“Benvenuti all’inferno”: aggressione neo-nazista e cultura hip-hop turco-tedesca negli anni Novanta

Abstract

The article explores the trauma of the racist attacks of Hoyerswerda, Rostock-Lichtenhagen, Mölln and Solingen in the early 1990s and their impact on the Turkish community in Germany using the example of rap lyrics composed during those years. Hip-hop culture in Germany is primarily appropriated by male immigrant youths, especially with Turkish roots. During the first years of German rap (early 1990s), it is thus natural that the themes of the rappers were dominated by issues of social integration, multicultural coexistence and, after traumatic events of the racist attacks, of xenophobia and racism. After a short introduction to Turkish-German hip-hop culture (general features, social and cultural implications, Kanaksta Rap and the Kanak Attak community), the article provides some lyrics (in German and Turkish) and an analysis of the reception of the attacks in German hip-hop culture, especially in the production of the rap formation Cartel, a merging of several hip-hop groups with mainly Turkish elements.