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Hip-hop in Brussels: has breakdance left the ghetto?

Notes de la rédaction

This is the press release related to the article from Benoît Quittelier, published on May 18, 2015

Hip-hop is a cultural and artistic movement which includes forms of expression such as graffiti, rap, DJ performances and of course breakdance. Since its emergence at the beginning of the 1970s in the Bronx ghetto in New York, hip-hop culture has undergone spectacular development. The commercial success and media coverage of rap are probably the most striking illustration of the new dimension of hip-hop culture. Today, in the United States and to a lesser extent in France, certain rappers are true stars, extending their sphere of activity outside music and generating large sums of money. The best examples of this success are the rappers Shawn Carter (alias Jay-Z), Will Smith (alias The Fresh Prince) and Joey Starr, the former “bad boy” of French rap from the group NTM.

Hip-hop culture is still often associated with disadvantaged populations and the neighbourhoods they live in: the city centre occupied by populations of African Americans in the United States, and the suburbs in France. The most striking example of this association is the 1995 film La Haine by Mathieu Kassovitz. But after forty years of widespread existence, is the association between hip-hop culture and disadvantaged neighbourhoods – sometimes sustained by the image portrayed in video clips – still a reality? Beyond rap, are the other practices such as dance and graffiti part of the same urban space? Have these practices gained a certain institutional legitimacy, as the graffiti exhibit at Musée d’Ixelles in the summer of 2011 might lead one to believe?

The study of the spatiality of breakdance battles and training, which is the subject of the 86th issue of Brussels Studies, allows an understanding of the contemporary integration of hip-hop in Brussels. Benoît Quittelier – a hip-hop dancer since the beginning of the 2000s – began an academic career at the same time at Université libre de Bruxelles, with a doctorate in geography. His analysis therefore benefits from an in-depth knowledge of the field.

The dancer/geographer shows that due to the maturity and evolution of the social basis of the dancers, breakdance has left the ghetto, literally and figuratively. It takes place currently outside the most disadvantaged areas of Brussels. However, breakdance continues to have great difficulty entering the traditional cultural circuits. The cultural network in Brussels (theatres, cultural centres, etc.) is not very open to the practices associated with breakdance. Almost always, the events which benefit from considerable financial means and substantial advertising support are usually hosted by the same venues. Rather than support via programme planning and production integrating hip-hop dance, there is a logic of event hosting, which is on the whole limited and short-lived.

The daily activities associated with breakdance (learning, training, rehearsals) are also in a delicate situation, as their organisation depends almost entirely on the initiative of the dancers themselves, who must often develop strategies to set up informal places where breakdance activities may be carried out (malls, esplanades, etc.). However, this type of appropriation of the public or semi-public space does not take place smoothly. The ignorance with respect to hip-hop culture and its relatively bad image, combined with the dancers' status as vulnerable users in “diverted” places, generate risks of eviction. Places located in less appealing areas which are deserted at certain hours – typically old railway stations or underground stations – are used more and more by breakdancers. Faced with these difficulties, only a small network of sociocultural structures such as certain youth centres provide support to artists with times for them to carry out their activities somewhere other than at home or in the public space.

Hip-hop has left the ghetto, in geographical and social terms. Will the same hold true regarding institutional support for this aspect of what is referred to nowadays as urban art?

References
Quittelier, Benoît, “Title”, Brussels Studies [Online], General collection, No 86, 18 May 2015. URL: https://journals.openedition.org/brussels/1273
Contact
Benjamin Wayens, Senior Editor: bwayens[at]brusselsstudies.be

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