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“The Hip and the Street": Hip-hop and Street Cultures in Enduring Times of Crisis, 5-7 June 2025Conference & 8th Meeting of the European Hiphop Studies Network
Panteion University (Laboratory of Anthropological Research), Amphitheater Sakis Karageorgas 2, Athens, Greece
The multi-faceted, transnational culture of hip-hop is perhaps the most iconic version of street culture in the modern era. Rooted in Afro/Latinodiasporic traditions and political commitments, hip-hop resonates with global youth cultures and embodies a complex interplay between anti-commercial/underground and commercial/mainstream impulses. It navigates between dissident and conforming expressions, often oscillating between these seemingly antithetical realms. Hip-hop and its elements (MCing, DJing, Graffiti and Breaking), are also deeply connected to intersectional issues such as identity, race, ethnicity, social class, gender, age, sexuality and spirituality. Both hip-hop spheres and academic hip-hop spheres engage with how hip-hop knowledge circulates and is put into practice. As KRS-One actually mentions “hip” is the knowledge and “hop” is the movement.
At the same time, contemporary “street cultures” are not limited to hip-hop. Broader categories of expression linked to migration flow and contemporary trends are equally important in the context of crisis, socio-political instability and societal fragility. The notion of “street culture” conveys a mobile embodied 'ethos' and broader spectrums (Ilan 2015) of performance, meanings and practices. The ethos of the "street" can be experienced through localized and also deterritorialized performances and performativities in both private and public spaces. Street cultures find expression in music, fashion, dance, gesture, dialect and visual arts, usually (but not always) contextualized against the backdrop of an ongoing 'street' historicization project often rooted, like hip-hop practices, in political unrest and the struggles of marginalized groups.
This conference aims to highlight the interconnected and intersecting aspects, spaces and expressions of hip-hop culture and street culture with primary focus on Greek contexts, though it is not limited to this. It will transgress the Greek experience through the exploration of its conjunctions and juxtapositions with the international experience. It will explore the impact of multiple and overlapping crisis with hip-hop and street cultures such as pandemic conditions, ongoing wars, climate crisis, gender movements, digital and AI explosion, and rising neoconservatisms. These forces often reinforce the legacies of hip-hop and street cultures either by contributing or resisting to accelerating forces of neoliberalism.
The conference employs the terms “hip-hop” and “street” not as closed or essentialized categories, but as open-ended frameworks for ongoing decolonization and negotiation of identities, meanings, and forms of inclusion/exclusion. The conference will address several contemporary questions regarding the political appropriation of hip-hop and the “street”: How do genre categories, and localized expressions, relate to debates over what counts as “real” and “authentic” street and hip-hop culture? What is considered “normal,” “recognizable,” or “accepted,” and what is deemed “out of place” (Douglas 1966), in the context of a global movement in the attention economy? How does cultural appropriation of hip-hop and the “street” manifest in politically turbulent times, particularly within neoliberal and anti-institutional frameworks? Finally, the conference focuses on the contemporary embodiments of the past, by reflecting on the historical and cultural contexts in which they emerge that are often misunderstood, aiming to connect the radical political possibilities of art within turbulent societies through sound pedagogy.
This conference will bring together both international and Greek scholars and practitioners of hip-hop and street scenes, with a particular focus on the contemporary Greek context. It aims to circulate research about global experiences of hip-hop and street cultures through the convening of both local and international scholars engaged with these topics. As such, it will not be an open-call conference, but rather a closed event, with invitations extended only to the panelists and keynote speakers. The panels will be hybrid but the three day conference programme (June 5th-7st, 2025) will also include specific roundtables with experts in certain topics (practitioners and academics).
The conference will feature hybrid panels, alongside specific roundtables focusing on specialized topics, with experts drawn from both academia and practice. The panels will include a diverse range of participants, including hip-hop and street culture scholars, as well as practitioners and artists from these communities. In addition to the academic discussions, the conference will also showcase music concerts, dance performances, and screenings of related audiovisual material. These events will not be used merely as entertainment breaks but as organic interactions between students, practitioners, activists and academics.
The conference will also serve as the Eighth Annual Meeting of the European Hip Hop Studies Network (EHHSN) – a 200+ member organization dedicated to building sustainable and equitable bridges between the interdisciplinary academic field of hip-hop studies and the oft-marginalized artists and communities who invented and sustain the culture.
References
Douglas, M. 1966. Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. London: Routledge.
Ilan, J. 2015. Understanding Street Culture: Poverty, Crime, Youth and Cool. London: Bloomsbury.
Organzing Committee:
Natalia Koutsougera (Laboratory Teaching Staff, Panteion University)
Pafsanias Karathanasis (Postdoc, Social Anthropology)
Vasiliki Mavridis (Anthropologist, Dancer)
On behalf of the Laboratory of Anthropological Research: Prof. Gerasimos Makris, Assistant Prof. Petros Petridis & Assistant Prof. Dimitra Kofti
Contact:
For more information, please contact Natalia Koutsougera at [email protected]
Program
The Hip and the Street
Hip-hop and street cultures in enduring times of crisis
Thursday 5, Friday 6 and Saturday 7 of June 2025
Auditorium: Sakis Karageorgas II, Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences
First Day | Thursday 5 June 2025
16:15 Registration & Coffee welcome
17:00 Welcome speech
Christina Koulouri, Professor, Rector of Panteion University
17:15 Welcome speech, Laboratory of Anthropological Research
Professor Gerasimos Makris, Department of Social Anthropology, Panteion University
17:35–19:00 | PANEL 1
Hip-hop and street cultures in the contexts of successive and enduring crisis: (de)colonialism, neoliberalism & social change
Introduction & Discussants:
Natalia Koutsougera, Adjunct Lecturer, Department of Social Anthropology, Panteion Univ. & Pafsanias Karathanasis, Social Anthropologist, PhD, Independent Researcher
18:00 Political rap: the child of a neoliberal transition in the Global North that became the voice of the excluded in the Global South
Leonidas Oikonomakis, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Crete
18:15 “Rough and Poetically”: Exploring the Underground Hip Hop Scene in 90s Europe
Dastan Abdali, PhD Candidate, Leiden University
18:30 Practices of the Hip hop and ecological projects
Sergey Ivanov, PhD, Independent researcher
18:45–19:00 Discussion
19:15–20:00 | PANEL 2
Hip-hop digitalities
Chair:
Petros Petridis, Assistant Professor, Department of Social Anthropology, Panteion Univ.
19:15 Hip Hop Videos in the New Digital Era: Listening to Relationships as a Response
to Colonial Crises
Liz Przybylski, Professor, Music Department UC Riverside
19:30 “I’m what the Culture feelin’”: Examining the politics of race, culture, and
authenticity in the Drake-Kendrick beef
Steven Gilbers, Assistant Professor, University of Groningen
19: 45 – 20:00 Discussion
20:15 | Keynote Lecture:
CIPHER’s 3rd AI: A Search Engine for Mapping Hip Hop Knowledge
Flows
J Griffith Rollefson, Professor of music at University College Cork
21:00 – 21:45 Freestyle Music Event
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Second Day | Friday 6 June 2025
9.00–9:30 Registration
10:00–11:00 | PANEL 3
Hip-hop and street dance performativities: Institutionalizations, deterritorializations and embodiments in hip-hop, street and urban dance styles
Chair: Mary Fogarty, Associate Professor of Dance at York University)
10:00 From Cyphers to the Olympic Stage: Navigating and Negotiating Breaking's
Movement Aesthetics
Friederike “Bgirl Frost” Frost, PhD Candidate, Univ. of Cologne
10:15 Dancing femininities in contemporary hip-hop, street and urban dance styles in
Greece: Dimensions of embodiment, resistance and spirituality
Natalia Koutsougera, Adjunct Lecturer, Department of Social Anthropology, Panteion Univ.
10: 30 The carnival element in breaking
Angeliki Sakellariou, Graduate Journalist, Panteion University
10:45-11:00 Discussion
11:00–11:30 Coffee break
11:30–12:30 | PANEL 4
Music identities and sonic dimensions in hip-hop music: Changing and exchanging terrains
Chair: Anna Papaeti, Postdoc, PI ERC Mute
11:00 Hip Hop hauntology as metamodern praxis: Sampling invented sonic spectres
Michail Exarchos, a.k.a. Stereo Mike (PhD, independent researcher)
11:15 Trap in Greece: Reframing the sounds of rap music
Manos Paraoulakis, PhD Candidate, National & Kapodistrian Univ. of Greece
11:30 Concerts as rituals: The symbolic and organizational dimensions of hip-hop event in Greece
Alexia Katalano, PhD Candidate, Univ. of the Aegean
11:45–12:00 Discussion
12:30–12:45 | Presentation of the Erasmus+ Project:
UFemTP: A Mobilizing Training & Multimodal Platform
KA220: Cooperation Partnerships in Adult Education
13.00–14.30 | Round Table A.
Hip-hop practitioners from Greece on the Mic. The state of hip-hop nowadays: formal and informal expressions & aesthetics
Discussant: (M.Hulot, journalist Lifo Magazine)
Participants: MC Yinka (MC), Sadahzinia (MC, TBC), Mike Senior (Popper/Breaker), Platonas (Graffiti Artist), Fuerza Negra (Hip Hop dancer), DJ ALX (DJ, Music Producer), Christos Panoilias aka Lagnis / ΝΤΠ. (Artist – Cultural Events Organizer – Artist Manager), Mira (MC)
14:30–15:30 Lunch Break
15:30–16:30 | PANEL 5
Hip-hop pedagogy, poetics and artistic-academic collaborations
Chair: Phaedra Douzina-Bakalaki (PhD, Social Anthropology, Independent Researcher)
15:00 Ε2H2P: a hip hop pedagogy project for times of crisis
Emilie Souyri, Associate Professor, University Côte d’Azur
15:15 “Connecting the Dilla Dots”: an exploration into community powered academic Hip
Hop Events
Vice Beats (James Kennaby), Music Producer, UK
15:30 Hip Hop’s Organic Pedagogues – Political Organizing and Education in New York and Dakar
Saman Hamdi, Bboy, Hip Hop scholar and activist
15:45–16:00 Discussion
16:30–18:30 | BEVERAGES and PICNIC AT PANTEION GARDEN
16:30–18:30 | 8th HIP HOP STUDIES NETWORK MEETING
18:30 | Keynote Lecture
Falling for Everything: The Red Bull Shift in Breaking Culture
Mary Fogarty, Associate Professor of dance at York University
20:30–23:00 | HIP HOP PARTY
HIP HOP DANCE PERFORMANCES IN CERTAIN SPOTS AT THE UNIVERSITY BUILDINGS AND THE GARDEN
RAP PERFORMANCES FROM Stereo Mike, DJ Pritanis & MC YINKA
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Third Day | Saturday 7 June 2025
10:45–11:30 | PANEL 6
Hip-hop affiliations and exclusions: identity and neoliberalism
Chair:
Katerina Rozakou, Assistant Professor, Department of Social Anthropology, Panteion Univ.
10:45 “For me, rap is a way to survive”: Young people studying hip-hop culture in a
Finnish community college
Elina Westinen, PhD, Academy Fellow at Finnish Youth Research Network
11:00 “I even took you to my mother sorry”: limitations, cracks and transcendences in
the Greek hip hop scene
Bessy Polykarpou, PhD Candidate, Panteion University
11:15 –11:30 Discussion
11:45–12:45 | PANEL 7
Hip-hop and the resistances of gender
Chair: Athena Athanasiou, Professor, Department of Social Anthropology, Panteion Univ.
11:45 “God is a chick”: A feminist lesbian view of Christianity and hip hop
Inka Rantakallio, PhD Musicologist, University of Helsinki
12:00 Hyper-masculinity and fragile masculinity: Interjections of race and gender in hip hop culture
Kostas Savvopoulos, PhD, Independent hip-hop scholar
12:15 “The Breath Within the Beat" – A Documentary on Rhyme & Resistance: Feminist
and Queer Voices in Rap in Greece.
Anna Papadaki, MA Cultural and Documentary Production & Lydia Tsenta Audiovisual Artist
12:30 – 12: 45 Discussion
13:00-14.00 | Round Table B.
Street politics: Graffiti, street art and political interventions
Discussant:
Pafsanias Karathanasis, Social Anthropologist, PhD, Independent researcher
Participants: Constantinos Diamantis (Graffiti Writer/Social Anthropologist), Thanassis Chouliaras (PhD candidate, National & Kapodistrian University of Athens, Stage Performer, Director), Panayotis Lianos (PhD candidate in Architecture, Tattooer, Graffiti Writer).
14:00 – 14:30: Coffee Break
14:30–18:00 | Hip-hop audiovisual works: Screenings & Presentations
Coordinators: Pafsanias Karathanasis & Natalia Koutsougera
14:30–15:00 Space Jams. Theorizing hip-hop cinema and its intersection with the Italian cinematic universe
Giuseppe Gatti, Research Fellow & Lecturer University of Turin
15:00–18:00 Presentation of the films An Element of Hope (2025, 23’) by George Danopoulos & Natalia Koutsougera, Rap is Rap (2024, 34:04) by Angelina Dimitriadi & Every single day (2016, 56’) by Spiros Gerousis
18:00–19:00 | Closing Keynote Lecture: Spiritual Cyphers
Ariyan Johnson, Assistant Professor, UCI Claire Trevor, School of the Arts
19:00-19:30: Closing Remarks and Evaluation of the Conference
- - - - - - - - - - - - - End of the Conference - - - - - - - - - - - - -
https://eae.panteion.gr/synedria-ic/143-the-hip-and-the-street-2
https://eae.panteion.gr/nea-anakoinoseis/256
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Panteion University, Πάντου Αλ. 13, 176 71 Καλλιθέα, Ελλάδα,Kallithéa, Greece, Palaio Faliro
Concerts, fests, parties, meetups - all the happenings, one place.