Roma Hip Hop as a Multiculturalist Soundtrack. R-Point: The Pedagogy of a Policy

Abstract

This paper examines the phenomenon of Roma hip hop in Serbia, its origins and popularization through music workshops for Roma children organized by the non-governmental organization R-Point. The paper analyzes a supposedly liberatory cultural practice, and argues that its designing „from above“, through non-governmental agencies' projects whose declarative aim is to help the Roma, actually petrifies their identity, reducing their entire cultural output to certain elements attractive to the dominant culture and traditionally recognized as „Roma“.