Politics of Race, Belonging and Community in Yeboyah's music video ‘Elovena’

Abstract

The Elovena maiden is, for some, one of the most important cultural symbols of the Finnish identity. This character has traditionally been portrayed as a blond, blue-eyed white woman and repeatedly used in artistic and commercial contexts. In this article, we explore how a Finnish-Ghanaian rapper Yeboyah’s ‘Elovena’ music video, as part of the Elovena visual EP (2019), constructs and negotiates race, belonging, and community. Moreover, we investigate the ways in which these themes, taken together, contribute to the video’s affective politics vis-à-vis Finnish cultural identity, right-wing nationalism, and white normativity of Finnishness. Through their ‘Yebovena’ character, Yeboyah reinterprets and updates the iconic Elovena maiden, while surrounded by Finnish nature and a diverse dancing community of mostly black and brown people. We argue that the music video contributes to new understandings of Finnishness as multicultural and critiques and challenges growing xenophobia and racism in the Finnish society. Moreover, Yeboyah’s engagement with Finnish national symbolism intertwines with the rising need for more discussion on decolonization and antiracism in Finland. Theoretically and methodologically, we draw on affective politics and racial politics in music studies, with a specific focus on hip hop, to conduct a contextualized, close cultural analysis of the video. Our main data consist of the music video and visual EP, supported and contextualized by an interview with the artist.

Keywords

• affect
• politics
• rap
• race
• national identity
• belonging