Voices from the periphery? The polyphony of Hip Hop and the Portuguese community

The present work fits into a wider investigation that I have been carrying on for my project on the peculiarities of Portuguese hip hop. Through our reflections today we would like to identify some of the effects of the globalizing forces that have perturbed hip-hop culture and discuss if and how these have influenced its original purposes and messages, or the nature itself of the movement. We would also like to offer our perspective on the consequences of the entrance of hip-hop music in the international marketplace since this passage represents an important moment of its history and development and one of the strongest factors of change within this culture. We will take our examples from the Lusophone, and more specifically the Portuguese, hip hop movement, having a look at what it was in the past—or at its beginning—and at what it is today, in order to understand if we can still consider it a manifestation of peripheral voices.