Music History and Culture

Music history and culture examines how musical practices, genres, and industries both reflect and actively shape social life — from the way rap became a vehicle for identity and political expression among marginalized youth to how subcultural scenes negotiate what counts as authentic art versus commercial compromise. Scholars draw on sociology, ethnomusicology, and cultural theory to trace how people use music to form collective identities, mark generational boundaries, and contest or reinforce structures of race, class, and gender. Globalization and digital technology have made these questions newly urgent, as streaming platforms and social media simultaneously democratize music production and concentrate economic power in unfamiliar ways. Researchers are actively working to understand how local musical traditions survive or transform under global commercial pressures, and what it means for a culture to "own" a genre when that genre circulates everywhere at once.

Works

139,613

Total citations

490,980

Keywords

MusicCultureYouthIdentitySubculturesAuthenticity