2016/01/01 by Owen Kohl · 1 citation
Social Sciences · Arts and Humanities · #Asian Culture and Media Studies #Music History and Culture #Balkans: History, Politics, Society #Neoliberalism (international relations) #Ideology #Ambivalence #State (computer science) #Socialism #Sociology #State socialism #Straddle #Political science #Political economy #Media studies #Economics #Law #Capitalism
paper · doi:10.1086/688642
published in Signs and Society 4(2), 302-332 (University of Chicago Press)
openalex publication_date 2016/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
Abstract The multicharacter biographies of hip hop artists, consumers, and distributors in post-Yugoslav spaces (ex-YU) straddle a period of seemingly never-ending, teleologic ‘transitions.’ The business models of regional music industries have also dramatically changed after the emergence of new forms of digital distribution. These transformations each occur within broader, often violent shifts from self-managed state socialism to clientelistic neoliberalism. I analyze artists’ discussions of professional limitations and the debates surrounding brand acts, or artists’ symbolic range of ambivalent, critical, and pragmatic stances toward media industries. Artists often compare the precarious present of a marginal position within the record business in ex-YU using frames that reference foreign and past elsewheres, including an era of ‘good life’ socialism. A debate has emerged as to whose future a new present laden with brands and industry regulation best serves.