Across the Pond

Day and time: Friday (March 20) · 16:00–17:30
Location: Info Center
Format: Talk

“I'm the one that can bridge the gap": Central Cee as British rap's special envoy

Presented by: Lizzie Bowes

“They don’t understand, I’m giving them U.K. slang…You say ‘What’s up’, we say ‘Wagwan’”, explains Oakley Caesar-Su (M.C. name Central Cee), in a freestyle rap performed on US radio show LA Leakers. The freestyle, and its ensuing infamy, allows him to position himself as translator, mediator between both sides of the cultural Black Atlantic, and in doing so gives rise to the performance of what I posit as a new form of British rap nationalism. Throughout his work, Central Cee imitates and inverts the rhetoric of US hip-hop culture. He revels in the amalgamation of Anglo-American slang, politics and poetics before discarding the American excess in favour of a new kind of British musical nationalism in rap - one that defines itself by its concurrent proximity to, and polarity from, America. This paper will consider the rhetorical, musical and aesthetic features of a selection of Cee’s work, drawing heavily on Paul Gilroy’s Black Atlantic. I ultimately argue for a British rap rhetoric that engages and assimilates American listeners, whilst simultaneously making claim to a defiantly standalone conception of Britishness.

Beyond Imitation : Reexamining French Rap through a Diasporic Lens and Transatlantic Imaginaries

Presented by: Luna Kondombo

This presentation reexamines contemporary French rap music (2020-2025) within global hip-hop studies and argues that part of its singularity is deeply rooted in both diasporic influences and cultural translation. First, we observe how US hip-hop culture, which circulated to Europe in the 1980s, played a crucial role in the development of French rap as artists went from imitation to reappropriation throughout the years. Some of this influence remains visible today in the lyrics or music videos, however, it is to be viewed less as a direct copy but more as a nod to US Hip Hop imaginaries. This leads us to examine the ways French rap emerges from the blend of diasporic influences (West Africa, Caribbean, France, United States). Through the case study of two francophone rappers, Shay and Le Juiice, the presentation highlights the specificity of Francophone rap by way of linguistic hybridity (Paine, 2012; Hassa, 2010), visual and transatlantic imaginaries. This presentation helps to pinpoint how francophone rappers reconfigure and decenter traditional cultural influences (France, United States) and resituates black diasporic cultures (mainly West African countries) as legitimate sites of expression and identity-making (Martinez, 2011).