Skip to Main Content

Cape Verde, Let's Go: Creole Rappers and Citizenship in Portugal

Online ISBN:
9780252097768
Print ISBN:
9780252039676
Publisher:
University of Illinois Press
Book

Cape Verde, Let's Go: Creole Rappers and Citizenship in Portugal

Derek Pardue
Derek Pardue
Aarhus University
Find on
Published:
1 December 2015
Online ISBN:
9780252097768
Print ISBN:
9780252039676
Publisher:
University of Illinois Press

Abstract

Musicians rapping in Kriolu—a hybrid of Portuguese and West African languages spoken in Cape Verde—have recently emerged from Lisbon's periphery. They popularize the struggles with identity and belonging among young people in a Cape Verdean immigrant community that shares not only the Kriolu language but its culture and history. Drawing on fieldwork and archival research in Portugal and Cape Verde, this book introduces Lisbon's Kriolu rap scene and the role of rap music in challenging metropolitan Portuguese identities. It demonstrates that Cape Verde, while relatively small within the Portuguese diaspora, offers valuable lessons about the politics of experience and social agency within a postcolonial context that remains poorly understood. As the book argues, knowing more about both Cape Verdeans and the Portuguese invites clearer assessments of the relationship between the experience and policies of migration. That in turn allows us to better gauge citizenship as a balance of individual achievement and cultural ascription.

Contents
Close
This Feature Is Available To Subscribers Only

Sign In or Create an Account

Close

This PDF is available to Subscribers Only

View Article Abstract & Purchase Options

For full access to this pdf, sign in to an existing account, or purchase an annual subscription.

Close