The arts of the remix: ethnography and rap

Authors

  • Brett Lashua Cardiff University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.22582/am.v8i2.67

Abstract

In this paper I take note of 'the arts of the remix', in which techniques of producing hip-hop music with First Nations young people in Canada involved remixing both music and research practices. Through a school-based leisure programme called The Beat of Boyle Street, I taught Aboriginal young people to use computers and audio software to make, produce, and record their own hip-hop music. The programme's research component involved a bricolage of arts-based and performance ethnographic techniques and analyses. The shared music-making process opened space for storytelling, and the songs that were produced articulated many of the struggles and hopes of First Nations youth.

Author Biography

Brett Lashua, Cardiff University

Brett Lashua studied leisure at the University of Alberta (Canada) where he completed his doctorate (2005), entitled 'Making music, re-making leisure in The Beat of Boyle Street'. He is currently a Research Associate with Cardiff University's School of Social Sciences, where he conducts walking tours and creates soundscapes with young people through an ESRC-funded project called 'Locality, Biography & Youth in a Transforming Community' (with Tom Hall and Amanda Coffey). His interests are primarily leisure, youth, popular culture, music and soundscape, particularly as these inform questions of creativity, representation and identities. He can be reached at LashuaB(AT)cf.ac.uk.

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