Youth culture has a woman's tone: Hip hop in Medellín (Colombia)

This article is part of the research project, "Youth musical mediations," that explores the appropriation of alternative means of communication which allow the young to develop identities sharply differentiated from those the adult world. In particular, the article examines the world of hip hop in Medellín and the ways that youth participate in it. To follow key trajectories of women in hip hop, their voices, feelings, and memories must be uncovered. This will allow us to see how the few women who are currently part of hip hop scene in Medellín and Colombia enter, move through, and persevere in it. Since women constitute only a small percentage of the youth who live and remake hip hop in Medellín, it is important to understand how they manage to live in a male-colored world. If hip hop is about strength, denunciation, confrontation, and resistance, it seems that these qualities are more appropriate for men than for women.