Veronique Helenon

 

Veronique Helenon,
University of Massachusetts

Professor Veronique Helenon is a faculty member of the Africana Studies Department at UMass-Boston. in African Diaspora History with a special emphasis on the French speaking African Diaspora. Her research also looks at the Caribbean as well as colonialism and French Hip-Hop. She graduated from the EHESS (School of Higher Education in Social Sciences) in Paris, France with a Ph.D. in History. She was the recipient of a Fulbright scholarship in Africana Studies at NYU.

Talk Title: Frenchness between Hip Hop and Islam

Since the 1980s Hip Hop has played a key role in increasing the visibility of people of African descent in France. Popularizing new aesthetics codes, rappers have played a major role in shaping what it means to be French today. As it became obvious that major record companies could no longer ignore this new genre, music managers actively tried to come up with their very own version of the proper rapper and tried to promote those that seemed to fit their mold. Yet, despite these initiatives, French Hip Hop have actively contributed to bring awareness to the fact that to be French can also mean to be Black and Muslim. Indeed many rappers, not only use their platform to make sure that Muslims are considered as full French citizens, but they also weave multiple connections between French Caribbeans, Sub-Saharan Africans, and North Africans, thus redefining Blackness in the French context.

WEB LINK: http://www.umb.edu/academics/cla/faculty/veronique_helenon