Masters of local and global ceremonies : Sámi Hip-Hop as narrated by Amoc and Ailu Valle

Hip-Hop in the global context has worked as a music genre that strives to bring to the centre of discussion inequalities lived by its actors through a visibility of the margins. In this regard, Hip-Hop developed by Indigenous artists highlights the re-negotiation of their ethnic identity within their own societies and in the global scenario. Sámi Hip-Hop in the Nordic region follows this logic as it takes inspiration from both global trends and local issues in the Sámi current world. In that context, this thesis aims to analyse the constitution of Sámi Hip-Hop as a music genre from the viewpoint of the artists engaged within it. The study draws from the question “What are the motivations for Sámi artists to engage with Hip-Hop and create a music genre in its own terms?”. This work proposes that global creativity and cultural sovereignty come together as the basis for Sámi artists to engage with this music genre. Global creativity refers to the influences of cultural trends (mainly the global Hip-Hop music) towards the development of creativity among Sámi artists, whereas cultural sovereignty here operates as the music created by Sámi Hip-Hop artists that praises for a multi-faceted perspective on what “Indigenous music” is, where the individual creativity of artists plays an instrumental role. The analysis of the phenomenon is based on the career of Amoc and Ailu Valle, two of the major contributors on the development of Sámi Hip-Hop as a genre. The sources for the inquiry are two documentaries, two qualitative interviews conducted with the artists in question through a conversational method and online journalistic material. The theoretical framework follows a Decolonial approach to the narratives of the margins in the European context, and completed with a “global viewpoint” from the development of Hip-Hop in different Indigenous latitudes worldwide. In so doing, Indigenous Hip-Hop genre is proposed here as an innovative contribution to contemporary global music. Concepts that are used for this Decolonial analysis are ‘Indigenous epistemes’, ‘Indigeneity’ and ‘Cultural Sovereignty’. As a conclusion, I state that Sámi Hip-Hop is a genre that is constituted by the local creativity of those individuals that nurture the genre, operating as a transcultural phenomenon where ‘Indigeneity’ and the positionality of Indigenous youth in music production are re-negotiated