La Faculté des Sciences Sociales a le plaisir de vous inviter à la soutenance de thèse de Monsieur Axel  Mudahemuka Gossiaux en vue de l'obtention du Doctorat en Sciences politiques et sociales. 

La thèse s'intitule :

Artistic Expressions of Anti-Racism in Francophone Belgian Rap Music: Postcoloniality, Politics, and (Multi)Cultural Identities in Hip Hop Culture

General abstract

Starting from the observation that hip hop, including rap music, has been an unavoidable phenomenon in recent decades and is a social object evolving within a particularly racialized framework, the research questions the artistic expressions of Francophone Belgian rap music in relation to racism and racial discrimination in Belgium. In a context of resurgent postcolonial debate, the aim is to investigate the political dimension of Francophone rap in relation to these issues. While it is now commonplace to say that rap music can have a certain political scope, many actors and outside observers wonder about its evolution following the integration of rap into a globalized, capitalist music industry. I therefore pose the following general research question: “What is the political dimension of Francophone Belgian rap music in relation to issues of racism in modern societies?”

This qualitative study takes place at the intersection of a diverse theoretical framework, drawing from political sociology, ethnic and migration studies, postcolonial and cultural studies, and hip hop studies. It specifically employs critical theory of racism to examine how the phenomenon operates as a social construct and to investigate rap music’s role as a political platform. The research also addresses broader issues, including (multi)cultural identity, market recognition, and artistic institutionalization. The analysis relies on three interdependent angles, studied in a transversal way, and structured around a chronological perspective that covers three periods (1984–1992, 1993–2007, 2008–2021), each representing a certain cycle of development of Francophone Belgian hip hop culture and rap music, allowing consideration of their historical evolutions. The methodology is qualitative and uses fieldwork material comprising songs, visual content, interviews, in-depth participatory experiences and observations, as well as archive material and sub-case studies of hip hop and rap-related initiatives in Brussels and Liège. I rely also on my insider position in the field in Liège.

The key findings of the research relate to the identification of the spaces where the political dimension of race in Francophone Belgian hip hop’s politics can evolve, the racialized assignment of Francophone Belgian rap to a minority practice in the cultural landscape, and the institutionalization of hip hop within a cultural policy for the purposes of state action. Indeed, the first part of the chronological analysis (1984-1992) shows how Belgian pioneers of hip hop arts and culture could build and affirm cultural identity by locally appropriating rap music in Francophone Belgium to engage in the global dialogue of marginalized voices. The second part (1993-2007) highlights the emergence of the Francophone Belgian rap music art world and how rap music artists could use its aesthetic codifications and conventions to challenge racism and discrimination. This part also underlines the limits of the institutionalization of hip hop arts and culture in the youth cultural policy, as well as those of their commodification in Francophone Belgium in the pre-Web 2.0 era. The last part of the chronological analysis (2008-2021) concerns mainly the new configuration of Francophone Belgian rap music leading to its full integration into the music market, and how this context raises issues about the articulation of its “political” discourse related to postcolonial debate in Belgium, while being nowadays acknowledged as a commodified and popular cultural good.

Doctoral Advisory Commitee 

• Jérôme Jamin – Professor at Department of Political Science, University of Liège
• Marco Martiniello (promoter) – Professor at Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Liège
• Griffith Rollefson – Professor at Department of Music, University College Cork

Examination Comittee 

• Alice Aterianus-Owanga – Assistant Professor at Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Neuchâtel
• Christophe Pirenne (jury president) – Professor at Faculty of Philosophy and Letters, University of Liège

 Plus d’informations

Axel Gossiaux