This 32-minute video is a recorded talk given in the UCC Department of Music (opening the academic year’s Speaker Series) on 22nd October 2020.
It serves as an introduction to the project for an academic audience in music studies. The talk covers three things. First, it reviews how music scholars have approached the Internet in the past. Next, it defines ‘the online rap mainstream’, describing what the social web looks like for rap music in the present day. Finally, it explains how Digital Flows plans to analyse digital-native hip-hop culture, with its groundbreaking methodology combining data-driven analysis with culturally-informed digital ethnography.