The confluence between Chilean rappers and multinational record labels during the decade of 1990: an operation with implications for the development of hip-hop in Chile

Abstract

The article studies the confluence between Chilean rappers and multinational record labels (majors) in the 1990s. This period is distinguished by various changes in the deployment of hip-hop in Chile. The interference of the majors was important because it consolidated a support network also made up by other agents, among the results was that rap/hip-hop achieved a certain social, artistic, cultural and productivity ratification. On the other hand, this operation is commonly neglected at the academic level. It is inferred that the aforementioned encounter does not harmonize, in some way, with the usual counter-hegemonic representation of hip-hop, which has meant a bibliographic gap. Ultimately, this article attempts to show that the link with the cultural industry/market does not necessarily translate into the loss of the social function of music and that, furthermore, there would be alternative ways of exercising cultural resistance that are not limited to making an irremediable social criticism in song lyrics, or the taking of an explicit political position by popular musicians.