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This book presents the narratives and voices of young, mostly male practitioners of hip hop culture in Delhi, India. The author suggests that practitioners understand hip hop as both a thing that can be appropriated and authenticated, made real, in the local and global context and as a way that enables them to transform their lives and futures in the rapidly globalising urban environments of Delhi. The dancers, artists, musicians and cultural theorists that feature in this book construct a multitude of voices in their narratives to formulate their ‘own’ transcultural voices within global hip hop. Through a combination of linguistic ethnography, sociolinguistics and discourse studies, the book addresses issues including gender and sexuality, identity construction and global culture.
Transcultural Voices marks the entry of a refreshing new scholar in sociolinguistics. Jaspal Singh takes us on an unforgettable journey through Delhi’s urban hip hop scene, revealing an ethnographic world with a descriptive flare that is both honest and provocative. Singh's highly approachable book unravels how young male hip hop practitioners, marginalized in the city as migrants from elsewhere, transform the cosmopolitan magic of their fine art into a powerfully local and compelling way of life.
Transcultural Voices brings a much-needed progressive approach to the sociolinguistics of hip hop. Singh pushes the boundaries of the global study and analysis of English, genre, gender, and hip hop culture, illuminating the transformative power of voice in hip hop narratives. A beautiful linguistic ethnography of hip hop in Delhi. Brilliant!
An important contribution to sociolinguistic accounts of hip hop, Jaspal Naveel Singh’s ethnography of hip hop culture in Delhi both builds on and departs from previous studies [...] by developing a programme that he terms ‘global hip hop linguistics’ (p. 26). The result is a captivating and analytically robust exploration of the narrativisation of voice, anchored in the complexities of globalisation.
...this book will undoubtedly be of great interest to those invested in the growing sub-field of hip hop linguistics. It will also be beneficial to readers and scholars with an ongoing interest in the role of language and context, language and culture, and importantly, the way language is intertwined with identities. Finally, those with such interests will be rewarded by meeting the cast of characters that enable this knowledge to be brought to light.
— Andrew Ross, University of Canberra, Australia, Journal of Sociolinguisticsm, 2023
Jaspal Naveel Singh is an Assistant Professor of Sociolinguistics in the School of English, The University of Hong Kong. His research interests include global hip hop linguistics, linguistic ethnography, sociolinguistics and discourse studies.
Figures and Table
Transcription Conventions
Acknowledgements
Glossary of Terms
Prologue: Gender everywhere
Chapter 1. Complex Questions: Normalising Voice in Global Narratives
Chapter 2. Studying Transcultural Voices
Chapter 3. Doing Linguistic Ethnography in Delhi’s Hip-Hop Scene
Chapter 4. Othering Voices: Prosodic Normalising of the Authentic Cosmopolitan Self
Chapter 5. Translingual Voices: Remixed Language Ideologies
Chapter 6. Synchronising Voices: Travelling the Delhi to Bronx Wormhole
Chapter 7. Embodying Voices: Breakin Cyphers and the B-Boy Stance
Chapter 8. Overstandin Voices: Methodologies for Hip Hop
Chapter 9. Conclusion
Epilogue: Gender, again
Notes
References