(Re)claiming the Public Sphere: Greek Cypriot Dialect Hip-Hop and the Right to Say It in One’s Own Language

ABSTRACT This article discusses hip-hop with lyrics in the Greek Cypriot Dialect as an underground voice of implicit dissent that becomes gradually noticeable in the Republic of Cyprus. By providing an overview of the complex linguistic situation of the country, it argues that the insistence of the hip-hop artists to “say it” in the linguistic idiom of their everyday communication can be seen as a (re)claiming of the public sphere. Habermas’ public sphere, and communication theories, along with ideas from language ideologies, provide the conceptual lenses by which hip-hop in the Greek Cypriot Dialect is looked at here.