Times of Crises

Day and time: Saturday (March 21) · 13:00–14:00
Location: Job Lounge
Format: Talk

High Times of Crisis: Substance Use as “useful” Coping in German Rap?

Presented by: Tristan Eissing

“In these times of crisis”, German rap increasingly portrays substance use as a seemingly “useful” coping strategy in relation to contemporary challenges such as social inequality, climate change, and precarious futures. The circumstances of substance use related to rap have changed over the last decades. Why and how is substance use portrayed as a useful coping strategy for personal and societal crises from the perspective of German rap?

Based on a qualitative content analysis of 125 German rap tracks (1998−2025), shifting representations of substance use motives were found, including status and productivity, hedonism, emotion regulation, or escapism and inner emigration in a world perceived as (politically) unchangeable. Substance use emerges as both a resource and a risk (many artists claim to be addicted), demonstrating despair and enabling a dysfunctional form of resilience, and also reflecting social change within the Hip Hop community and society.

This contribution highlights how coping practices are embedded in rap that is local and transnational, personal and political − and also a resource for its listeners. In this sense, the examined rap tracks do not showcase a fight the power theme but an escape from the world theme, negotiating crisis and possible futures.

„Circle of Crisis“ - Studying the Self with Hip-Hop

Presented by: Bryan Vit

This paper deals with the aspect of “Knowledge of Self” in the tradition of Hip Hop as a holistic, spiritual culture of learning and education. The production of what is formulated in books on alchemy as a “great work”, in this case the album “Circle of Crisis”, is conceived as a “mythopoetic writing work of individuation” in relation to literature from hermetic philosophy and analytical psychology. Using examples from the author's “Black Book” and insights into the production process, the aim is to show how “hiphopographic methods” were used to overcome crises and how processes, insights and experiences in the realm of the unconscious were processed in a scientific and artistic manner. Through the written contextualization of this interdisciplinary work, the contribution ultimately also functions as a medium to stimulate discussion about alternative forms of knowledge transfer and recognition of “mastery” within academic hip-hop studies.