The 0161 rap gap: the marginalisation of Black rap musicians in Manchester's live music scene

Abstract

Focusing on Manchester, the largest city in the north of England, this paper explores why and how Black rap practitioners have been excluded from performing and promoting rap music in its city centre during the last 20 years. Discussing the intersecting factors of policing of venues and racial bias and class stigma among Manchester's venue owners and promoters, while also scrutinising the city's neoliberal urban expansion and gentrification, the paper analyses the ways in which Black rappers and practitioners have been marginalised but also how they have attempted to resist and overcome these conditions. Drawing on cultural studies, critical race theory and urban geography, while employing qualitative research methods of in-depth interviews, this paper builds on existing research on the marginalisation of Black rap musicians and promoters. It builds on and moves beyond the scholarly emphasis on the policing of rap genres in London to argue that discrimination faced by Black rap practitioners extends far outside the capital and is part of a wider problem of racial capitalism of which policing is but one agent.