Transcultural Voices: Narrating Hip Hop Culture in Complex Delhi(22 Encounters)

This book presents the narratives and voices of young, mostly male practitioners of hip hop culture in Delhi, India. The author suggests that practitioners understand hip hop as both a thing that can be appropriated and authenticated, made real, in the local and global context and as a way that enables them to transform their lives and futures in the rapidly globalising urban environments of Delhi. The dancers, artists, musicians and cultural theorists that feature in this book construct a multitude of voices in their narratives to formulate their ‘own’ transcultural voices within global hip hop. Through a combination of linguistic ethnography, sociolinguistics and discourse studies, the book addresses issues including gender and sexuality, identity construction and global culture.

Table of Contents:
Figures and Table Transcription Conventions Acknowledgements Glossary of Terms Prologue: Gender everywhere Chapter 1. Complex Questions: Normalising Voice in Global Narratives Chapter 2. Studying Transcultural Voices Chapter 3. Doing Linguistic Ethnography in Delhi’s Hip-Hop Scene Chapter 4. Othering Voices: Prosodic Normalising of the Authentic Cosmopolitan Self Chapter 5. Translingual Voices: Remixed Language Ideologies Chapter 6. Synchronising Voices: Travelling the Delhi to Bronx Wormhole Chapter 7. Embodying Voices: Breakin Cyphers and the B-Boy Stance Chapter 8. Overstandin Voices: Methodologies for Hip Hop Chapter 9. Conclusion Epilogue: Gender, again Notes References

About the Author :
Jaspal Naveel Singh is an Assistant Professor of Sociolinguistics in the School of English, The University of Hong Kong. His research interests include global hip hop linguistics, linguistic ethnography, sociolinguistics and discourse studies.

Review :
In Transcultural Voices, Singh offers a gripping account of how young male hip hop artists in Delhi, India orchestrate their voices in dialogue and narrative to transform and transgress their gendered and classed positionalities. Singh also powerfully demonstrates what a reflexive and sincere ethnographic approach that foregrounds collaboration can provide to sociolinguistics and the making of linguistic theory. This book will undoubtedly become an interdisciplinary classic and is a must-read for anyone interested in global hip hop, linguistic theory, and the changing contours of urban India. Transcultural Voices marks the entry of a refreshing new scholar in sociolinguistics. Jaspal Singh takes us on an unforgettable journey through Delhi’s urban hip hop scene, revealing an ethnographic world with a descriptive flare that is both honest and provocative. Singh's highly approachable book unravels how young male hip hop practitioners, marginalized in the city as migrants from elsewhere, transform the cosmopolitan magic of their fine art into a powerfully local and compelling way of life. Transcultural Voices brings a much-needed progressive approach to the sociolinguistics of hip hop. Singh pushes the boundaries of the global study and analysis of English, genre, gender, and hip hop culture, illuminating the transformative power of voice in hip hop narratives. A beautiful linguistic ethnography of hip hop in Delhi. Brilliant! An important contribution to sociolinguistic accounts of hip hop, Jaspal Naveel Singh’s ethnography of hip hop culture in Delhi both builds on and departs from previous studies [...] by developing a programme that he terms ‘global hip hop linguistics’ (p. 26). The result is a captivating and analytically robust exploration of the narrativisation of voice, anchored in the complexities of globalisation.  ...this book will undoubtedly be of great interest to those invested in the growing sub-field of hip hop linguistics. It will also be beneficial to readers and scholars with an ongoing interest in the role of language and context, language and culture, and importantly, the way language is intertwined with identities. Finally, those with such interests will be rewarded by meeting the cast of characters that enable this knowledge to be brought to light.