This research suggests that artist attitudes towards the choice of recording space are variable, with each participant preferring a different aspect of large-format and domestic spaces depending on which facet of those spaces they are considering. Despite this, the participants seem to experience DIY recording as broadly positive for creativity but respond with views that emphasise freedom from time constraints, a reclamation of power, fewer economic burdens and freedom to experiment. The research indicates that the DIY studio is emerging as a new paradigm in the recording field and defines the current era of music-making.

This article addresses the linguistic policing of grime and UK drill music. Existing studies often focus on the immediacy of the penal system. This article will instead explore the extent to which institutional bodies uphold and maintain a programme of racialised censorship across radio broadcasts, seeking to understand how these value judgements impact upon creative practice. It presents an ethnographic study of three radio shows that aired on BBC 1Xtra, demonstrating through interviews and analysis how the broadcaster's censorship practice unfairly renders Black artists as dangerous with criminal associations. Lyrical assertions of musical skill are misread as direct threats, while evocations of the quotidian are seen to cause violence rather than reflect artists’ surroundings. Importantly, it will show how artists’ work and words are adversely discriminated against owing to a legacy of racialised public morality that imposes greater sanctions and restrictions on artistic output: radio personalities must strike a balance between presenting voyeuristic excitement about a genre, and the need to meet (racialised) editorial standards; producers assiduously monitor new slang to make sure that it is censored; and artists are encouraged to self-censor and alter their musical output, to protect themselves from unwanted ramifications.

According to the website Come writers and critics, which keeps a running list of all ‘documents related to Bob Dylan printed on paper’, by the end of 2021 (Dylan's 80th year), there were 829 books about him in English and 723 in 36 other languages (from 175 in German to one each in Bulgarian and Vietnamese).1 The list is indiscriminate in terms of the various books’ quality, originality or readability, but looking at the bibliographies of the various works I'm reviewing here, it seems that there are at least 50 Dylan books that academic Dylanologists take seriously (and many more journal articles).2 From this perspective, my four titles provide a useful cross-section of the most common academic Dylan studies in disciplinary terms: biography, literary criticism, musicology and cultural studies. I should also note that in March 2016 the George Kaiser Family Foundation bought Bob Dylan's personal archive (for $22 million according to Heylin) and gave it a permanent home in Tulsa. This has opened up significant new research possibilities. In its own words:

The Chilean nueva canción (‘new song’) movement is one of Latin America's most enduring musical phenomena. Strongly associated with the rise of left-wing political forces in the 1960s, and then with anti-dictatorship protests in the 1970s and 1980s, nueva canción is deeply embedded in Chilean political consciousness. This article provides a new perspective on the movement by exploring its populist elements and considering these in relation to Communist Party cultural policy. It focuses on a significant historical moment – the Chilean Communist Party's 1971 Assembly on the Chilean Revolution and the Problems of Culture – to ascertain how the political potential of ‘Chilean new song’ was viewed by this key partner in the Chilean coalition government. Through this examination, this article offers new insight into the political positioning of CNS, illustrating the movement's socio-political role in terms of the broader ideological principles and imperatives of the vía chilena (‘Chilean road’) to socialism.

Populism is a discursive construct that represents popular interests and values by ‘pretend[ing] to speak’ for the people who are constructed separate and opposed to a powerful elite. Yet populism, in its various forms and accents, ‘can adapt flexibly to a variety of substantive ideological values and principles’. This is manifested in ‘the people’ not being a prefixed natural category, but a signifier that acquires meaning through discourses and contexts. This article considers how populism is articulated in hip hop videos that criticise two authoritarian-populist politicians: America's Trump and Turkey's Erdoğan. Using Multimodal Critical Discourse Studies, Eminem's ‘The Storm’ and Ezhel's ‘Yarınımız Yok (We have no tomorrow)’ are analysed to demonstrate how oppositional popular music can articulate its own brands of populism, transcending contexts, yet shaped by them.

Rap on Trial, the treatment of rap music as evidence in the American criminal legal process, is well-documented and increasingly scrutinised. Research has shown that – with little restraint – police, prosecutors, probation officers and judges use rap lyrics to investigate, prosecute and punish individuals. Less noticed is that a similar phenomenon is occurring in the American K–12 educational system, which disciplines school-age youth who participate in rap culture and sometimes refers them to the juvenile or criminal legal systems for additional punishment. This article describes and analyses a small set of identified cases of this scenario, demonstrating that rap music is used to funnel youth, including vulnerable Black and Brown youth, into what has been coined the school-to-prison pipeline and exposing the extreme dissonance between hip hop and the educational system.

Rap, as with other musical genres, can contain narratives about Colombia's armed conflict. Members of armed groups, such as the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – Ejército del Pueblo (‘Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People's Army’; FARC-EP), and civilians have used rap as a means of expressing war-related issues and their causes and consequences. Following the signing of the peace agreement with the FARC-EP in 2016, Colombia's new transitional justice system mainly has focused on a restorative rationale rather than a retributive one. Transitional justice, as a set of mechanisms and processes designed to overcome a violent past, demands peace-building narratives that protect the memory of past horrors while setting the stage for reconciliation. This article analyses the interplay of transitional justice and rap from the personal experiences, perspectives and lyrics of two former combatants and two groups from civil society that rap based in Bogotá, other cities and rural municipalities. These cases provide insight into how rap can relate to transitional justice, sometimes acting as a supportive tool for its goals and sometimes by providing a counter-narrative.