Spain’s rap music scene was influenced by the dramatic increase of immigrants who settled in the country at the beginning of the twenty-first century, particularly immigrants from Africa. Because music is widely considered the most important medium for articulating black identities, the music of Spanish MCs Frank T and El Chojín are effective case studies for us to examine how rap artists carve out identities for themselves and others. Paul Gilroy explores such diasporic trends from Africa across the Atlantic, but his model is not broad enough to include other routes of cultural exchange or non-Anglo-Saxon experiences. Therefore, a more nuanced reading of Gilroy’s idea of a Black Atlantic as the Spanish Black Atlantic makes room for nationality beyond race. The hip-hop performed within this Spanish-black conceptual space is less about creating new texts than about creating new meanings and interpretations of existing texts.

Works: Frank T: An Optimist and a Dreamer (516), To Timeless Music (516), Humor Negro (516), Better Than You, Worse Than You (516), Afrika (517); El Chojín: Things That Happen, That Don’t Happen and That Should Happen (516), He’s Crazy (516), N.E.G.R.O. (516), Sólo para adultos (517), No More (Málaga version) (518); Violadores del Verso: Only Solace Remains (517).

Sources: Louis Armstrong: We Have All the Time in the World (515); Eddie Bo: On Work (516); Anonymous: Damn, Bro’/Bad Luck (516), Skills (516), Things that Happen (516); Jimi Hendrix: Voodoo Child (Slight Return) (516); The Spinners: It’s a Shame (516); David Axelrod: The Warning Talk (Pt. 4) (516); Galt MacDermot: Harlem by Day (516); Riz Ortolani: Teresa L’illusa (516); Bob Cranshaw and Donald Byrd: House of the Rising Sun (517); Baro´n Ya bu´ k-lu and Frank T: Mama Afreeka (517); Charlie Parker: Cosmic Rays (517); Raphael: No Matter What They Say (518).

Index Classifications: 2000s, Popular

Contributed by: Sarah Kirkman