Toda a minha vida fui Thug: a (des)construção do urbano através do rap = All my life I've been thug: the (de)construction of the urban through rap

Abstract

To what extent can music or other artistic productions be a means of recognition and learning about a territory? (Guerra, 2019a). This was the initial question with which we struggled, because despite knowing in a corroborated way the role and relevance of musical genres such as rap and hip-hop culture in the artistic world; this questioning focused on how certain contents are approached, starting from distinct and diverse musical influences, from rap to trap, according to the manifestations of musical (sub)genres (Frith, 1996; Lena & Peterson, 2008). In this way, our focus was on an analysis of the lyrics of thirteen artists' songs, in order to put into perspective, the lyrical messages that are transmitted, the various relationships or references that can be made to geographical contexts, more specifically social neighbourhoods, and concomitantly understand how these productions are guided by stereotypical affirmative positions concerning the representation of the gangster artist, the experiences and deviant consumption. How does a small-sized country position itself, in terms of music production and consumption, in relation to these processes of musical resistance (Johansson & Lalander, 2012; Guerra & Quintela, 2016)? Above that, we try to understand in what sense the artists targeted by the analysis still reflect in their artistic productions' themes such as exclusion, violence, criminality and other issues. This is an article that seeks to emphasize the role of artistic creations as (re)producers of relevant knowledge about social realities (Guerra, 2019a; Becker, 2007).