‘Spitting Lines – Spitting Brands’: A critical analysis of brand usage in Polish rap

Abstract

In the rush towards neoliberal reality, which followed the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, Polish hip-hop emerged as a mass phenomenon. Rappers contributed to building new social solidarities and identities based on a critique of Polish capitalism. The present study is an exploration of how rap’s language forms and flow might function in the production of cultural values that merge or engage with brand identities. Focusing on the convention of employing brand names in rap texts, this article offers a critical textual analysis of over 8000 Polish rap lyrics from almost 20 years. Using data from our study, complemented by expert interviews, we conducted a study on how brands are employed in hip-hop, what symbolic functions they fulfil and how this usage reveals global hip-hop’s intertextuality.

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