“We Are the New Italy”: The Role of Musical Cultures and Practices in the Processes of Building a Sense of Belonging Among the Immigrant Generations
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.61007/QdC.2026.2.432Keywords:
italy, immigration, music, culture, multiethnicAbstract
This column examines the role of musical practices by immigrant generations in Italy in redefining collective and individual belonging from the 1960s to the present. A diachronic framework reveals how music shifted from a conservative function in first generations to a hybrid device for identity negotiation in second and third generations, boosted by digital technologies and underground genres like hip hop, rap, and trap. In the Italian case, these genres, rooted in multiethnic urban peripheries, blend ancestral cultural heritages with local elements, contributing to the transformation of the contemporary national imaginary.
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