The Politics of Dalit Identity in Vipin Tatad’s Rap Music Video as Cultural Resistance
Livea Thekkekara Paul, PhD Research Scholar at Christ University, Bengaluru
Abstract:
The purpose of the research paper is to investigate the politics in Dalit Identity and the Cultural Resistance aspects through the form of Rap Music Video in Vipin Tatad’s Rap titled as Samasya Mere Desh Ki. This research will assist in understanding the research questions viz. how is the dalit identity represented through a rapper and how culture is exercised as resistance visually through rap music video. These will be carried out by analyzing Vipin Tatad’s Rap through Ghanshyam Shah’s understanding of Dalit Identity, Stephen Duncombe’s exposition on Cultural Resistance, Meena Dhanda’s ideas on the philosophical foundations of Anti-casteism, Balmurali Natarajan’s thoughts on culturalization of caste and music video theories of Andrew Goodwin, Sven E. Carlson, Rick Altman and Dick Hebdige. Discourse, Lyrical and Visual Analysis Methods will be employed. The Methodologies to understand the research will be Dalit Studies, Rap Music Studies and Music Video Studies. There is a lack of research on Dalit Rap Music Videos as it was observed that more studies were done on Black culture, Gangster culture, Psycho Therapy, Crime Culture and Jewish Culture through rap music. Therefore, it is essential to know more and conduct studies on Dalit rappers to understand the dalit community through the medium of rap music.
Keywords: Rap Music, Dalit Identity, Cultural Resistance, Vipin Tatad, Music Video