Subcultures: ethnicity
examples of ethnic youth sub-cultures?
-Ragga girls
-Rude boys
-Rastafarians
-hip-hop
Music
rock n roll music listened to by The Teddy Boys and the rockers was influenced by black rhythm and blues music in the USA. Caribbean music, reggae and ska, was listened to by both skinheads and rude boys in the UK. Modern dance music contains many influences from Asian bhangra music.
Hebdige
E.g. the MODS who imitated the ‘cool’ West Indian style and the SKINS who gained a reputation for racism and resistance to immigration. More recently, black music and fashion are said to have influenced white working class sub-cultures.
British youth sub-cultures can be read as “a succession of differential responses to the black immigrant presence in Britain”.
Rude boys
The rude boy was not the first subculture of
Jamaica, but it was the first youth subculture
Hebdige (1979) suggests that the first subcultural ethnic style, originating from Jamaica, was that of the Rude Boys.
Example- Eminem
‘Rudies’ formed a subculture based on looking cool, dealing in cannabis and pimping.
Their music was ‘ska and rock steady’ – both of which influenced the later reggae music style.
By the 1960s there were enough Afro-Caribbean youths in the UK to make up their own distinctive subcultures;
Scuffling was basically just scrounging to get by. This often meant involvement in the underground economy. Pimping and prostitution, begging and stealing which became unofficial economic youth activities in the shanty towns of West Kingston, Jamaica
After independence in the early Sixties , over-population was putting extreme demands on the basics of life - housing, work and food. The response to these conditions by young blacks was the start of a creation of a new subculture, unofficially called the ‘scufflers’.
Scrufflers
They carried knives and handguns. They wore sharp 3-button tonic suits and "stingy brim," or pork-pie hats, in imitation of the upper-classes.
The gangster image and sunglasses at all times gave them an image of being 'cool,' a new and distinctly modern value and look. Rude boys were, above all, angry at their low economic position and status in society.
Rastafarians
Overlaps with the Rude Boys subculture
Developed in Jamaica too but sees Ethiopia as the Holy Land and the last Ethiopian emperor, Haile Selassie (Ras Tafari) as the leader
Rastafarians call the West ‘Babylon’ (white colonial capitalism) and view it as evil.
Marijuana plays an important part in the religion and subculture as it allows the user to achieve an altered, ‘higher’ state of consciousness.
Whilst Rasta style had some influence on skinhead and punk musical tastes, its appeal to whites was limited by its association with a Black identity and religious system, so making it an ethnic subculture.
Reggae culture and rastafarianism
This subculture is linked to reggae music, dreadlocks and colours in red, gold and green
Hebdige
HEBDIGE saw Rastafarianism and reggae culture as forms of resistance to white culture and racism with its roots in the relations to slavery.
Bhangra
This new genre quickly became popular in Britain, replacing Punjabi folk singers due to it being heavily influenced by the infusion of more Western rock sounds.
It created an affirmation of a positive identity and culture, and provided a platform for British Punjabi males to assert their own ethnic masculinity
Asian subcultures: Bhangra
Bhangra music was invented in the 1980s by Punjabi Immigrants who took the folk sound of their home country and began experimenting by altering it using instruments from their host country.
Bhangra music is closely linked to the ‘Brasian’ subculture
a fusion between Asian and British culture.
Young British Asians refuse to accept a subordinate place in society and wish to celebrate their culture by making it more contemporary and fashionable.
JOHAL suggests that some British Asians adopted a ‘hyper ethnic style’, an exaggerated version of their parent culture, including watching Indian films (witness the rise in popularity of Bollywood) and listening to Asian music.
This can provide ‘empowerment through difference’.
Hip-hop culture
Music built on a mix of rap, hip hop and R&B
Originated in African-American, Latino, and Asian communities during the 1970s in New York City, specifically the Bronx.
4 pillars of hiphop music
MCing, DJing, breaking and graffiti writing
Example= rappers delight
Rap with its ‘gangsta’ lyrics based on street life in the ‘hood’ and its aggressive macho style has now been incorporated into mainstream pop but can still be seen as an example of ethnic subculture.
Gangsta
Gangsta Rap is a subgenre of hip hop music that evolved from hardcore hip hop and reflects urban crime and the violent lifestyles of inner-city youths.