Master Thesis in Peace and Conflict Studies

Department of Peace and Conflict Studies

Uppsala Universitet

Does the Beat Go On?

Regime Type and the Repression of Hip-Hop Music and Artists

Christian Jeroen Johannes Hazes Spring 2022

Supervisor: Kristine Höglund

Word count: 22979 words

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“Being part of hip-hop is being an activist”

- Killer Mike

Hip-Hop artist

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Abstract

Hip-Hop music is bigger than ever, a development that some states watch with Argus eyes.

The latter is especially the case when the content that hip-hop artists produce is critical

towards the circumstances in their country. In various cases, regimes subsequently attempt to

repress and silence these critical hip-hop performances and artists. It is that phenomenon that

this study explores, trying to find an answer to the conundrum of why some regimes employ

hard repressive measures to silence critical hip-hop whereas other states use soft repression.

The lens of questioning what regime type a country has, will be used in order to try to

uncover the answer. Due to regime type specific characteristics, it is expected that autocratic

and democratic regimes use soft repressive measures, while hybrid regimes employ hard

repression. This hypothesis is tested by using the method of Structured Focused Comparison

and scrutinising the cases of Spain, Russia and China. Repression of critical hip-hop seems to

vary a lot between cases and is rather haphazard. Hence, regime type does not seem to be the

catalyst behind a certain form of repressive behaviour towards hip-hop. Instead, a variety of

country specific factors seems to determine the course of repression.

Keywords: critical hip-hop, state repression, Spain, Russia, China

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Acknowledgements

You cannot ask a tree to blossom if it is not spring, nor can you expect a bird in the middle of

the night to sing. In order to manifest certain things, the right circumstances have to be

present. I would like to express my deepest gratitude to the people, things and structures that

have provided me with those circumstances. Albeit it being true that those who deserve to be

acknowledged are as numerous as the stars are in their constellations on a pitch-black night,

some in particular merit their spot in the limelight. First of all, my sincerest gratitude goes out

to my family for their continuous and unconditional support, but most of all for instilling in

me a sense to always pursue my dreams. Secondly, I would like to thank my classmates

(Maud, Inge, Noé, Finn and Maël in particular) in the 2020-2022 cohort of Peace and Conflict

Studies at the University of Uppsala. Predominantly for the beautiful memories made, but

also for showing so much genuine interest in my paper and giving me the idea that what I

write, matters in the grander scheme of things. Furthermore, a special thanks goes out to my

supervisor Kristina Höglund for her guidance, advice and mostly for always believing in me

and my somewhat unorthodox subject. I could have stayed in the lane and picked a topic you

all would be proud of, but I always rather chase things never thought of. I would also like to

mention the student collective of Nedre Fjellet. Thank you Fjellet and the people who live

there for being the most amazing home that I could have ever wished for. It has been a

privilege of the highest order to call you my home and I contemplated messing up this thesis

project on purpose just for the sake of being able to call you my home for a little bit longer.

On a final note, I would like to thank music. For making the good times better, for taking my

hand in times of grief, sorrow and confusion, but most of all for making sense of the person I

see in the mirror. Although I think that this paper is a testimony of my love for music, I

simultaneously believe that this love is like taking pictures of the moon: it cannot be captured

and only the two of us understand the enchantment. Yet, I hope that you, the reader of this

paper, are able to feel some of the passion, enthusiasm and love I weaved into this study when

reading it.

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Table of Contents

I. INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................................................... 7

HIP-HOP WITHIN PEACE AND CONFLICT STUDIES: AN UNCHARTED AND PROMISING FIELD .......................... 7 RESEARCH QUESTION................................................................................................................................... 8 RELEVANCE OF THE STUDY .......................................................................................................................... 9 WHAT TO EXPECT ......................................................................................................................................... 9

II. PREVIOUS RESEARCH ........................................................................................................................ 11 I. MUSIC, AN INCREDIBLY POWERFUL PHENOMENON ................................................................................... 11

Music and Propaganda ......................................................................................................................... 11 Other side of the coin and censorship ................................................................................................... 11 Music and Opposition and Resistance................................................................................................... 12

II. HIP-HOP MUSIC: IT’S ROOTS, INHERENT ACTIVIST NATURE AND THE INTERPLAY BETWEEN HIP-HOP MUSIC AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS ............................................................................................................................ 14

The birth of hip-hop and its interplay with social movements ............................................................... 14 III. HIP-HOP AND STATE REPRESSION ........................................................................................................ 17

Previous Research on Hip-Hop and State Repression ........................................................................... 17 III. THEORY ................................................................................................................................................ 20

State repression..................................................................................................................................... 20 Repression and regime type .................................................................................................................. 21 More Murder in the Middle .................................................................................................................. 24

HYPOTHESIS .............................................................................................................................................. 25 IV. RESEARCH DESIGN ............................................................................................................................ 26

REPRESSION OF HIP-HOP ARTISTS IN SPAIN, RUSSIA AND CHINA – CASE SELECTION .................................. 26 MATERIAL AND SOURCES............................................................................................................................ 28 ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS AND TERMINOLOGY .......................................................................................... 30 OPERATIONALISATION AND METHODS FOR EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS ............................................................... 30 OPERATIONALISATION OF THE DEPENDENT VARIABLE ................................................................................ 31 OPERATIONALISATION OF THE INDEPENDENT VARIABLE ............................................................................ 32 METHODS AND STRUCTURE OF EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS ................................................................................. 33

V. SPAIN....................................................................................................................................................... 36 REGIME TYPE IN SPAIN ............................................................................................................................... 36 THE GENRE OF HIP-HOP IN SPAIN: A BRIEF BACKGROUND ........................................................................... 36 REPRESSION OF HIP-HOP MUSIC IN SPAIN ................................................................................................... 37 THE “GAG LAWS” ...................................................................................................................................... 39 HIP-HOP AS A TOOL OF PROPAGANDA IN SPAIN ........................................................................................... 40 CONCLUDING REMARKS .............................................................................................................................. 40

VI. RUSSIA................................................................................................................................................... 42 REGIME TYPE IN RUSSIA ............................................................................................................................. 42 THE GENRE OF HIP-HOP IN RUSSIA: A BRIEF BACKGROUND ......................................................................... 42 REPRESSION OF CRITICAL HIP-HOP IN RUSSIA ............................................................................................. 44 HIP-HOP AS A TOOL OF PROPAGANDA IN RUSSIA .......................................................................................... 47 CONCLUDING REMARKS .............................................................................................................................. 48

VII. CHINA .................................................................................................................................................. 49 REGIME TYPE IN CHINA .............................................................................................................................. 49 THE GENRE OF HIP-HOP IN CHINA: A BRIEF BACKGROUND .......................................................................... 49 REPRESSION OF CRITICAL HIP-HOP IN CHINA .............................................................................................. 50

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CHINA AND HIP-HOP MUSIC AS PROPAGANDA .............................................................................................. 53 CONCLUDING REMARKS .............................................................................................................................. 55

VIII. ANALYSIS .......................................................................................................................................... 57 REGIME TYPE AND TYPE OF REPRESSION – AN OVERVIEW ............................................................................ 57 INTERPRETATION OF THE MAIN RESULTS AND ADDITIONAL RELEVANT OBSERVATIONS ................................. 58 ALTERNATIVE EXPLANATIONS ..................................................................................................................... 60 LIMITATIONS .............................................................................................................................................. 62

IX. CONCLUSIONS ..................................................................................................................................... 64 BIBLIOGRAPHY ......................................................................................................................................... 66

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I. Introduction

Hip-Hop within Peace and Conflict Studies: An Uncharted and Promising Field

In my eyes, there are few things as beautiful, thrilling and captivating as hip-hop music. The

music genre can paint vivid images, evoke strong feelings and move its audience merely by

virtue of pure poetry (in the form of rhyming) over a wide variety of instrumental beats. The

ability to change one’s perspective, state of mind or even life with a 4-minute long rhyme is

one of the most beautiful gifts a human being can be bestowed upon.

Yet, the genre of hip-hop music is not necessarily recognized as a divine form of art

nor is it widely regarded as a positive phenomenon. Quite the opposite is true, I would argue.

Hip-Hop has, amongst most people, a rather negative, infamous and rowdy image. Many see

the come-up of the genre as problematic, for it is argued that the music within this genre

promotes violence, misogyny and glorifies substance abuse. Although it cannot be denied that

a lot of hip-hop music and artists rap about violence, women, drugs and alcohol, the lion’s

share of the art within the genre is revolving around positive things or is trying to attain

positive change through the music. Nevertheless, it seems to be the case that hip-hop has a

difficult time at shaking these negative connotations. Unfortunately, this seems to be mostly

the result of ill-founded stigmas and prejudice, culminating in hip-hop’s unjustified bad face.

In reality the genre of hip-hop is highly versatile and much more than it appears as at a

first glance. Whereas it is out of the scope of this paper to scrutinise all of its uses, hip-hop is

most of all a form of art and the chief function of art is, in my opinion, conveying a message.

Hip-hop then, is the perfect vessel for conveying a message, telling stories and spreading

ideas. This sentiment and hip-hop’s potential are captured perfectly by former United States

president Barack Obama, who argued that “the thing about hip-hop is it’s smart, it’s

insightful. The way it can communicate a complex message in a very short space is

remarkable” (2008). The latter, together with the fact that the dissemination, presence and

reach of hip-hop music are currently at an all-time high (see e.g., Morgan and Bennett 2011),

gives the genre extraordinary power, also in the light of (international) politics. The music can

mobilize, inspire, propagandise, oppose and challenge.

The relation between hip-hop music and peace and conflict studies has started to be

investigated more thoroughly throughout the last years. However, as will become clearer in

the next section, the interplay between peace and conflict studies, international politics, social

movements and hip-hop music has largely remained understudied and somewhat undervalued.

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Consequently, the paramount purpose of this study is to shed more light on the genre of hip-

hop music within the field of peace and conflict studies and show its relevance in a field

where it does not receive the attention that it merits. Thus, this study attempts to contribute to

the relatively new trend to try to fill the gaping lacuna that currently exists in the academic

world with regard to hip-hop music. In addition, although the latter is the main goal of this

thesis, it also attempts to display that the genre of hip-hop is so much more than just a

(troubled) form of music. Ultimately, this study also wants to contribute to improving the

image of the genre of hip-hop, by virtue of showing that it contains much more than troubled

artists, lyrics and culture. The eradication of these preconceived sentiments is likewise

amongst the things that this project wants to contribute to.

As mentioned in the prior section, hip-hop has started to be academically investigated

to a larger degree. This took place in especially the last two decades and can plausibly be

connected to the simultaneously rising popularity of the genre during that period. Söderman

coined the term “hip-hop academisation” when addressing the come-up of hip-hop in the

world of scholars (2013, 370). This term summarizes the fact that academic hip-hop studies

have increased in frequency, prominence and quality predominantly within the fields of

Musicology, African American studies, Sociology, English and Education (Söderman 2013,

370). This resulted in the production of numerous PhD Dissertations and the inception of a

peer-reviewed academic journal solely pivoted towards hip-hop culture.

Nevertheless, the position that hip-hop music takes up in the field of peace and

conflict studies is largely understudied. Especially the phenomenon of repression of critical

hip-hop music by states is a topic that is basically untouched (see also the “previous research”

chapter, page 17 and onwards). This study attempts to make a first step in the process of

eradicating this lack of research on hip-hop music and state repression. Some states do

nothing against critical hip-hop while others do. Regarding the latter group, the type of

repression that regimes use towards critical hip-hop is sometimes highly different in nature

and this specific phenomenon will be tackled in this study. This puzzle will be studied by

looking through the lens of which regime type is present in the respective country.

Research Question

Subsequently then, this thesis attempts to study and find the answer to the following research

question: Why do some regimes apply hard repressive measures towards critical hip-hop

music, while other regimes opt for softer repressive measures?

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Relevance of the Study

It can hardly be denied that studying hip-hop in a more academic way is a highly relevant

matter. In the present-day world, hip-hop music is the most popular music genre in many

parts of the world. Especially, but certainly not exclusively, on the North-American continent

the genre has attained a hegemonic status (Klatskin 2018, 45). Hip-hop has steadily grown

ever since its inception, but has especially surged throughout the last decade. The genre is

now at its pinnacle in terms of reach, popularity and moreover, the genre has undergone quite

a significant degree of commercialisation. Although the latter is not necessarily a positive

development for those artists and songs that want to attain social change or convey messages

(so called “conscious hip-hop”) - for the genre becomes too mainstream and loses its social,

critical and activist nature as a result of over-commercialisation – it must be admitted that this

development has been extremely advantageous for the influence and impact that hip-hop has

on the world, societies and people.

Furthermore, the spectacular rise of social-media and technology enabled the rapid

spread of the music and its culture as a whole. Undoubtedly, this results in significant

consequences for the genre’s reach and impact. These are nowadays bigger than ever, for the

audience reached is unprecedentedly big and the dissemination of art has never been as easy

as now. These developments make it even more attractive, appealing and logical for people,

regimes and social movements to employ hip-hop in order to achieve their desired goals.

Oftentimes, these goals are political in nature. The music genre lends itself perfectly for

(peace and conflict-related) phenomena such as propaganda, opposition, resistance and social

activism. The fact that hip-hop music is inherently political of nature (as will be highlighted

later on in this project) only further highlights that the genre is used for political ends. For

example, hip-hop music could be used in conflict resolution endeavours due to its ability to

bridge worlds. All in all, the currently existing gap in research is problematic and it is vital to

learn more about this form of art. Hence, this study contributes to a highly relevant field.

What to expect In peace and conflict studies, the more murder in the middle theory theorises that autocracies

and democracies use soft repressive measures, while hybrid regimes use hard repression

methods to quash dissent. I hypothesise that the same theory can be applied to the repression

of critical hip-hop music. Thus, I formulate the following hypothesis: soft repressive measures

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towards critical hip-hop are commonplace in autocracies and democracies, whereas hard

repression is the way to go for hybrid regimes.

This is the expected due to regime specific characteristics that will be outlined in the

theory section of the study. In order to find the solution to the puzzle, this study will make use

of a Structured Focused Comparison design and investigate three concrete case studies. The

research’s findings will be discussed in the analysis chapter.

This study will start off with a previous research section and then continues with a

theory chapter that provides the basis for the expected results. Subsequently, the reader will

encounter the research design that will be used to solve the puzzle that belongs to this study.

After that, the three cases of this study will be investigated and the reader can read how these

regimes have dealt with critical hip-hop. Lastly, there will be an analysis as well as a

concluding section.

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II. Previous Research

I. Music, an incredibly powerful phenomenon

Music and Propaganda

Because of the fact that music works directly on our emotions, it could be asserted that songs

are incredibly strong weapons of propaganda (Street 2003, 114). Consequently, it cannot

come as a surprise that music is frequently used in, for example, election campaign videos of

political parties. It goes without saying that asserting that the latter is downright propaganda

goes too far, but nonetheless the music that accompanies these videos is carefully picked and

has the sole function of evoking a particular set of images, associations and sentiments (Street

2003, 114). Therefore, music can be a tool of propaganda, for it has the ability to move

people.

Employing music as a form of political propaganda is nothing novel, researcher

claimed. Sounds and songs have been used to induce emotional responses to, amongst others,

parties and their products for a long time. “God save the King” became a form of state

propaganda in Great-Britain with the aim to legitimise the monarchic rule (Colley 1992, 44-

48). In a similar, but more deliberate vein, The Nazi regime and the Soviet Union also

exploited popular music for propaganda purposes. The former regime virtually brainwashed

the youth by making music an unescapable part of being in the Nazi Youth (Burleigh and

Wippermann 1991, 208), whereas the Soviet regime used music to maintain military morale

amongst its soldiers (Street 2003, 115).

What the above sections illustrate is the incessant endeavours by political parties,

politicians and also states to harness music’s perceived power for propaganda purposes.

Hence, music should be seen as a source of power and people ought not to be oblivious to the

fact that this can very well be used with malign intentions (Street 2003, 116).

Other side of the coin and censorship

As explained above, music has the potential to promote (in the eyes of the disseminator)

approved causes. However, there is another interesting side to the coin of using music to

further political goals. For if it can evoke endorsed sentiments and images, it can certainly

also do the opposite and articulate and evoke unwelcome sentiments and images. Thus,

previous research has pointed out how music is both a vessel for messages that are approved

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by states, regimes, parties and/or politicians, but also a vessel for the opposite: undesirable

thoughts, ideas and sentiments (Street 2003, 117). Consequently, states have not merely been

busy with disseminating music but also with trying to keep certain music under the surface. A

fitting and recent example of censorship of music that perfectly hints at the inherent power of

music is the fact that the Taliban banned all forms of music under their reign over

Afghanistan.

Many people hold the erroneous belief that censorship is an alien practice in

democracies. Although it is true that this practice is rare in liberal democracies, which is

probably due to the fact that cornerstone freedoms such as free expression are constitutionally

protected, cases exist of democracies directly censoring popular music (Street 2003, 118).

Martin Cloonan, for example, notes that in the UK many songs have been downright banned,

for example songs relating to the Northern Irish independence struggle (1996).

An important thing to keep in mind regarding acts of censorship of music, previous

research indicates, is the fact that these actions are not necessarily responses to the inherent

power of the songs that are being censored. The fact that (the hypothetical) song “X” is being

removed from the stage does not per se mean that song “X” had the power or ability to

disturb, cause uproar or shock its listeners. Rather, what is often the case instead, is that the

prejudices and paranoia of states is what drives the censorship (Street 2003, 119). The

embodiment of the latter can be seen in the sudden changes in attitudes of the Soviet Union

towards the genre of Jazz music throughout the decades in the 20th century. Jazz was more or

less endorsed after the Soviets were betrayed by the Germans and after the US joined the

allied forces during World War II, but on the other hand the genre was an absolute pariah

throughout the years of the Cold War. Hence, state politics, international relations, ideology,

interests and most importantly what the music in question represents are sometimes more

important drivers of the censorship than the actual power of the music. Censoring music is a

tricky business though, for the act of censoring might give the music some sort of status that it

would have otherwise lacked. Oftentimes, the censored works then acquire some kind of

magical status that only attracts more attention (Street 2003, 119).

Music and Opposition and Resistance

Music has traditionally given a voice to resistance and opposition, from the many folk songs

to the songs of slaves and to anti-war protest songs (Street 2003, 12). Music provides a space

in which actions of resistance can be articulated and is thus way more than just entertainment

or a form of escapism. Therefore, it is not surprising that many sub-cultures or counter-

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cultures (as they are called in sociology) are built around music genres. Notable examples of

these sub-cultures are the punks in the 1970s and the hip-hop culture since the late 1990s.

Some songs have been so powerful or are so emblematic for a particular cause that they

became true anthems for a certain movement. Sam Cooke’s “A Change is Gonna Come” and

Nina Simone’s “Mississippi Goddam” are the personifications of the latter, attaining the status

of soundtracks to the Civil Rights Movement in the United States (Street 2003, 122).

Concerning the link between social and political movements and music, John Street

aptly argued that “the music was a product of politics, just as the politics was a product of

music” (2003, 124). This fittingly describes the inevitable fact that music, politics and social

affairs are heavily intertwined with each other and cannot be seen as wholly separate and

independent entities. The links between music and these aforementioned movements are not

established by mere coincidence, but are rather the result of palpable and identifiable interests

and the webs that connect them. But music has a broader reach than just social and political

movements, since it can be the voice for whole communities. Communities use music for

advancing their collective ends, according to Mark Mattern (1998, 19). Elaborating on the

latter, music is a form of communication that allows larger groups to establish and reinforce

shared meanings and interests. Hence, it solidifies a sense of “who we are” (Mattern 1998,

19).

The exact mechanism that is behind this inherent power in music is a highly vexed

topic in previous academic work. Street asserts that music is, first and foremost, a source of

aesthetic pleasure and its inherent power lays in the fact that it is a form of pleasure (2003,

128). Music’s pleasure has the ability to conjure up an ideal order including all of the desired

values and ideas of a community or group. In short, music has the ability to let people grasp

this ideal and desired reality (Frith 1996, 275). Bradley said something similar about why

music is powerful, although he was specifically talking about the genre of hip-hop:

“Rap is poetry. But its popularity relies in part on people not recognizing it as such. After all,

rap is for good times; we play it in our cars, hear it at parties and at clubs. By contrast, most

people associate poetry with hard work; it is something to be studied in school or puzzled

over for hidden insights. Poetry stands at an almost unfathomable distance from our daily

lives, or at least so it seems given how infrequently we seek it out” (2009, 7).

Another theory on the reasons behind the effectiveness of music – when it comes to

supporting social movements and its goals - that circulates in the academic world is captured

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by Eyerman & Jamison. They contend that music is virtually a “cognitive phenomenon with

enormous potential to influence the politics and culture of social movements in light of its

knowledge-bearing and identity-giving qualities” (1998, 23). Due to having these

“knowledge-bearing” and “identity-giving qualities”, music is much more than merely

ideational art in the sense that they are simultaneously symbolic and factual expressions,

representations and articulations of the worlds and circumstances that adherents of these

social movements live in (Rabaka 2013, 5).

All in all, it has become evident that music can serve as a powerful propaganda tool.

However, flowing from this premise, the opposite is obviously also true: music can be used

for unwanted causes and be socially disruptive. Therefore, besides being employed as a tool,

music is also subject to censorship and suppression. The power of music is evident in the

political responses that it produces, with the soundtracks to social movements such as the

Civil Right Movement being one of the most fitting examples of the latter (Street 2003, 129).

Additionally, the use of this music does not merely give expression to already-existing

(political) sentiments and organizations, but rather this music truly has the ability to actually

forge and shape sentiments and organizations (Street 2003, 129). Thus, music is not just a

product of social sentiments and movements, but can also be the catalyst behind these

sentiments and movements.

II. Hip-Hop Music: it’s roots, inherent activist nature and the interplay between hip-

hop music and social movements

The birth of hip-hop and its interplay with social movements

Hip-Hop has been political and activist from its inception. The genre was created as a

response to the deplorable socio-economic conditions in the cradle from which hip-hop came:

The Bronx, New York. The (primarily) African American community found a creative outlet

in the form of hip-hop to vent their frustration and to address societal injustice (Scharn 2018,

14). Despite its North-American origins, the genre quickly spread to other parts of the world

(Morgan 2016, 133-134).

Since hip-hop is political from its beginnings and lends itself neatly for political

purposes, the genre rapidly garnered a large audience and it understood that hip-hop can

provide “a basis for pragmatic political action” (Stapleton 1998, 230). Hip-Hop subsequently

became an informational and resistance tool, something hip-hop artists reinforced by more

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and more often addressing and challenging socio-political issues through their art (Scharn

2018, 15).

Let’s take a closer look at music and hip-hop in relation to social movements.

According to Reiland Rabaka, sociologists define social movements as collective efforts to

produce social change (2013, 1). So, the question then becomes, how does the specific genre

of Hip-Hop music contribute to social movements attaining these desired changes?

First and foremost, it is worth looking into what the so-called Hip-Hop Movement

exactly constitutes. It could be argued that the latter movement was spawned by the

popularisation and politics of rap music throughout the 1980s and onwards (Rabaka 2013, 5).

Hip-Hop culture encompasses more than just rap music, for example phenomena such as

breakdancing and graffiti, however it is rap music that is by far the most consumed aspect of

hip-hop and also the easiest form to infuse with politics (Spence 2011, 5). This suitability of

rap music and infusing it with politics can be seen in the fact that many people (both within

the hip-hop culture and outside of it) believe that rap lyrics communicate politics. Previous

research has addressed hip-hop as a genre that can circulate and generate a new form of

political activism. More importantly, they are convinced of the fact that shifting political

attitudes is one of the consequences of the consumption of rap music. Hence, rap music itself

can actually attain the change of a person’s or a group’s political attitudes (Spence 2011, 3).

Moreover, it provides a space in which alternatives to the status quo are being produced and

thus, it is undeniable that hip-hop music is way more than just a music genre: it is a vessel for

political messages, change and activism.

Tricia Rose has wonderfully captured this activist nature by asserting that rap music is

in essence “a contemporary stage for the theatre of the powerless” (Rose 1994, 100-101). By

virtue of this music, severe critique of different manifestations of power and the status quo are

being brought to the forefront. Frequently, this happens through jokes, wordplay, puns and

detailed stories, for rhyming is the central component in rap music. All in all, rap music can

provide social commentary that enacts standing up against the established order and defying

social injustice (Rose 1994, 101).

As was highlighted in a previous section, rap music seems to be very effective in

bringing across messages without tiring its consumers due to its ability to act as poetry but not

necessarily being recognized as such. In other words, it has a very light and enjoyable nature

and is easy to digest for the lion’s share of (young) people on this globe. Continuing on a

similar train of thought, Kristina Stapleton has argued that hip-hop artists make excellent

conveyors of political and cultural information is the fact that they have the ability to

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communicate important messages in a form that the youth enjoys and understands without

having to put in too much effort (1998, 220). Lastly, Bradley voiced a similar reasoning, by

saying that rap artists make the unfamiliar familiar through rhyme, rhythm and wordplay.

Moreover, they expand our understanding of the human experience by telling stories we

might otherwise not hear (2009, 8). However, at the same time, rap music is also able to

capture widespread sentiments and has proven on a consistent basis to be a provocative tool to

push the envelope and press issues that might otherwise have been stifled (Rabaka 2013, 7).

What is more, rap music aptly combines flavours for those who listen to music for aesthetic

reasons as well as those who listen to music to find some sort of deeper meaning. The genre

captures the ear of listeners in both groups and also the ones who listen to the music because

of both aesthetic reasons and deeper reasons. Hip-Hop music is both extremely commercial in

these days (being the most consumed genre of music in many regions in the world) and

simultaneously highly political, this makes the reach of hip-hop music extremely vast, ditto

for its influence. Consequently, this type of music is extraordinarily fit for raising awareness,

especially when having in mind the fact that the present-day world is more globalised,

interconnected and technologically developed than ever before. The result of the latter is that

the dissemination of hip-hop music is currently faster, bigger and more widespread than it

ever was before.

Although Stapleton is explicitly talking about the African American community when

she says that the music genre has served to create and reinforce the cohesive bonds amongst

urban youths in the United States (1998, 231), I argue that this can be extrapolated to other

ethnic, political and national groups as well. Hip-hop music has also proven to be a form or

resistance, tool of information and binding formula between different people in different

locations in the world. An illustration of the binding, collective identity amplifying function

that hip-hop music can have it today’s significantly interconnected world, has been found in

the cause of Palestinians around the world. Through hip-hop music and it being performed in

today’s cyberspace, a collective affect for disenfranchised communities is being established.

This goes especially for the Palestinian cause, as Ghabra has found, since that community has

a history of displacement and diasporic activity, thus struggling with finding a solid and

collective identity (2020, 198). The virtual realm ensures instant accessibility to hip-hop

music, for it is not constrained by actual, physical boundaries and obstacles, something that is

highly convenient for a dispersed group of people such as the Palestinians. Ghabra then

asserts that, in the light of the Palestinian cause (but once again I would say that this can be

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extended to many other groups as well), that these spaces can create mobilisation, social

transformations and awareness for diasporic connection (2020, 198).

Another author that stressed the importance of the present-day impact of cyberspace

and the dissemination of hip-hop music, as well as other music genres, is Xiaoming.

Cyberspace facilitates opportunities for groups to discuss a common interest and it has a

highly significant impact on the reach of the communication (1999). Cyberspace situates

communication (through music) on a scale where space is no longer territorialised and

enables it to evolve outside physical boundaries (Xiaoming 1999). In a similar vein, Bakati

Kitwana claimed that the genre of hip-hop is a framework and a culture that brings (young)

people together and provides a public space in which they can communicate without being

restricted by the old obstacles (2005, 78). In my opinion, the latter is crucial to highlight for

this has such a profound influence on the (potential) power, influence and reach of social

movements. Furthermore, the aforementioned naturally does not only apply to diasporic

communities, but to any group in particular.

To sum up, a vast number of rappers are not only artists but also (political) activists. It

is therefore fitting to use the term “raptivists” to address this group. The rhymes of these

raptivists reflect sentiments and desires that aim at transforming contemporary societies for

the better and therefore, these artists are invaluable connectors between social movements and

its politics on the one hand and society at large on the other. Their songs inform and are

furthermore teeming with morals and principles that guide, but without being too didactic.

Instead, rappers are excellent conveyors of messages and leaders of a cause for the nature of

the genre of rap lends itself perfectly for the latter: it uses the power of wordplay and poetry

in a subtle manner to disseminate messages, reinforce sentiments, connect worlds and

mobilize people (Rabaka 2013, 30).

III. Hip-Hop and State Repression

Previous Research on Hip-Hop and State Repression

Despite the modest surge of hip-hop in the academic world, the music genre is still

taking up a relatively small place within that world. Expanding our knowledge regarding the

latter could be highly fruitful and relevant. For example, if we study the phenomenon more

intensively, hip-hop could be used as a tool for conflict resolution. Heim has pointed out how

hip-hop has the potential to bridge the worlds of Palestinians and Israelism, thus finding

common ground and a solution to their decades-long conflict (2011, 29-30). Similarly, Martin

18

Lundqvist found that hip-hop can be put in peacebuilding’s toolbox in the Nepalese context as

well (2021, 454). Due to the presence of this relatively uncharted territory within the

academic world, there exists a severe degree of freedom when it comes to possible studies to

conduct within this realm. For example, a recent and very interesting phenomenon is the

repression of hip-hop music and artists in states where critical hip-hop expressions are being

produced. Oftentimes, these expressions serve as resistance, opposition and most of all as

challenges to the status quo. As a result of being critical and trying to defy the established

order, these artists and the music in general face mild to severe repressive measures,

administered by the regime. There exists, however, a vast variety of different approaches of

repression towards these artists and their music. This is an interesting phenomenon to look

into and is, thus far, almost wholly overlooked in the scholarly sphere. This study’s goal is to

change that.

To my knowledge, the body of work that covers hip-hop music and state repression

specifically is extremely slim. It seems to be virtually impossible to find previous research

that takes a look at the state administered repression of hip-hop music from a broader

perspective. This is stunning, but at the same time it favours this study for the fact that this

research is so rare, makes this study a precious addition. It could possibly even create a new

pathway for a new sub-field of research and inspire others to contribute to this novel field.

Despite the lack of academic work on repression and hip-hop, what seems to be more

common is more popular work (i.e., non-academic sources) on the topic. In other words,

popular news sources such as online magazines are more likely to cover the repression of hip-

hop by state administrations.

This does not mean that there does not exist a single piece of academic work on hip-

hop music and its repression by states at all. Some studies have been conducted, but have

limited their scope to dissecting one specific country. Scholars have thus far only done deep

dives into the repression of hip-hop music and arts in one specific country. For example,

Amar has conducted a thorough investigation of China’s repressive endeavours towards hip-

hop music, concluding that this regime’s approach is highly whimsical (2018). Furthermore,

the effect of Putin’s reign in Russia on creative freedom and hip-hop specifically has been

investigated. This study found that the hip-hop scene is being stifled to a severe degree while

pro-regime hip-hoppers thrive (Liebig 2020). Also, Iran has been scrutinized. Elham

Golpushnezhad documents how intervention by the regime and even the Islamic State have

tamed its underground and dissenting nature and turned it into more mainstream music

(2018).

19

Yet, as has been stated earlier, studies that take a broader look at the practice and

investigate more than one specific country are extremely scarce if not non-existent. The

influence of how the regime type present in a particular country might influence the

repression of critical hip-hop is completely neglected. Whereas the interplay between regime

type and repression in general is a commonly studied subject (see the theory section of this

study), the link between regime type and repression of hip-hop specifically has never been

made. Moreover, it is vital to mention that not all countries repress critical hip-hop. As an

illustration, my own home country of The Netherlands has (to my knowledge) never

intervened in the hip-hop scene, even if the art contained severely explicit or vulgar lyrics.

The puzzle that one encounters then, is the following. Some countries leave critical hip-hop

be, whereas other countries tend to repress critical hip-hop. But what explains the variation in

approaches towards repressing critical hip-hop of those regimes that belong to the latter

group? Regime type present in the respective country might well be one of the determining

factors.

Therefore, the broader contribution that this study attempts to make is related to hip-

hop in the world of peace and conflict studies and the trend of “hip-hop academisation”. More

specifically, the study will contribute to the phenomenon of hip-hop music and the repression

of the art form in states where critical hip-hop expressions (constituting acts of opposition and

resistance) are being voiced. Thereby, the study also contributes to the broader discussions

revolving around phenomena such as freedom of expression and freedom of speech.

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III. Theory

State repression

It is a commonly believed idea that war has historically claimed more victims than other

forms of political conflict. However, as Rummel finds, this belief is erroneous and instead it is

the repressive behaviour of states that has taken away the most lives (1997). It goes without

saying that this makes it highly worthwhile to look into the phenomenon of state repression.

State repression entails “the actual or threatened use of physical sanctions against an

individual or organization, within the territorial jurisdiction of the state, for the purpose of

imposing a cost on the target as well as deterring specific activities and/or beliefs perceived to

be challenging to government personnel, practices or institutions” (Goldstein 1978, 27).

Christian Davenport, however, lobbies for a slightly different conceptualisation of the concept

of “repression”. Davenport argues that repression encompasses a vast variety of coercive

efforts used by political authorities to influence the people that live in their territorial

jurisdiction. This can be overt and covert, violent and nonviolent, and, lastly, state, state-

sponsored and state-affiliated (2007, 3). This is moreover the definition that caters more to my

personal taste and thus I will use this definition in this thesis project.

One of the paramount predictors for repressive behaviour by regimes is nonstate

political conflict, or in other words, civil unrest and protest behaviour within society

(Davenport 2007, 6). Thus, it could be argued, repressive behaviour often follows after

general discontent within a society is being voiced. Hence, state repression is seen by many

regimes as a tool to solve political conflict; political leaders feel compelled to employ

repressive mechanisms to maintain their grip on power (Davies 2016, 120). This political

conflict manifests itself in the form of behaviour that threatens the political system,

government officials, the economy, but also the lives and beliefs of those who live in the

regimes territorial jurisdiction. Therefore, there seems to be a, what Davenport calls, “Law of

Coercive Responsiveness” in place towards challenges to the status quo (2007, 7). By using

these repressive tools, the opposition groups that defy the status quo have to deal with altered

calculations for the costs of their dissenting behaviour. Obviously, the costs for rebelling will

be higher after facing these repressive measures and thereby, elites reduce threats to their rule

and increase their own strength vis-à-vis the opponents. Additionally, by doing this those in

power make it clear to external enemies that they are still in control over their territory

(Davies 2016, 120).

21

A vital distinction between hard and soft repression has to be made here. Jämte and

Ellefsen have specialised in this field and concocted a recipe to distinguish between hard and

soft repression on the basis of many studies (2020). Hard repression entails the more

“traditional” forms repression that are based upon threats, coercion and downright violence.

Mechanisms included in this category included, for example, arrests, violent attacks and

imprisonment. On the other side of the spectrum one can find soft repressive measures, which

typically include more sophisticated techniques that refrain from using violence in order to

attain the preferred behaviour. In this category fall, amongst others, bans to silence sentiments

or marginalising oppositional ideas. Thus, soft repression is more discursively focussed while

hard repression is more pragmatic. A more extensive list with the measures per category will

be provided in the research design section.

Repression and regime type

A factor that seems to have an impact on the phenomenon of states applying repressive

measures is the type of regime that is applying the repression. First, repressive behaviour by

states becomes rarer when the state is democratic. Scholars have found consistent evidence on

the idea that democratic practices and institutions tend to increase the costs of using

repressive mechanisms. The latter is due to the fact that elections make it possible for a

society to punish incumbents by voting them out of office in the case of (in their eyes)

inappropriate state behaviour (Davenport 2007, 10). In a similar vein, Carey adds that the use

of repression by democratic leaders is in fact counterproductive and likely to backfire, due to

the fact that this will merely galvanize the opposition even more (2006, 8). They might

retaliate by voting the elite out of office or they might even retaliate with violence themselves

and then this will create a downward spiral in which things only escalate. The latter will only

result in more instability (Davies 2016, 122).

Nonetheless, it is important to mention that this does not necessarily mean that the

more autocratic a state gets, the more repressive behaviour is shown by this state. For

example, the “more murder in the middle” theory suggests that mixed and transitional

regimes, which combine elements of democracy and autocracy, are most prone to show (hard)

repression and coercion. On the other hand, full autocracies and full democracies are less

likely to apply repressive mechanisms, with full democracies showing the absolute least

amount of repression (Regan and Henderson 2002, 122-123). However, this finding is not

completely devoid of contestation either. Instead of a concave down parabola, findings

support more of a threshold effect relationship where it is argued that, until the highest levels

22

of democracy are reached, repressive behaviour is not influenced by regime type. Thus, at the

highest levels of democracy (i.e., the most democratic democracies) the presence of

repressive behaviour is diminished (Bueno de Mesquito et al. 2005).

Whether repression is an effective tool for regimes to use is another question.

Similarly to previous sections that discussed the fact that regime type and presence of

repressive behaviour are contingent on each other, regime type also seems to impact the

effectivity of repressive behaviour. Some scholars assert that repressive behaviour sets off the

so-called “micromobilization process”, no matter which regime type is in the picture. This

theory asserts that repressive behaviour can only lead to more internal discontent and thus

heightened levels of domestic dissent (e.g., Chong 1991). On the other hand, evidence also

exists for the notion that repressive behaviour in democracies is highly ineffective and merely

creates increased dissent in the long run, while in autocracies repressive mechanisms actually

have a fair chance of being successful and might decrease domestic dissent (Gupta, Singh,

and Sprague 1993).

The lesson that can be learned from the previous sections then, is that the type of

regime in which the dissent takes place makes a big difference for the type and nature of

reaction coming from the state in which the respective dissent takes place. Thus, institutional

context seems to be a highly relevant aspect in the light of studies on repression. Furthermore,

once again on the basis of previous findings and arguments, I argue that the probability that

democratic leaders will opt for a more diversionary tactic when it comes to dealing with

domestic dissent and discontent is relatively high. The latter is due to their inability to employ

repressive mechanisms and consequently, they have to resort to diversionary tools as well as

making political concessions. The costs associated with repression are too high for democratic

leaders and thus, they have to refrain from using this tactic and are more or less obliged to use

alternative strategies. By choosing for (political) concessions, the leadership chooses to

compromise to a certain degree and normally this method should result in a decreasing level

of instability as the source for discontentment is (partly) being dealt with (Davies 2016, 124).

Diversion is another alternative tool that leaders can use, especially democratic leaders for

their hands are tied when it comes to using repressive strategies. What this tactic entails is the

creation of an international dispute with the underlying motive to divert the public’s attention

from the domestic dissatisfaction and issues. The leader tries to attain a political boost for

him- or herself by starting an international dispute (Davies 2016, 124). Lastly, using

alternative strategies might not be such a bad idea at all. For, as Davies finds, repression is

23

able to reduce instability in the short-term but the mechanism is highly unsuitable for the

long-run as it does not constitute a solution to long-lasting grievances in society (2016, 137).

In order to quickly summarise some of the most important points made above, the

following table has been made. Since repression is of main interest in this study, concessions

and diversion have been left out of this table.

Regime type Form of repression

anticipated in traditional

repression theory

Form of repression

anticipated by the “more

murder in the middle” theory

Democracy Soft Soft

Anocracy (Relatively) hard Hard

Autocracy Hard (Predominantly) soft

Figure 1: The three different regime types and their anticipated use of repression in the face

of internal opposition

The fact that repression is more commonplace in anocracies compared to democracies and

autocracies (if we may believe the “more murder in the middle” theory), might also correlate

with the fact that internal conflict is rarer in autocracies and democracies then in anocracies.

As Thoms & Ron find, regime type and internal conflict have a more or less inversed U-

shaped relationship, with internal conflict being least likely in fully democratic countries,

most likely in hybrid regimes and being less likely in fully autocratic states (Thoms and Ron

2007, 701). Hence, as was the case with repression, it seems to be the case that the

relationship between regime type and internal conflict is not linear. This would inevitably also

have its impact on repression. For, if there is less internal conflict present in a state, then it is

somewhat logical that less repressive endeavours take place in that same state.

In a similar vein, regime change (regardless of the direction) seems to boost internal

conflict as well, thus enhancing internal instability (Thoms & Ron 2007, 703). Political

change is thus risky, for it often leads to more internal instability and thus also higher levels

of repression. This is relevant in the light of this study since anocracies are often in a state of

turmoil due to regime change and this might be another factor that adds to the explanation of

the “more murder in the middle” theory.

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More Murder in the Middle

One of the more interesting findings of scholarly work on repression is the “more murder in

the middle” theory, which argues that repression and coercion are more commonly found in

regimes that combine democratic and autocratic elements compared to full-blown

democracies and downright autocracies. Thus, repressive tendencies are less common in full

autocracies and democracies, with pure democracies being the least receptive for repressive

tendencies, whereas the practice becomes more frequently done in anocratic regimes (Regan

and Henderson 2002, 122-123). There is an interesting rationale behind the latter. First of all,

democratic states are unlikely to employ repressive tools due to the fact that this will have

severe electoral consequences for the incumbents. The people can vote the incumbents out of

office if they use disproportionate measures, of which hard repression plausibly is one.

Moreover, this practice is less common in democratic states because there are other

institutional mechanisms available to the public to vent dissent and consequently, the use for

repression is delegitimised (Davies 2016, 125). On the other side of the spectrum we find

autocratic states. Here, repressive measures are also less common when juxtaposing them to

anocratic states due to the fact that democratic elements lack altogether in fully autocratic

states and thus there is no culture or willingness at all (amongst the people) to dissent. For

these states are wholly devoid of democratic values, institutions and similar things, dissent is

not really (or to a less severe degree) shown in these countries and thus there is no need for

these regimes to employ repressive mechanisms. The regime is already more or less fully in

control of the public and thus repression is less common in autocracies. Elaborating on this, in

autocracies, domestic instability (i.e., the push factor for exhibiting dissenting behaviour) is

often minute because the regime in power constrains the opportunities to dissent. Lastly, they

also signal a willingness to use hard repression and hold the people in a grip of fear, thus also

discouraging rebellious behaviour (Davies 2016, 125). On the other hand, hybrid regimes are

more likely to use repression and coercion. The latter is the result of the fact that, due to

having democratic elements to some degree, dissidents are encouraged to oppose the regime,

but at the same time the regime has autocratic characteristics which provide the incentives and

opportunities to use repressive mechanisms. Hence, the leader is tested more in these regimes

and has to show that it is still holding the reigns of power (Davies 2016, 125-126).

25

Hypothesis

Critical hip-hop music is present in (almost) all countries, for in all countries there are hip-hop

artists that address injustice, social issues and other troubles that torment the people in their

respective countries. In this thesis, these critical hip-hop expressions are the expressions of

dissonance and opposition. More specifically, critical hip-hop is the protestive behaviour that

fights (malign) hegemonic structures and the status quo. These expressions then become

subject to repression by the overarching state, with the aim to quash the opposition and to

maintain stability and order. The thesis then tries to see what the relation is between different

types of states/regimes and the (different) ways in which they deal with them. I expect that

more murder in the middle also applies to critical hip-hop expressions and hypothesise that

regime type has a strong influence on the way in which this regime deals with critical hip-

hop. Hence, I formulate the following hypothesis:

“Autocratic and democratic states use less (hard forms of) repression towards hip-hop artists

and songs compared to anocratic states.”

Thus, when looking at the hypothesis above, it is expected that the repression of hip-hop

artists that oppose the regime through their music follows the general logic of repression.

Hence, one would expect to see a pattern that is also present in repression of phenomena that

are normally subjected to repression, such as opposition groups and their leaders. Special

dynamics are not expected.

26

IV. Research Design To thoroughly assess whether there is a relationship between regime type and type of

repression towards critical hip-hop, the study needs a solid research design. Therefore, the

following section will describe what the blueprint looks like that is going to be used for

investigating whether the aforementioned relationship exists and of which nature this is.

Repression of Hip-Hop artists in Spain, Russia and China – Case Selection

In this study, the cases of Spain, Russia and China have been selected to be put under

scrutiny. It is of the utmost importance to outline what the cases that this study will look at,

are cases of. The cases in this study are states in which critical hip-hop has faced repression,

administered by the state in which they are active. Besides the latter, there are a couple of

other criteria to which the cases in this study have to comply. However, before looking at

what those characteristics are, it is vital to highlight the fact that selecting cases with an

underlying motive is crucial when conducting studies with a case study design. Random

sampling is incongruous when conducting a study with a limited amount of cases that is being

put under scrutiny. Consequently, purposefully selecting a small selection of cases while

taking the research question and purpose of the study in mind is the preferred way to go

(Gerring 2006, 87-90).

First of all, the cases in this study vary in regime type (the IV) in order to assess the

theory. The independent variable in this study is regime type and since the hypothesis of this

project is that regime type has a strong influence on the amount and degree of repression that

the respective regime exerts on hip-hop music and artists that are critical, cases have been

selected that differ from each other when it comes to this factor. Hence, one full-fledged

autocracy, one anocratic regime and lastly a fully democratic state have been chosen.

Secondly, acts of resistance and opposition to challenge the regime and status quo, in the form

of critical hip-hop expressions, have to be present in the countries of examination. The latter

is straightforward, for without the presence of critical hip-hop art, no examination would be

possible. In a similar vein, state repression towards these critical hip-hop artists and their

music must be present. Finally, although this is not really a selection criterion but rather a

scope condition, the last consideration regarding selecting cases for this study is that of

country size. Specifically, the country had to be of considerable size and not for example a

microstate. The reason for this condition to be included is the fact that the study tries to pick

cases that are similar to each other except for when it comes to the type of regime that they

27

are. Nevertheless, it must be mentioned that the latter is very difficult if not impossible in

general, for the cases are countries and countries around the world inevitably differ

significantly from each other.

Based on the aforementioned selection criteria, three countries were chosen to be

subjected to scrutiny: Spain, Russia and China. All three states are characterised by a different

type of regime, hence the variation on the independent variable is present and that is crucial

for this study. Spain is a democracy, Russia is a hybrid regime (i.e., an anocracy) and finally,

China is an autocracy. These classifications are derived from the Global State of Democracy

Indices of 2020 that were made by International IDEA. This is an organisation that is

specifically pivoted towards studying democracy worldwide and is thus the perfect authority

to draw classifications from.

Although care was taken to select cases that would fit the Structured Focused

Comparison design of this study, it must be admitted that these countries are obviously not

homogenous, but are in fact rather different in a lot of aspects. More attention will be spend

on this topic in the analysis section of the study but for now, think of phenomena such as

culture, history and geographic location. Nevertheless, when it comes to the case selection

criteria, the cases picked are similar. All countries have more than 45 million inhabitants, all

countries have experienced opposition forces using critical hip-hop to criticise the regime and

social issues and lastly, all three countries check the box of having seen critical hip-hop artists

and their art being repressed by those in power. This is summarised in the figure on the next

page.

28

Case Regime type

variation

Presence of

critical hip-hop

music

Presence of

repression

towards critical

hip-hop

More than 45

million

inhabitants

in the

country

Spain ü (Democracy) ü ü ü

Russia ü (Anocracy) ü ü ü

China ü (Autocracy) ü ü ü

Figure 2: Table with the different cases and the selection criteria.

This study focusses on the time period stretching from the early 2000s to the present-day. To

be specific, the exact years are 2000 up to (and including) 2021. The reason for looking at this

period in time is that the genre of hip-hop is a relatively novel genre and because hip-hop’s

rise to stardom started around the early 2000s. Although it would be highly interesting to see

how critical hip-hop music was repressed around the era of its inception, it does not tell us so

much about the current state of repression on dissent voiced through hip-hop.

Material and Sources In order to find an answer to the puzzling question of whether repression towards critical hip-

hop is impacted by regime type and why some states use harder repressive measures than

others, this study will for the most part make use of academic literature as well as journalistic

pieces that cover the repression of hip-hop music in the respective countries under scrutiny.

Moreover, pieces of hip-hop music will be used as a source of information for this

study. These songs are the main objects in which hip-hop artists are able to oppose, resist and

challenge those who hold power or the (social) structures that enable social issues to stay

existent and therefore, it would be interesting to shed some light on how exactly these songs

take care of those aspects. Furthermore, the songs are commonly the catalysts behind the

state’s repressive tendencies towards hip-hop artists and thus, it goes without saying that

looking at how these songs trigger those responses is invaluable.

The material and cases used in this project are not flawless though and it important to

highlight that. Firstly, in the light of comparability of the cases used, it must be mentioned

that there are some possible confounding variables present. The latter might reduce the

29

generalisability of the findings of the study. Possible confounders present that might have an

effect on the way in which regimes respond to critical hip-hop are cultural differences

between the countries, differences in history (as in: historical trajectories) and different

geographical locations in the world. In my opinion, the three factors all have a significant

impact on the way in which states deal with dissidence and instability within their territory.

Another factor that might be problematic regarding the material and the selected cases,

is differences in critical lyrical content in the songs. For example, some songs or artists might

mostly address broader structural problems in a society (e.g., discrimination to certain groups

within that society), whereas other songs and artists might actually directly and personally

attack a specific person with their lyrics (e.g., the king or president of a country). This might

plausibly have an effect on the way in which states respond to those expressions and their

artists. It is not weird to think that regimes repress more harshly towards those who

specifically target (e.g.,) the king compared to those who “merely” address a social issue that

torments a society. Looking at the latter would be a separate study by itself, but is out of the

scope of this paper.

Additionally, there exists a dangerous potential research bias with regards to the

sources and material used for this study. It might be the case that the data collected and the

sources used do not fully reflect the situation concerning repression of critical hip-hop as it

truly is in real-life. The latter relates to one of the main topics of this study, namely:

censorship. It might be the case that repression of critical voices in the countries of this study

might not always reach the (mass) media due to endeavours of the regime to censor this

practice. This might hinder availability to and the accessing of accurate reflections of reality

in the form of sources. It is paramount to keep that in mind and this point will be reflected

upon more in the analysis.

Lastly, another point that is worth mentioning is the fact that I am not fluent at all in

Spanish, Russian nor Chinese. I have some knowledge of the Spanish language, however I

have no knowledge when it comes to Russian and Chinese. It is vital to mention this, as I will

investigate some Spanish, Russian and Chinese songs and the content of their lyrics is crucial

(since this is what triggers the repressive response from the regime these songs address).

Consequently, this means that I heavily rely on the work and interpretations of others when it

comes to interpreting the song lyrics. I rely on the translations of native speakers of the

language in which the critical hip-hop songs are written. Although I made sure that the

articles that scrutinize critical hip-hop songs in Russian, Chinese and Spanish have authors

that are fluent in the language of the song lyrics, I cannot with a 100% certainty say that the

30

lyrics are interpreted and translated to English flawlessly since I do not speak those

languages. Nevertheless, I am fairly confident that the lyrics are interpreted in the correct

manner, for the sources I use are academic articles that have been published and are written

by native speakers of the languages in question.

Ethical Considerations and Terminology

No ethical considerations were identified when designing this study and throughout the

process of assessing the data collected for this investigation. However, one must be aware of

one other (although not related to ethics) consideration. Due to the nature of this paper, in

which hip-hop and actively voicing dissent through hip-hop art play the central role, explicit

content is present in this study. The paper dissects some lyrics and therefore engages with

some lyrics that are quite explicit in nature. These mostly contain swear words or terminology

that might not be very prevalent in most other academic fields and thus the reader should be

warned for that. The inclusion of these explicit lyrics is, however, crucial in order to conduct

this study (for these are often the lines that jeopardise the artist and makes them collide with

the regime) and have consequently a vital place in this paper.

For the sake of transparency and convenience for the reader, regarding the

terminology that can be found in this study, I would like to emphasise the fact that the words

“hip-hop” and “rap” have been used interchangeably. Factually, rap music is the musical

component of the hip-hop culture in its entirety, but in contemporary literature the two are

virtually synonymous. Thus, with the terms “rapper”, “hip-hop artists” and “hip-hopper” I

mean the same phenomenon throughout this paper. Moreover, there are many sub-genres

within rap music. However, in the light of this paper, only critical hip-hop is relevant. This

type of rap is often called “conscious rap”. Hence, when this paper refers to “hip-hop music”

or “rap music”, it is addressing that type of rap: conscious rap.

Operationalisation and Methods for Empirical Analysis

A first step into enabling the empirical analysis of cases is translating the key theoretical

concepts into terms and conceptualisations that can be observed in the material that will be

studied.

As critical hip-hop expressions in the form of songs are one of the main objects of interest

in this study, it is vital to outline what exactly is captured by this term. Critical hip-hop songs

31

are songs in which the lyrics and sentiments included are revolving around one or multiple of

the following themes or phenomena:

- Personal attacks towards those in power (members of the royal family, government

officials, army leaders, dictators, oligarchs)

- Racism and discrimination

- Socio-economic differences and circumstances

- Structural injustice and problems within society (i.e., social issues in general)

- Criticism on regime type (e.g., autocracy and their dictators)

- (Excessive) police violence

- Censorship and control over the media

Operationalisation of the Dependent Variable

It is essential to capture the concept of state repression properly in this study. It is the

dependent variable of the study and the goal of the study is to investigate why some states

crackdown on critical hip-hop culture whereas other states take up a more lenient approach.

Although the theory section of this study has taken a more in-depth look at what state

repression exactly entails, the more succinct operationalisation of the term is the following:

repression encompasses external efforts to constrain, control and prevent internal protestive

behaviour and dissidence.

Yet, in the light of this study, it is essential to clearly conceptualise and distinguish

between soft and hard forms of repression. Once again, the difference between the two forms

of repression has been investigated more closely in the theoretical section of this study. For

now, it is convenient to keep the following distinction in mind: hard repression makes use of

violence in order to obtain the desired outcome or behaviour whereas soft repression relies on

nonviolent measures in order to attain obedience. Soft repression is more of a discursive

process as well, meaning that it relies more on covert mechanisms such as stigmatisation and

labelling and thus curbs the opposition’s acts and strength (Jämte and Ellefsen 2020, 385)

The following scheme indicates which measures belong to the different strands of soft

and hard repressive tools:

32

Figure 3: The categories of soft and hard repression and their repressive tools

The above-made classification is based on the conceptualisation of the different forms of

repression as made by Jämte and Ellefsen (2020), but it is not fully devoid of flaws and it is

important to keep that in mind. For example, fines could hit the hip-hop artists harder

compared to threats. To illustrate this, fines could put the punished artists in more jeopardy

due to the (financial) impact and consequences of the fine compared to the consequences of

receiving threats. Nonetheless, threats are categorised as a form of hard repression while fines

are considered to belong to the family of soft repression. This is the result of the fact that the

distinctive criterion of using or invoking violence is the main driver behind the categorisation

of the question in which category a measure falls.

Operationalisation of the Independent Variable Regime type plays a significant role in this study and therefore it is crucial to outline the way

in which this paper has operationalised this. For this study, the constant endeavours of the

NGO “International IDEA” monitoring the state and health of democracy worldwide have

been used to decide on which type of regime a country has and what this exactly entails. I

argue that they constantly update and watch the ways in which regimes around the world

evolve or slide backwards and therefore have an accurate look on what the current state of

democracy is in the world. They were for example one of the first ones to identify the effect

of the COVID-19 pandemic on global democracy. Besides that, I think International IDEA

does a good job at capturing what the different regime types entail.

Hard repression

Arrests

Imprisonment

Physical violence

Harrasments

Threats

Soft repression

Fines

Censorship

Bans

Surveillance

Stigmatisation and Labelling

33

First of all, the regime type of democracy entails four crucial pillars: impartial

administration, representative government, fundamental rights and checks on government.

These pillars are on themselves built up out of many smaller components, however it is out of

the scope of this study to go through all of those. In short, democracy constitutes a political

system that is governed by popular culture and political equality. Most of all, it is an ideal that

seeks to guarantee many things, but most importantly equality and basic freedoms, the

empowerment of people and resolve disagreements peacefully (International IDEA 2020).

How democratic a regime is depends on the scores a regime attains on the four

aforementioned pillars that constitute a democracy.

Whereas both hybrid regimes and autocracies are so-called non-democracies, hybrid

regimes are conceptualised as being characterised by a mixture of democratic and non-

democratic elements while autocracies lack those altogether or barely have any. Anocracies

(i.e., hybrid regimes) consist of a combination of elements of authoritarianism and

democracy, often adopting the formal characteristics of democracy (while not really allowing

fair competition) and with fragile respect for basic political and civic rights (International

IDEA 2020). International IDEA has attributed certain numerical thresholds that pertain to the

four major indicators of democracy and if a country’s scores fall within these boundaries, this

country has an anocratic regime.

Lastly, autocratic regimes do not hold competitive elections, civil liberties are

systematically curtailed, there is no separation of power, the judiciary branch is highly

impartial and much more non-democratic practices are commonplace. Oftentimes, autocratic

regimes are military regimes, authoritarian monarchies or war-torn failed states. According to

International IDEA, when a country scores below certain scores on the four indicators of

democracy, a country subsequently falls in the category of autocratic states (International

IDEA 2020).

Methods and Structure of Empirical Analysis Picking a suitable method and structure for the analysis of empirics is vital, for it ensures that

the assessment of a theory is executed in a systematic and transparent manner. Thus, the

findings become more credible (Themnér 2022). In order to conduct an empirical analysis of

the cases of the suppression of critical hip-hop in Spain, Russia and China, this study will

employ the method of Structured, Focused Comparison (SFC). The approach is structured

since it applies the same set of indicators or questions to each case included in the study.

34

Moreover, the approach is focused because of the fact that it only looks at certain aspects of

the cases included, namely: those identified as relevant when keeping the aforementioned

theory of repression and regime types in mind (Themnér 2022).

In the light of this study, the indicators are far from complex. Since variation in type of

repression (either hard or soft) is the object of study of this paper, the paper uses the

classifications as shown in figure 3 as indicators for soft and hard repression. To illustrate the

latter, when imprisonment of critical hip-hop artists is a commonplace practice in a case, then

this is an indicator for the fact that hard repression by the state is present in that country.

In order to enable the comparison of the ways in which Spain, Russia and China deal

with critical hip-hop expressions and artists, the format for the chapters in which state-

administered repression of critical hip-hop art and its artists are empirically analysed is

similar. Every country has its own chapter and every chapter has the same structure. This

approach and structure allow for structurally mapping out what happens in the countries in

terms of both opposition in the form of music and the repression of that. This facilitates going

through the cases separately, which in my eyes is essential due to the heterogenous nature of

the countries (e.g., in terms of culture), but also makes it possible to take the cases together

and compare them to each other vis-à-vis.

Hitherto, this paper has taken a thorough look at studying the question of interest of

this paper, namely that of why some regimes employ soft repressive measures whereas other

regimes use harsh repressive measures in order to deal with critical hip-hop art and its

performers. Moreover, the reader has been introduced to a brief yet succinct overview of the

previous research and the existing theory concerning the topic of interest. However, it is time

to dive deeper into actual empirics revolving around the repression of hip-hop music and

artists around the world. For the sake of readability and accessibility, it is important to outline

the structure of the upcoming sections.

First of all, as prior sections already hinted at, the three cases that have been picked for

this study will first be empirically investigated independently. Only later on, in the subsequent

analysis chapter, will the cases be taken together, juxtaposed and be looked upon with a

comparative lens. Each empirical investigation of the cases will have the following elements:

i) regime type in the country of question, ii) background of the state of hip-hop in that

particular country, iii) exhibited repression towards critical hip-hop in that particular country,

iv) paragraph on the hip-hop being used as a propaganda tool, v) short overview and chief

take-aways from the empirics in that specific country.

35

The reason for including a paragraph about the question whether regimes employ hip-

hop as a propaganda tool is that the other side of the coin (i.e., using hip-hop for one’s own

agenda) has been highlighted extensively in prior sections of this study. Moreover, this poses

an alternative way of dealing with critical hip-hop.

After the results belonging to every country on its own have been presented, an

analysis chapter is provided. This creates room for finding commonalities, differences, rarities

and perhaps additional observations that might be relevant. This facilitates and expedites the

digestion of the findings.

36

V. Spain

Regime type in Spain

According to the most recent “Global State of Democracy Indices” of International IDEA,

Spain can be classified as a democracy (International IDEA 2020). Although the country does

not attain perfect scores, Spain generally performs well when it comes to the indicators of

democracy as established by International IDEA. Spain is characterised by high performance

scores on the scales of representative government, fundamental rights, checks on government

and the presence of impartial administration (International IDEA 2020). The only democratic

aspect that is lagging behind to some extent is that of participatory engagement. The latter is

primarily the result of low degrees of electoral participation throughout the last couple of

years (which is the case in numerous western democracies) and because of the fact that direct

democracy is quite low in Spain (International IDEA 2020).

Hence, it can be safely concluded that Spain’s regime type is a democracy. What is

more, compared to the rest of Europe and to the rest of Southern Europe specifically, Spain is

slightly outperforming the average state in those geographical areas. Overall, Spain scores a

little bit higher than the average in Europe and Southern Europe on the four indices of

democracy that have been mentioned prior (International IDEA 2020). It must be

acknowledged that the latter is quite an astounding feat, considering the fact that the Spanish

state has fairly recently undergone the transition from autocracy to democracy.

The genre of hip-hop in Spain: a brief background

If one would have the ambition to contribute to a (research) field that is close to being

completely uncharted, one would be strongly inclined to jump into the subject of hip-hop

music on Spanish soil. The lacuna that exists in this field is gaping, a feat that is reflected in

the fact that it has proven to be extremely difficult to find credible sources that cover the state

and history of hip-hop in Spain. However, this is maybe not that surprising in the end and

possibly hints towards the (relative) absence of the genre’s presence in the country. It might

perhaps also be the consequence of hip-hop being a lot more underground in Spain in

comparison with other countries.

I would argue that the absence of material that provides a contemporary account of

hip-hop in Spain is the result of a combination of two factors. On the one hand, hip-hop is

simply a bit smaller in Spain than in other countries. The latter is predominantly due to the

37

fact that other genres of music are bigger in Spain. Especially the Latin-American originated

genre of Reggaetón is hegemonic in Spain’s musical landscape. Additionally, hip-hop often

seems to thrive in the more Anglocentrically focussed regions and countries in the world and

Spain does not score high on this scale. On the other hand, hip-hop music in Spain seems to

be a predominantly underground phenomenon.

Yet, material on the state of repression of critical hip-hop by the Spanish regime is

easier to find. To this material the study will now turn.

Repression of hip-hop music in Spain

When taking a close look at the material that is out there that covers the right to freedom of

expression in Spain, one would be hard pressed to argue that things are looking bright. Pablo

Hasél, one of Spain’s most controversial hip-hop performers, captured that sentiment and the

general state of affairs concerning artistic freedom perfectly by stating that: “For some time,

I’ve known that I would end up in prison, precisely because in the Spanish state there is no

freedom of expression.” (Hedgecoe 2018).

Hasél, hailing from Catalonia and a fervent communist, said this while doing a series

of last shows before he sits out his sentence of two years and a day for insulting the crown

and state institutions, as well as glorifying terrorism (Hedgecoe 2018). On top of that, the

rapper received a fine of roughly 30,000 euros and is disqualified from working in the

Spanish public sector for the coming six years (Amnesty International 2021). Hasél has been

extremely critical through a series of tweets but mostly through the lyrics of his songs. Not

afraid to shy away from the explicit and critical nature of his art, Hasél argued that: “The state

is afraid because these lyrics reach a lot of young people, and they don’t want those people to

get involved in the struggle for the rights that are denied us” (Hedgecoe 2018). The lion’s

share of tweets that landed Hasél in jail predominantly aimed at addressing police violence

and the larger unjust structures in Spain. Moreover, the Catalan artist posted pictures of

former members of the (now defunct) communist terror group “GRAPO”, accompanied by

captions that glorified their guts to stand up against the Spanish state (Taylor 2021).

Undoubtedly, this must have pushed the Spanish regime to push for charges of glorifying

terrorism. The charge for insulting the crown was mostly the result of the song called “Juan

Carlos el Bobón”. The song offers a harshly direct personal attack on the former king of

Spain and the Spanish royal family in general (Cardew 2021). Notable lyrics include:

38

“The poor go to jail but not the Infanta Cristina, although half the country wants her on the

guillotine”1

And:

“Juan Carlos el Bobón, a mafia boss looting the Spanish kingdom”2

Furthermore, Hasél has put out more hip-hop songs that are characterised by an acerbic look

at the Spanish royal family. The artist frequently brings up the sentiment that the royal

Spanish family is not able to shed its ties with the era of Francesco Franco’s dictatorship as

well as the notion that royal family has financed ISIS by facilitating arms deals between Saudi

Arabia and the Spanish state (Hedgecoe 2018). Although the songs do not actively promote

violence, the Spanish court ruled that Hasél’s lyrics exceeded the acceptable limits of freedom

of expression (Cardew 2021).

Interestingly enough, Pablo Hasél is nothing close to an exception but rather

constitutes the rule when it comes to critical hip-hop artists in the larger of the two countries

on the Iberian Peninsula. Another notorious case can be found in the case of José Miguel

Arenas Beltran, more commonly known by his stage name of “Valtònyc”. The hip-hop artist

from Mallorca faced the same charges as his colleague Hasél: glorifying terrorism and

insulting the crown (Brown 2018). It is hardly to be denied that Valtònyc has been very

critical towards the Spanish regime with lyrics such as:

“The King has an appointment in the town square

A rope around his neck that falls under the weight of the law.”

“We want death for these pigs…/We’ll get to the nut of your neck, you bastard.”

Yet, despite Valtònyc’s tendency to wear his heart on his sleeve, the artist garnered

impressive amounts of support (especially from the Spanish youth, but also human rights

organisations) after the supreme court upheld the earlier decision to put the rapper behind bars

for three and a half years (Hedgecoe 2018). The case reached somewhat of a star status in

1 Infantina Cristina is Juan Carlos’ youngest daughter and was acquitted from corruption and fraud in a heavily debated lawsuit in 2013, leading to major indignation across Spain. 2 “el Bobón” is a wordplay on the royal families’ last name “Borbón” and the Spanish word for idiot, “bobo”.

39

Spain and remains hotly debated until today. This is mostly the result of the fact that Valtònyc

decided to take matters in his own hands as he fled to Belgium. Valtònyc still lives in

Belgium as we speak and a recent extradition request from the Spanish judicial branch has

been recently turned down by its Belgian counterpart (Torfs 2021).

The hip-hop collective called “La Insurgencia” (i.e., The Insurgence), comprising of

twelve hip-hop artists, has likewise been confronted with a clampdown on its members.

Twelve of the members of La Insurgencia have all been handed a two-year prison sentence by

the Spanish courts. This was on the same grounds as the cases that have been mentioned

before: glorifying terrorism. Therefore, there seems to be a clear pattern in the repression of

hip-hop music and its artists in Spain. Hard repressive measures seem to be applied to critical

hip-hop artists, all characterised by their nature of “insulting the crown” and “glorifying

terrorism”. The latter development has not gone unnoticed in Europe and concern has been

expressed, even in the upper echelons such as the European Parliament. A small coalition of

Members of Parliament has filed parliamentary questions, pointing out that Spain ranks first

worldwide in sending hip-hop artists to jail3 (14 artists) and asking how it possibly can be the

case that an EU member state is curbing creative freedom and freedom of expression to an

outrageous extent (Comín i Oliveres, Ponsatí Obiois, and Puidgemont i Casamajó 2021). The

subsequent section will take a deeper look at how it has happened that the state of affairs

concerning these essential rights has come to deteriorate drastically in Spain.

The “Gag Laws”

Due to the severe austerity measures in Spain that followed after the 2008 economic crisis,

criticism towards the Spanish government increased significantly, protests became

commonplace and many new social movements came to exist. According to the NGO

Freedom House, this pushed the then-sitting conservative-led Spanish parliament to adopt a

new set of laws that had the aim to quash dissatisfaction in society (Pastor 2018). Critics of

this package of new laws coined the term of “Gag Laws” to address the set of new rules,

hinting at the stifling and silencing nature of the laws. The Gag Laws ensured restrictions on

freedoms such as that of expression and assembly, broadened the scope of already existing

penal codes by virtue of amendments and they increased maximum penalties for (amongst

others) glorifying terrorism (Pastor 2018).

3 NB: it is vital to remember that this concerns officially reported cases. For instance, it could be the case that another country in the world imprisons a lot more hip-hop artists but does not report on that honestly. Thus, this fact could present a skewed image of reality, but it is nonetheless really troublesome and shocking.

40

As a consequence of these measures, many acts that would normally be considered as

acts of free speech or expression were now considered to be over the limit, glorifying

terrorism and therefore also (according to the court) inciting people to acts of terrorism.

Hence, hip-hop songs have ever since been way more prone to draw criminal persecution by

the Spanish regime (Pastor 2018). The result of this is that the Spanish regime has the legal

power to penalise dissenting expressions, in this case in the form of hip-hop art, that criticise

and oppose those in power in Spain.

Whereas it goes without saying that terrorism ought to be avoided as much as possible,

the legal framework that revolves around this question in Spain is highly questionable. As

Amnesty International argued in a special edition on freedom of speech and expression in

Spain, the “counter terrorism” laws in Spain are extremely vague in their words and taken out

of their context severely (Amnesty International 2018). Experts have argued that inciting

others to commit acts of terrorism is wrong and should be legally punished. Moreover, a clear

causal link must exist between the incitement and the act. However, they have also argued

that the situation in Spain is highly worrisome and dangerous, for vague concepts such as

“glorifying” or “justifying” terrorism are not enough to criminally prosecute people (Pastor

2018). What is more, this link between inciting and actually committing terroristic acts clearly

lacks in the case of Spanish hip-hop artists such as Pablo Hasél, Valtònyc and La Insurgencia.

As has been emphasised before, it is true that some of the lyrics of the songs of the

imprisoned artists are very explicit, but nevertheless it must be admitted that similar songs in

other countries in the world are seen as normal expressions of dissidence. Questioning the

status quo should always be possible and the current legal framework in Spain does not

facilitate that.

Hip-Hop as a tool of propaganda in Spain

No evidence has been found that hip-hop has been used as a tool of propaganda by the

Spanish regime. The regime merely seems to repress the genre’s critical expressions, but not

use it to advance their own cause.

Concluding remarks

As was hypothesised on the basis of the already-existing academic literature, it can be

expected that a democracy such as Spain displays little or soft repressive measures when it

comes to silencing critical voices. Hence, the same goes for Spain concerning critical hip-hop

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art and its performers. First and foremost, due to being a democratic regime, the Spanish

regime has to tread carefully when repressing critical hip-hop. For, the Spanish people can

punish the incumbents through their electoral power: if the regime cracks down on critical

hip-hop artists and music too ferociously, the people will show their dissatisfaction with that

and vote for other politicians next time. Thus, the electoral system in Spain functions

somewhat as keeping the regime in check. The democratic model, it is expected, provides

incentives for those in power to not disproportionally punish hip-hop music and artists that

provide dissenting views. Moreover, in democracies, various other democratic institutions

ought to protect fundamental rights such as the freedom of expression.

Taking the findings above into account, it becomes clear that the Spanish regime is

mostly applying hard repressive measures when it comes to critical hip-hop. Thus, it does the

opposite of what the theory hypothesised. The state is not afraid to put critical hip-hop artists

behind bars, thereby silencing those that place question marks by the policies and ways of

those that rule Spain. The crux here is that the Spanish regime has made it legally possible to

do so, although creating international indignation in abundance by doing that. Soft repression

seems to be almost wholly absent. The incongruency between repression in reality and the

expected form of repression will be looked at in the analysis.

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VI. Russia Regime type in Russia

Similarly to the case of Spain, the Global State of Democracy Indices created by International

IDEA are used to determine what type of regime Russia currently is. According to those

indices, Russia constitutes an anocracy (International IDEA 2020). Hence, Russia is a hybrid

regime and combines elements of both democracies and autocracies, positioning it somewhere

in between these two extremes. When looking at the country’s scores when it comes to

democratic institutions, this status of being in between the two extremes of full-blown

dictatorship and wholly democratic is reflected in these scores. The country shows a mediocre

performance concerning representative government and fundamental rights, but

underperforms on impartiality of administration and (especially) checks on government

(International IDEA 2020). The main culprit behind the latter is the painful absence of

judicial independence in Russia.

On the basis of the above, it can be asserted that Russia’s regime type is anocracy: the

country is not a blatant autocracy but at the same time it is definitely not close to checking off

the boxes that belong to a well-functioning democracy. When juxtaposing Russia to its peers

in Eastern Europe, the country slightly underperforms. On all 4 indicators of democracy,

Russia scores a little bit lower than the average country in its respective geographical area

(International IDEA 2020). When looking at Europe as a whole, Russia performs quite badly

for it scores significantly lower than the average country in Europe. The indices of

International IDEA also reveal a highly interesting feat when it comes to regime type

development in Russia throughout the last decades. Throughout the last twenty-two years, the

country has been entangled in a process of democratic backsliding. Russia scores worse on

impartial administration, checks on government and fundamental rights compared to around

the start of the 21st century (International IDEA 2020).

The genre of hip-hop in Russia: a brief background On Russian soil, hip-hop music is a relatively new phenomenon as well as a genre that is

accumulating popularity rapidly (Liebig 2020). Ever since its emergence in Russia, hip-hop

music and artists have been a highly vexed topic within Russian society and the academic

sphere regarding popular cultural studies. The latter is mostly due to the strong inherent

political nature of Russian hip-hop (Liebig 2020, 2). As Philip Ewell contents, hip-hop music

43

has proven to be a continuous avenue for artists to express dissent and to question power,

especially in the face of the current political situation within Russia (Ewell 2017). Anastasia

Denisova and Herasimenka voice a similar sentiment by claiming that the Russian hip-hop

scene nowadays forms the mouthpiece of resistance to everything that is wrong with the

country, emphasising the political state of the regime (2019, 1).

The fact that hip-hop in present-day Russia is a popular counterculture is not

surprising, for the country has a rich history of music styles and their followers being

countercultures. Popular forms of music have long been around in Russia to oppose the

internal power structures, with hip-hop being the successor and heir of (amongst others) punk

(e.g., Pussy Riot) in the 2000s and early 2010s, jazz, blues and swing music shortly after the

Second World War (e.g., Stilyagi4) and rock music from the 1960s up the 1980s (Liebig 2020,

3). Russia’s response towards these movements has not been mild. The crackdown on Pussy

Riot’s members dominated the international headlines for quite some time and in order to deal

with the Stilyagi movement, Stalin created the 1948 Resolution on Music which banned the

the western music styles of jazz and swing altogether. The latter resolution resulted in, for

example, the somewhat otherworldly phrase “Today you’re playing Jazz, tomorrow you’ll

turn traitor of the motherland” (Liebig 2020, 3).

Although hip-hop music in Russia emerged in the early 1990s, the music style really

picked up the pace in the mid and late 1990s, gaining more and more traction amongst

especially the youth. The context in which this happened is utterly relevant. During that

period of time in Russian history, the country was characterised by severe disenchantment and

envy towards the West (Liebig 2020, 4). This was the result of the economic and social

collapse of post-Soviet Russia during the reign of president Boris Yeltsin, that tried to

embrace all things Western and shift the country towards that direction. The failure of this

shift, as well as the rise to power by Vladimir Putin, made an end to the fantasy of the West

and culminated into highly anti-Western attitudes in both Russian society and popular forms

of culture (Liebig 2020, 4). It is hardly to be denied that the anti-Westernism that reigned in

Russia made it difficult for the inherently American music genre of hip-hop to thrive. To

some extent, hip-hop music is the ultimate embodiment of Westernism. As a consequence,

this made supporting hip-hop music or making it an act of protest or an act of American

solidarity (Ewell 2017, 59). This setting and the fact that from the start onwards hip-hop in

4 The Stilyagi movement was a counterculture movement that thrived in the 1940s and 1960s in Russia and can be seen as a predecessor of the present-day Hipster movement. It adored Western (then) contemporary music such as jazz and swing music and moreover, the movement had a fascination for American fashion.

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Russia is highly political, has had huge consequences for the subsequent repression that the

genre faces in later decades.

Whereas the first generations of hip-hop artists in Russia were relatively innocent, the

genre became more socially and politically involved after Putin’s return to power in 2011.

This development was coinciding with increasing indignation within Russian society

(particularly amongst the youth) after Putin’s predecessor Medvedev’s interregnum abruptly

came to end when the former snatched back the throne (Liebig 2020, 5).

Repression of critical hip-hop in Russia

Since the inception of the new generations of hip-hop artists in Russia, those defined by traits

such as critical and politically active, various social issues and larger problems have been

addressed by these artists and their work. Arguably Russia’s biggest hip-hop artist,

“Oxxxymiron”, started to question the power structures present in his country. On the song

“Only a Writer”, the hip-hop star raps that:

“The people in power are clowns […] It’s a game without rules and I stand outside it”

Here, although the terms “clowns” could be interpreted in multiple ways, Oxxxymiron argues

that those that lead the country are incapable (or are at the very least jokes) and that no rules

pertain to the playing field of Russian politics. Moreover, the artists himself tries to stay out

of it or claims that he has no chance to be of impact there. In a similar vein, an artist by the

name of Vasya Oblomov has steadily fired lyrical bullets at the Russian regime. Albeit it

being true that Oblomov is not strictly a pure hip-hop artist, in the sense that the artist mixes

Russian chansons with hip-hop and rap elements, I would argue that Oblomov can be

regarded as part of a hip-hop subgenre and thus is still a hip-hop artist. His oeuvre frequently

covers the prevalent and persisting corruption within the Russian police, the crooked Russian

Judicial system, the disputed elections of 2011 in which Putin regained power and most of all

the general flaws in Russian politics (Ewell 2017, 52).

Whereas the above two artists have relatively stayed out of the scope of the regime’s

repressive endeavours, two hip-hop artists who cannot say that are “Noize MC” and “Husky”.

The former artist fervently tries to bring up the issue of Russia’s everlasting problem with

(excessive) police brutality and has had to pay for this dearly (Liebig 2020, 8). The artist was

arrested in 2010 after performing one of his major songs on police brutality at one of his

45

concerts. The arrest led to a 10-day sentence in jail on the basis of “hooliganism”.

Furthermore, Noize MC was forced to make a tape with an official confession and apology.

This is a commonplace practice in Russia for the police to do, since this strategy “legitimises”

illicit arrests. Noize MC, not afraid of stirring the pot a little bit more, used the taped

confession for his new song about that arrest called (surprise) “10 days” and put it in the

refrain of the song to mock the police and judicial system even more (Whitmore 2010). A

similar fate was bestowed upon the artist Husky, who specifically targeted president Vladimir

Putin in his lyrics. The song “October 7th” (the birth date of the president) states:

“He is now the executioner-careerist, emperor and apologist / for a regime of ditches and

dungeons […]

It’s the Tsar’s birthday today.”

Although the song and the artist dodged the bullet for quite some time, in November 2018

(some years after Husky released October 7th ) this changed drastically. Amidst a general

crackdown on civil rights in Russia and in the build-up to a controversial law that made it

illegal to publicly “disrespect Russian society”, many of Husky’s scheduled concerts were

suddenly banned (Liebig 2020, 8). As an act of defiance, Husky decided to give an

impromptu concert on top of the roof of a car in the city of Krasnodar. Similarly to Noize

MC, Husky was arrested on the charge of hooliganism and spent four days in jail. The latter,

however, backfired severely for the Russian regime as the interest in Husky’s songs

skyrocketed both in Russia and outside of the country (Waugh 2019).

The fact that Husky was targeted seems to be the result of a moral crusade initiated by

the political elite of Russia. Renowned politician Vladimir Petrov for example, claimed that

hip-hop artists were promoting vices and argued that hip-hop music should be monitored by

the state “until normality is restored among young people” (Waugh 2019). Consequently,

Husky was not the only Russian hip-hop artists that fell victim to the regime’s attempt to

silence certain hip-hop artists. The likes of “Allj”, “Egor Kreed” and the group “IC3PEAK”

(although the latter is not purely a hip-hop act, but also incorporates a lot of elements from the

genre of Electronic music) also had their concerts banned or raided by the police (Waugh

2019).

As Selman fittingly puts is, either actively voicing dissenting views or engaging in

activities that the regime regards as resistance to governmental policies will put you in a lot of

trouble as a hip-hop artist in Russia (2017, 22). It goes without saying that this statement can

46

be extended to artists in other domains as well. The epitome of a (very) contemporary

example of such a dissenting view and resistance to governmental policy can be found in the

conflict between Russia and Ukraine. After the annexation of The Crimea, several hip-hop

artists took it to the barricades to express their dissatisfaction. For example, at one of his

shows Noize MC started rapping in Ukrainian and caught a Ukrainian flag that was handed to

him by a fan in the audience. He finished the song with the flag wrapped around his body

(Demirjian 2014). As has been demonstrated in a prior section, Noize MC is no stranger to the

Russian regime and the regime was quick to crackdown on him again after showing support

for the Ukrainian cause. Sixty percent of the shows from his new tour had been cancelled and

in case he allowed to perform, an intimidating police force would be a at the gig to raid the

place, desperately trying to find something to pin on the artist (Demirjian 2014). These effects

are long-lasting for the artists, for the venues that book artists like Noize MC are terrified to

give out the wrong signal to the regime and thus face repercussions themselves. The regime

considers these artists as traitors and consequently, these artists become largely ostracised in

Russian society in general (Selman 2017, 24). In some cases, this even led hip-hop artists to

flee their home country of Russia, attempting to find calmer waters. The previously

mentioned rapper Face, as well as “Alisher Morgenshtern” and “Aljay” all fled Russia in

order to escape the pervasive hounding and persecution by the Kremlin (‘State on the Beat:

Why Russian Rappers Are Leaving the Country En Masse’ 2022).

The recent recent Russian invasion of Ukraine have also sparked many artists to speak

out on the situation, parting (once more) from the Russian regime. Numerous news articles

have surfaced throughout the last couple of weeks that report on Russian artists defying the

regime through shows that support the Ukrainian cause. The previously mentioned artist

Oxxxymiron is in the forefront of this movement. The established opponent of the regime

turned around the tables and instead of having his shows cancelled by the regime, the rapper

cancelled his own sold-out shows everywhere in Russia. Oxxxymiron stated that “I cannot

entertain you when Russian missiles are falling on Ukraine” (Minsker 2022). In addition, the

Russian hip-hop mogul announced the “Russians Against War” tour, which is a series of

concerts outside of Russia that uses the proceeds for providing aid to Ukrainian refugees

(Arterbury 2022). Although The Kremlin has not yet responded to the opposition towards its

endeavours to conquer its neighbour, it is very likely that severe repercussions are around the

corner.

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Hip-hop as a tool of propaganda in Russia

With regards to the creative and cultural realm, Kate Langdon and Vladimir Tismaneanu

summarized the current situation in Russia aptly by stating that: “Putin is a creative

authoritarian and The Kremlin’s power game is more than just a form of repression. It is a

constant source of production for Russia’s national narrative and identity” (Langdon and

Tismăneanu 2020, 225). Whereas it has become clear that Putin is adamantly repressing

critical hip-hop artists and their songs, some Russian hip-hop artists have actually been

thriving throughout the last decade. Therefore, it seems to be the case that repression of hip-

hop is not the sole phenomenon possible. As has been discussed before, music can prove to be

a medal with two sides: its (political) power can be seen as detrimental and a jeopardy, but at

the same time it can be used as a weapon to further one’s own agenda. This is exactly what

happens in Russia as well. If one does not go against the regime, but instead decides to team

up with The Kremlin, big things can happen to a hip-hop artist’s career. In other words, as

Ewell neatly captures, “your choice of camp will likely determine your chances of making it in

Russian rap” (2017, 46). Thus, the choice is yours: go against the stream and face hardship or

team up with the regime and thrive.

The personification of a Russian hip-hop artist that sided with the regime can be found

in “Timati”. The hip-hop artist went so far as to proclaim Putin to be his best friend in the

track called “Best Friend”, which offers a blatantly propagandistic glorification of the Russian

president (Liebig 2020, 5). Furthermore, Timati is the leading figure behind the Russian hip-

hop label “Blackstar”. This label is sponsored by the Russian government and is basically

called to live with the sole aim to voice support for Kremlin policies (Selman 2017, 131).

Hence, the label attempts to counteract hip-hop acts that actively undermine the regime’s

agenda and this sometimes more or less gives Blackstar-affiliated rappers a carte blanche.

For, where anti-regime rappers that mentioned drugs and alcohol explicitly in their songs have

been preyed upon ferociously, Blackstar-signed rappers who did the same did not face any

trouble merely because they are on the hand of Putin (Selman 2017, 131). Lastly, Timati had

also been recruited to openly support Putin’s (hotly debated) 2012 re-election campaign

(Selman 2017, 30). This is another sign of the fact that The Kremlin is very well aware of the

power that hip-hop music’s unprecedently high popularity holds.

48

Concluding remarks

Due to being a hybrid regime, the repression one would expect to see in Russia towards

critical hip-hop is hard. As has been established before, on the basis of the “more murder in

the middle” theory, anocracies are likely to be characterised by having a tendency to employ

hard repressive measures to silence dissent. Hybrid regimes, it is argued, often resort to harsh

repressive measures because of the fact that the necessary democratic institutions to punish

hard repression are lacking, whereas at the same time a culture of full-out revolting is absent

amongst the people. Consequently, hard repression is appealing for anocracies to use.

On the basis of the findings, one could conclude that the Russian regime uses a

cocktail of different repressive mechanisms, but the taste of that cocktail leans towards hard

repression. Violent arrests and imprisonment have been thrown in the mix and dominate, but

simultaneously the regime uses soft repression mostly in the form of bans. Thus, critical

Russian hip-hop artists are systemically barred from the Russian public (cultural) space.

Furthermore, the Kremlin also attempts to use hip-hop for furthering its own cause. The

regime actively recruits and supports artists that put the regime in a good daylight through

their hip-hop art. This approach resembles the tactics (though with some differences) that the

upcoming country of investigation employs: China.

Summing up, the findings are quite in accordance with what the more murder in the

middle theory suggested that one would see.

49

VII. China

Regime type in China

For the last case that this thesis will look at, the Global State of Democracy Indices by

International IDEA are used once more to see what type of regime the respective country is.

According to the figures provided by the Global State of Democracy Indices, China clearly

constitutes an autocracy (International IDEA 2020). On the four pillars that are together

determining what type of regime a state is, China scores horrendously on two of them.

Concerning checks on government it scores a 0.10 and representative government is absent

altogether: 0.00 (International IDEA 2020). Fundamental rights and an impartial

administration are present in China, but nonetheless to an extremely low degree. The

Communist Party’s and its leader’s reign and grip on China are so strong and persistent, that

any form of free and fair elections (and thus representative government) are wholly non-

existent. The latter makes China a typical autocracy, rendering democracy the same as a

Dutch world cup victory in football: an illusion.5

Compared to the rest of East Asia and the world on average, China performs

significantly worse. Many East Asian countries are mid-range performance countries when it

comes to democratic institutions, whereas China is in many ways not even close to that

(International IDEA 2020). What is also interesting to highlight is the fact that China seems to

be the only case in this study that has had a relative stable regime type over time. Where

Spain and Russia have undergone metamorphoses over the last decades, China has more or

less stayed the same autocracy that it was twenty-two years ago. The country scores more or

less the same scores as it did back then (International IDEA 2020).

The genre of hip-hop in China: a brief background

When the genre of hip-hop first reached Chinese soil, it was mostly a music form that existed

within the underground music community in China (Amar 2018, 107). The genre landed there

during the 1990s, when Western companies sent masses of CDs to China in order to be

recycled. In these batches of CDs happened be vast amounts of hip-hop CDs and they were

spread amongst the masses due to being sold on black markets in large Chinese cities (Kloet,

de 2010). Moreover, a rap group from Hong Kong with the name “Lazy Mutha Fucka” proved

5 The Dutch national football team has been (in)famously named “the best team never to have won the World Cup”. Despite its rich football history and three world cup finals, it has never been able to seize the first place.

50

to be another main catalyst behind the birth of hip-hop in China. The group was from the

already more westernised country of Hong Kong, thus being more exposed to western

phenomena of which one was hip-hop music, and proved that rapping in the Chinese language

was possible as well. Hence, they were a major influence for other artists in China that wanted

to experiment with hip-hop music and made the genre more popular (Amar 2018, 107).

Throughout the early 2000s, the genre of hip-hop became more mainstream and the

number of artists active and songs made in that field of music grew, albeit modestly. Plus,

another interesting point worth mentioning is the fact that many artists borrowed from the

genre but remained loyal to their own genre. Consequently, various artists made punk or pop

music, while combining elements of hip-hop in it. This indicates that the genre of hip-hop was

gaining terrain in the Chinese music landscape, but nevertheless remained relatively minor

(Amar 2018, 108). What sparked the surge of a new generation of hip-hoppers in China from

roughly 2005 onwards was the arrival of the phenomenon of “Rap Battles”. In these battles,

two hip-hop artists face each other in a duel where they have to freestyle (i.e., come up with

lyrics on the spot) to the best of their abilities and thus “defeat” their opponent. Many young

artists hopped on the bandwagon of this trend and thus a large number of new hip-hop artists

in China spawned (Amar 2018, 108).

Contrarily to prior generations of artists within hip-hop, these newcomers stepped

away from the rather braggadocios type of hip-hop crammed with clichés such as money and

fame. Instead, the new wave commenced with addressing social topics and the stifling manner

in which authority (be it official, educational and parental) plays a huge role in Chinese

society (Amar 2018, 108). This is where the Chinese state begins to show interest in the genre

and gets involved.

Repression of critical hip-hop in China

Whereas the rap battles had initially made Chinese hip-hop artists adversaries, they

subsequently formed a front of conscious rappers that started addressing social issues in the

Chinese society and rebelling against the authoritarian structures that were (and are) so

omnipresent in China.

Amongst the most vocal artists that started to speak out was the rap group “In3”. The

group addressed a variety of phenomena they deemed to be stifling and problematic, for

example the toxic Chinese school culture, widespread poverty and general inequality. In the

song “Good Morning, Teacher” they criticised the problematic relationship between teacher

51

and students in the Chinese school system, where the latter are heavily subordinate to the

almighty teacher (Amar 2018, 108). Moreover, in the track called “Beijing Evening News”,

the group cleverly raps:

“Some people sleep in underpasses, while others eat out on government expenses”

With this short, yet striking line, In3 aptly summarises the enormous problem in China

regarding poverty and unequal treatment of its inhabitants. It also captures a widely-felt

sentiment within Chinese society, although not necessarily often being expressed due to the

fear of looming punishment. The latter is something that is always hovering above the heads

of the Chinese people like the sword of Damocles.

The two aforementioned songs, alongside with 118 other songs by a variety of

different Chinese, Taiwanese and Hong Kongese hip-hop artists, came to be placed on a

blacklist installed by the Chinese Ministry of Culture in August 2015 (Ap 2015). The 120

songs on this blacklist were removed from all musical distribution platforms and the artists

behind the songs were banned from performing in public. The reason for the creation of the

blacklist was, according to the Chinese Ministry of Culture, the immoral and harmful nature

of the songs. Thus, the reasoning was, these songs would be detrimental for the Chinese

society in the case they would not cease to be available to the public (Ap 2015). Besides, the

songs promoted values and things such as crime, violence and obscenity that allegedly

jeopardised morality amongst the Chinese (Amar 2018, 108). The installed repressive

measures by the Chinese regime did not have the intended consequences though. Instead, the

blacklist and ban on performing in public rather backfired. It commonly occurs that the

censorship of cultural products leads to a spike of interest in that very product in other

countries (Barmé 1999). The same happened with the blacklist of 120 songs that the Chinese

ministry of Culture made in 2015, but then in China itself. The appeal of the songs multiplied

severely and thus many Chinese consumers of music started to illegally download the songs

from the internet and mockingly thanked the Chinese Ministry of Culture for introducing

them to the genre of hip-hop and the songs. Consequently, the measure of the Chinese regime

attained the exact opposite: instead of repressing the hip-hop songs and making sure that

people refrain from listening to them, the songs gained more popularity and interest in the

genre and its artists increased spectacularly (Amar 2018, 108). But blacklists and bans are not

the only repressive measures that the Chinese regime applied on the rise of critical hip-hop

music. When In3 defied the ban to perform publicly and gave a concert in the Southwestern

52

city of Kunming, the three group members that compose the group where all brutally arrested

after returning to Beijing. Although no charges were pressed against the trio, they were in

detention for five days and had to endure excruciating circumstances, such as interrogations

and an inhumane cell (Fullerton 2016).

The above-mentioned measures certainly testify for the signal that the Chinese regime

tries to give out to those hip-hop artists that have the guts to express critical views. Artists and

intellectuals alike are expected to spread the positive energy of socialist values (Phillips

2015). Divert from that and one will pay dearly.

The spectacular increase in popularity of hip-hop amongst the Chinese youths did not

go unnoticed by the authorities. Hence, in the early stages of 2018, the Chinese regime

introduced a new set of measures to attempt to press the genre of hip-hop more to the

background. To be precise, the authorities decided to prohibit the Chinese television stations

to feature any of hip-hop’s representatives in their shows (Amar 2018, 110). What this boils

down to, is the fact that hip-hop and any person that was associated with the genre were

boycotted on a national scale. These measures were implemented shortly after the Communist

Youth League (i.e., the youth division of the Communist Party of China) publicised an

official statement in which they expressed their concern over the fact that public figures such

as hip-hop artists largely failed to support values that are approved by the authorities (Amar

2018, 110). Although he did not necessarily express critical notes towards the regime

specifically, the artist “PG One” was one of the accused culprits behind spreading these

“incompatible” values. This was mainly the result of creating songs with the topics drug use

and vulgarity as well as PG One’s nerve to not shy away from mentioning these phenomena

explicitly. Besides being boycotted on a large scale, PG One’s whole discography was taken

down from all streaming services in China (Amar 2018, 111). The fact that the artist in

question, PG One, released an official apology on his social media accounts less than an hour

after the Youth League targeted him might be an indication of the degree of fear that Chinese

(hip-hop) artists hold towards the regime’s repercussions.

Next to installing a nationwide boycott of hip-hop music and its artists, the Chinese

regime also actively tried to make the Chinese people turn their back on the genre by virtue of

its newspapers. Most notably, the newspaper called “Global times” (which is a sister paper of

the state-controlled flagship newspaper “People’s Daily”) launched a fierce crusade against

hip-hop’s existence in China (Amar 2018, 111). In one of their articles, the newspaper tries to

describe the introduction of hip-hop music to China as the same thing as moving a cactus to

Siberia or a polar bear to the equator: wholly incompatible. Elaborating on the latter, the

53

article asserts that hip-hop should not exist in China, for the genre is invented in the United

States under totally different circumstances, within a certain environment. According to the

newspaper, these circumstances, racism and social discrimination specifically, are not present

in China (Jun 2018). It goes without saying that the newspaper either has an utterly flawed

and ignorant image on the state of things in China and its society, or that the authors did just

blatantly ignore the real situation in their country.

This seeming incompatibleness, the misfit between Chinese values and society on the

one hand and hip-hop’s African American background, serves as a basis for later repressive

measures as well. Various Chinese hip-hop artists were not merely active in the realm of

music, but also in other creative domains such as acting. Female rapper “VaVa” for example

was also an actor in the tv-show “Happy Camp”. She was, however, cut from the show solely

due to her background as a hip-hop artist (Amar 2018, 112). The rationale behind these

strategies is difficult to uncover, especially because the approach of the Chinese regime

strikes outsiders as quite haphazardly. The regime seemed to be caught off-guard by the

sudden nationwide surge in hip-hop’s popularity, after which it employs a different set of

measures at random times while moreover being quite selective in whom to target (more on

that later).

Furthermore, the censorship has not been limited to the Chinese airwaves. China’s

internet has also been heavily regulated by the State Administration of Press, Publication,

Radio, Film and Television (henceforth referred to as “SAPPRFT”). Especially the website

“YY.com” has been impacted severely by the SAPPRFT’s new directions and personifies the

censorship of the Chinese web (Amar 2018, 122). This website, which is an extremely

popular video-based social network comparable to YouTube, banned the broadcasting of any

form of hip-hop music.

China and hip-hop music as propaganda

The interesting aspect of China’s approach to dealing with the come up of hip-hop music is

that the chosen strategy seems to be rather ambivalent. As has been shown in the prior

sections of this chapter, the Chinese regime does not play around when it comes to trying to

silence hip-hop artists and their music. Tools such as blacklists, bans from performing in

public as wells as bans on the internet and radio/tv, labelling the genre though state media and

even brutal arrests with imprisonment have been employed. On the other hand, despite

54

China’s hard stance towards the music genre, the regime seems to recognise that the art form

can be useful as well and maybe even used for furthering the cause of the state.

An illustration of the latter and the fact that the regime’s approach is quite ambivalent

can be found in the fact that the Chinese state television created a television show entirely

dedicated to the genre of hip-hop. Approximately two years after the regime installed a hip-

hop music blacklist, that same regime created “The Rap of China” (Yaping 2017). The talent-

show’s aim was to find China’s new big hip-hop star and was a huge success, racking up

about 1,3 billion views in total throughout the first season (Yaping 2017). However, the

regime’s ulterior goal of the show was to boost values and sentiments pertaining to the “true”

China, something that can be recognised in the participants and the jury on the The Rap of

China. All participants were virtually selected by the producers of the show, who worked for

the Chinese television which in its turn is obviously state-controlled. The same goes for the

jury. Thus, this culminated in a range of participants that were merely pro-regime and did not

address any social issue, as well as having a jury that was filled (according to many Chinese

hip-hop artists) with fake hip-hoppers (Amar 2018, 110). In other words, the regime made

sure that the show would only voice sentiments and ideas that the regime would endorse,

plausibly even trying to promote pro-regime sentiments in a propagandistic manner.

This form of propaganda can be also be seen back in the fact that the Chinese regime

actively supported and encouraged certain hip-hop artists to create hip-hop that promotes the

regime and is drenched in nationalism, thus practically making them part of the party’s

propaganda machine. An example of this is the group “CD Rev”. Their music videos are

produced and directed by the Communist Youth League’s production team and their song

called “The Force of Red” could not be a better epitome of the kind of hip-hop that the

Chinese regime wants to promote:

“Fuck DDP (i.e., the Taiwanese Democratic Party), Fuck Tsai-Ing Wen (i.e., the President of

Taiwan), Y’all bitches ready for this shit? Taiwan ain’t a country! Bitch, at most a county”

If the title of the song “The Force of Red” did not give enough of an indication yet of the

heavily nationalistic agenda of the group, then the lyrics in the excerpt above do. But,

likewise as with the participants and the jury on The Rap of China, the group CD Rev is being

mocked by the lion’s share of Chinese (critical) hip-hop artists. The rappers in the group are

not skilled or talented and merely dance to the tune of the Chinese regime, it is asserted.

Hence, it could be argued that the Chinese regime is co-opting the genre of hip-hop as well in

55

order to pursue its own agenda by virtue of the music and its representatives (Phillips 2016;

Hernández 2016)

Lastly, for those artists that do not like to be marionets for the Chinese regime and do

not want to end up on a blacklist, in prison or being boycotted, there is a middle way. The

regime urges hip-hop artists that have flirted with taking the wrong path, that of expressing

criticism towards the regime or promoting non-Chinese values and ideas, to repent and purify

their songs (Amar 2018, 111).

Concluding remarks

As was shown, China is an autocracy. The literature that pertains to state administered

repression to mute the critical, when keeping the “more muder in the middle theory” in the

back of one’s mind, tells us that autocracies are likely to employ soft repressive measures.

After all, full-blown autocracies are often characterised by a culture where going against the

system is often not present, for the supremacy and domination of the regime is of such heights

that the people simply refrain from revolting. In that way, autocracies maybe do not even feel

the need to crackdown on the critical people in its territory. Instead, soft repressive measures

suffice and hard repressive measures would possibly only cause more damage, for example

causing widespread international outrage. China’s regime seems to possess these traits: it has

a firm grip on its society and soft repressive measures might well do the job.

As the findings above indicated, throughout the years, a vast share of hip-hop Chinese

artists lost their stage in China. Those that were critical or promoted sentiments, values and

notions that were not in line with those that the regime desired, were being confronted with

some hard repressive measures such as imprisonment and arrests. Besides that, they had to

endure softer repressive measures such as bans, censorship and the boycotts that resulted from

this. On the other side of the spectrum, the artists that were willing to comply with the

regime’s guidelines have virtually been made marionets of the regime.

All in all, the censorship and the strategy in its entirety has aimed to crackdown on the

main culprits and to apply “Chinese qualities” to an in imported cultural form, while

simultaneously making it crystal clear that no form of music (however popular) can escape

the gaze and hand of the Party. Hip-hop music can exist on the playing field, but only if it

plays according to the rules of the regime.

56

This is in line with the expected behaviour only to a small degree, since the more

murder in the middle theory had stipulated that soft repression would be the type of repression

to be expected.

57

VIII. Analysis

Regime type and type of repression – an overview

After having investigated three regimes and the repression of critical hip-hop in that

respective regime, it is a wise idea to briefly summarise the findings that this thesis has

produced so far. For the reader’s sake and the sake of clarity, this section will commence with

a table that summarises what cases and types of regime have been scrutinised, what the

expected type of repression was in the light of critical hip-hop art (when keeping the “more

murder in the middle” theory in mind) and lastly what the actual repression present in that

country was.

Case Regime type Expected type

of repression of

critical hip-hop

Actual type of

repression of

critical hip-hop

Correspondence

between

expectations

and reality

Spain

Democracy

Soft forms of

repression

Predominantly

hard repressive

measures

(imprisonment)

No

Russia

Anocracy

Hard forms of

repression

Predominantly

hard repressive

measures, minor

elements of soft

repression

(imprisonment

vs. bans)

Yes

China

Autocracy

Soft forms of

repression

(although hard

forms are not

wholly excluded

Mixture between

hard and soft

repressive

measures

(imprisonment +

arrests with force

Partly

58

from happening

either)

vs. blacklists,

bans and

labelling)

Figure 4: Summary of the findings

Interpretation of the main results and additional relevant observations From the prior table can be deducted that the “more murder in the middle” theory does not

entirely fit the case of repression of critical hip-hop expressions and artists, at least not in the

cases that have been studied in this study. In the case of the democracy included in this study,

Spain, the reality is quite different from the expectation. It was hypothesised that Spain would

be characterised by soft repression towards critical hip-hop, however the opposite seems to be

the case. The Spanish regime cracks down pretty harshly on those that offer dissenting

opinions through hip-hop music, mostly by virtue of long-term imprisonment. Secondly, on

the other side of the spectrum, China as an autocracy does also not entirely perform in

accordance with what the “more murder in the middle” theory prescribes. It must be admitted

that the Chinese regime uses various soft repressive techniques, such as blacklists and bans,

but at the same time it has clamped down on critical hip-hop a lot as well. The latter is visible

in the violent arrests and imprisonments the country has applied. The only case that seems to

aptly fit the theory that guides this thesis is that of Russia. Anocracies are expected to mostly

use hard repressive measures and this is the case in Russia. Elaborating on this, imprisonment

and arrests of the most critical voices in Russian hip-hop are rampant. It must be noted,

however, that the Russian regime also used quite some soft repressive measures. This was not

wholly surprising according to the theory and hence it could be argued that the case of Russia

comes closest to being in line with the “more murder in the middle” theory.

Russia and China can be considered to have a similar approach when it comes to

critical hip-hop art and its repression, whereas Spain is more a standalone case. The former

two countries are similar, judging on the results that this thesis has produced, in that their

approaches are both quite ambivalent. On the one hand, both regimes crackdown viciously on

critical hip-hop in their attempt to silence them, but on the other hand both regimes also apply

some soft repressive measures. Both regimes seem to be struggling sometimes to find the

right way to deal with the problem of critical hip-hop and this results in somewhat ambivalent

approaches. Another factor that makes China and Russia similar cases is the fact that both

countries also try to use hip-hop music for their own agendas and thus flip the script: instead

59

of merely seeing it as a threat, the genre can also be used for one’s own purposes. It is truly

fascinating to see that both the Russian and Chinese regime have rolled out extensive

propagandistic structures that make use of hip-hop music to boost its own image and goals.

This once again emphasises the ambiguous relationship that both regimes have with hip-hop

music. For example, China’s state structures have deemed the genre of hip-hop to be

completely incompatible on Chinese soil but at the same time the regime created a talent

show that was specifically focussing on hip-hop acts. Likewise, the Russian regime has

savagely hounded critical rappers to a point where the artists had to flee the country, but at the

same time it has asked hip-hop artists to endorse Putin’s campaign and paid for the production

of related videoclips. In other words: the genre is allowed to stay when it is in favour of (and

beneficial for) those in power, but when it gets critical the genre is the main culprit behind all

that is wrong in the country and thus has to disappear from the stage.

One soft repression that seems to be exclusive to the Chinese regime is being

discursively active. The Chinese newspapers under regime control are being used to label and

stigmatise hip-hop in China. Thus, the regime shapes a certain narrative around the genre by

being witty with discursive practices. The latter is a very subtle soft repression measure. In

Spain the regime has not employed this tactic. In Russia this phenomenon was not explicitly

present either, although one could argue that politicians (such as Vladimir Petrov) who voiced

concern over hip-hop’s explicit nature and the urge to “restore normality amongst the youth”

can also be seen as a form of creating a narrative around the genre.

Finally, Spain is more a standalone case for its (almost) exclusive use of hard

repressive measures and refraining from using soft measures. What makes the Spanish

approach stand out most is the fact that the regime has created a coherent and strong legal

framework to tackle critical hip-hop music. Although it must be contended that the framework

original and sole purpose are not critical hip-hop art and artists, the regime has frequently

used this expression- and speech-stifling framework to silence hip-hop music.

One of the above phenomena merits a bit more elaboration and attention in my eyes,

namely the phenomenon of states taming critical hip-hop by virtue of co-optation of the

genre. This is what Russia and principally China have been doing. By means of co-optative

techniques, Zou claims, “authorities bring certain types of hip-hop in line with official

dictums, thereby forging alliance with nonstate actor and reinforcing their hegemony” (Zou

2019, 183). Tricia Rose has also highlighted the existence of this practice, although using a

different term for it, saying that the practice is in fact quite commonplace. In Rose’s words:

60

“the resistant hip-hop culture, while contradicting and subverting ideological positions, is

vulnerable to incorporation” (1994, 101).

Hence, what seems to be the case is that, instead of applying hard or soft repressive

measures on critical hip-hop, oftentimes regimes start co-opting the artform. Bringing hip-hop

in line with official state dictums might be more effective, easier and long-lasting compared

to downright repressing it. Besides that of Russia and China, the Iranian regime seems to be a

fan of co-optation of the music style. In Iran, hip-hop has changed from a relatively rowdy

underground music genre to a music form that is largely aligned with mainstream standards

and values as dictated by the state (Golpushnezhad 2008, 261). Additionally, the Islamic State

has even indirectly funded hip-hop music in Iran, thereby infusing it with an Islamic identity

and making it appropriate and suitable the Iranian society at large and the younger generation

in the country (Golpushnezhad 2008, 261).

All in all then, this thesis presents an interesting puzzle. The findings suggest that the

“more murder in the middle” theory is not able to explain what is going on regarding the

repression of critical hip-hop artists in Spain, Russia and China. Therefore, when following

the findings that this study has produced, one would be obliged to argue that regime type does

not impact the form of repression chosen by regimes to suppress critical hip-hop.

Alternative explanations As has become clear, the data collected in this study has thwarted the expectations and

contradicted the main theory. Therefore, alternative explanations for why we see this pattern

are of the utmost importance to this study. Hence, it is vital to take a good look at potential

alternative explanations.

Spain arguably presents the most interesting case of variation. Although this paper

does not claim that these are the sole catalysts behind Spain’s hard repression of hip-hop

music, two potential main explanations can be identified in my opinion. First of all, Spain has

a recent history of conflict. Two conflicts have been the main characters in this recent history:

the independence struggle of the Basque Country and secondly, a similar battle but then in the

region of Catalonia. Hence, on both sides of the Spanish Pyrenees it has recently been tense

and it goes without saying that this has had far-stretching consequences. Possibly even

stretching to the realm of hip-hop music. Although the struggle for independence by the

Basques has been an issue that has been around for a long time, circumstances deteriorated

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with the inception of the “Euskadi ta Askatasuna”6 (ETA). The group was heavily militaristic

and nationalistic and actively fought for secession up until the early 2000s (Roach 2007, 453).

Due to its extremist nature, the Spanish regime desperately tried to contain the movement.

According to Woodworth, this in turn “produced new legislation from Madrid, greatly

extending the definition of terrorist acts and introducing long prison sentences for minors”

(Woodworth 2001, 1). This sounds familiar to the section that covers the introduction of the

“Gag laws” in the chapter on the case of Spain, where similar measures were implemented.

Hence, over the years, the limits of the law have been stretched so far that a lot of things

could be interpreted as “glorifying” or “inciting terrorism”. The state makes use of that now

and thus kills freedom of expression and speech, giving out extremely hard prison sentences

like it is nothing. This is the sentiment amongst many Spaniards at least. Besides the ETA,

Spain had a more recent quarrel with the region of Catalonia. Although the Catalans have not

nearly been as and violent and aggressive at its Basque colleagues, Spain still had its hands

full with them and thus the regime might have been really afraid that anti-regime sentiments

get the overhand when it refrains from cracking down on dissenters. Secondly, Spain has

known autocratic rule up until quite recently. It must be difficult to simply flip that page in

history over and thus it might be the case that the hard repressive approach of Spain towards

critical hip-hop is a remnant of its autocratic rule and perhaps culture.

When it comes to China, it is a bigger challenge to put a finger on what might

alternatively be behind the results that this paper has found. The Chinese rationale is difficult

to follow. But, that might well be an explanation as well. The Chinese regime simply does not

really know what to do with the genre of hip-hop and haphazardly punish critical hip-hoppers.

The phenomenon is novel and China realises that the genre, in combination with the

digitalisation and globalisation of the present-day, has a previously unmatched potential. This

makes it hard for the Chinese regime to crackdown completely on critical artists, for they

realise they can use the genre for their own benefit, but cracking down on the art form would

be detrimental for the potential that it has for China’s own agenda. As such, it attempts to find

the right balance between silencing what is too detrimental and allowing what is beneficial.

This predicament might well be the reason behind China’s ambiguous and haphazard

approach to critical hip-hop.

Russia’s case was largely in line with the expected pattern and therefore alternative

explanations are of less significance here. One possible alternative explanation for the hard

6 This translates to “Basque country and freedom”

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repression in Russia (instead of it being an anocracy) is the fact that Russia has historically

always had a complicated relationship with artists and the cultural sphere.

Limitations

An objection that can be made with regards to the findings, which is vital to keep in mind, is

that the sources available have given a skewed image of reality. What is meant with this, is

that it might be possible that Spain is not necessarily the most repressive out of the cases that

this paper has studied, but that Russia and China are in reality a lot harsher in their repression

than the figures now suggest. Yes, these regimes have implemented hard repressive measures

but the problem might be way more extensive, pervasive and on a larger-scale. Yet, this might

possibly not come to the forefront because of the possibility that the regimes try to keep this

under the radar. Elaborating on this, the regimes might want to keep it a secret that many

critical hip-hop artists are being repressed with violence and thus censor that practice to some

extent. This uncertainty pertains mostly to China due to having such an extensive propaganda

apparatus and a culture of keeping things under the radar. Spain on the other hand would have

had a lot more difficult time sweeping these practices under the rug, for it is a democracy and

is characterised by a significantly higher degree of transparency. To sum up then, it is

essential to keep in mind that the findings in this thesis might present a picture of reality that

is to some degree off. Censorship might thrive in the more autocratic regimes in this study

and as a consequence it might be the case that not all necessary information is available to

uncover the true nature of the phenomenon of repression of critical hip-hop.

This problem might be exacerbated by the choices made in the light of the research

design of this study. For example, problems with having a lack of accurate sources might be

mitigated if one would go to the country in question itself and interview people. In my

opinion, this would minimise the risk of presenting an image that is incorrect because of the

fact that these people often know what is going on in their society and present a more accurate

picture of what is going on. This study has merely used academic and internet literature to

conduct a structurally-focused comparison, but in-depth interviews with actual inhabitants of

the investigated countries would contribute significantly to mitigating the problem of not

knowing if the image painted is accurate.

Additionally, this study has not been able to take a thorough look at the causal

mechanism that is at play in the study. Since this study has been a first attempt to map the

uncharted topic of regime type and repression of critical hip-hop, it mainly focused on

63

establishing that a link between the two exists and on testing a theory. Limited sources were

also a reason for the absence of a detailed dissection of the possible causal steps involved.

Therefore, I would encourage future research to dive deeper in this, for example by

conducting in-depth interviews or exhaustively investigating one single case with the method

of process tracing.

Lastly, a comment regarding external validity must be made. The topic of this study is

highly context sensitive and many factors seem to influence the way critical hip-hop is being

repressed. Since every country in the world is unique and has had its own historic trajectory

with its own customs, habits and culture, the generalisability of the study might be low. For

example, Spain is a democracy, but this does not mean that all democracies are similar to

Spain. There is a lot of variation between democracies and (e.g.,) Finland is a very different

country than Spain is. Thus, I argue that generalisability is limited. Finally, the reliability of

the data might pose a problem. I use interpretations of secondary data and these are prone to

positionality. Other scholars might deduct different interpretations from the data. Also,

whereas academic literature for the cases Russia and China have been found, the case of

Spain is wholly built around internet sources such as magazine articles and blogposts. This

undermines the comparability of the sources.

64

IX. Conclusions The purpose of this study has been to shed light on the relationship between regime type and

the repression of critical hip-hop utterances and its artists. By virtue of looking at the cases of

Spain, Russia and China, this study has attempted to see if the “more murder in the middle”

theory holds true for repression of hip-hop music as well. Simply put, this theory asserted that

soft repression is being used in autocracies and democracies, whereas hard repressive

techniques are expected to surface in hybrid regimes. The underlying aim of these case

studies has been to see if the type of regime that is present in a state impacts the type of

repression that this respective state applies on critical hip-hop.

This study has found that the more murder in the middle theory does not necessarily

hold for repression of hip-hop that voices critical sentiments towards the regime in question.

The findings suggest that regime type is not a reliable determinant for what type of repression

is employed when states deal with those who oppose them through hip-hop music. Hence, the

first intuition is that harsh repression of critical hip-hop is not the result of a state being an

anocratic regime. Similarly, soft repression is not the consequence of regimes being full-

fledged autocracies or democracies. Nevertheless, this study is a pioneer in this specific field

of study for it has been (to my knowledge) the first one to dissect this relationship and that

means that the findings must be taken with extreme caution. The findings are very

preliminary and more research is needed in order to rule out the possibility that a different

relationship between the two is present.

This study has contributed, first and foremost, to the fields of musicology and that of

peace and conflict studies at large. Besides that, this study has contributed to the specific field

of peace and conflict studies in combination with hip-hop music. This field has hitherto been

largely uncharted and therefore this study is a valuable contribution to filling up that academic

void. The relation between regime type and the silencing of hip-hop music has thus far not

even be touched before and therefore, this study provides a unique first glimpse on that

phenomenon. Moreover, this study has potentially provided a first stepping stone towards

more research into the interplay and link between regime type and repression of hip-hop

music.

Concrete policy implications are difficult to pinpoint as of now. Primarily because of

the reason that the nature of this study has been very specific and is perhaps difficult to attach

to a tangible framework of policies. Despite that, I would like to once more emphasise the

importance of studying hip-hop in relation to peace and conflict studies. The music genre has

65

unprecedented potential to play a role of significance in the lives of many people and can

(depending on how it is being used) both start, exacerbate and resolve conflict.

66

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