Stereo Mike: Rapping Greece’s Economic Woes in 9/8

Up until Greece’s National Finals for Eurovision 2011, when Stereo Mike got involved in the competition, he was considered perhaps the most ‘intellectual’ and respected of all hip-hoppers in Greece. His capacity as a music technology lecturer at the University of Westminster had earned him the applause of the Greek hip-hop community and a high profile that had not gone unnoticed by the music industry both in Greece and abroad.
His entry for Greece’s National Finals was a song that mixed rap with what is controversially perceived by some Greek audiences as ‘the most traditional’ Greek dance, the so-called ‘zeibekiko’. Others, however, have identified zeibekiko cultural roots with Anatolia, contemporary Turkey, Greece’s perennial ‘frenemy’. Despite such debates over the origins and dissemination of this dance form, its urbanised variant in present-day Greece has arguably become a dance symbol for brave and audacious people defying norms and conventions, or an ostentatious dance display of debauchery.

Consequently, Stereo Mike’s entry divided Greek audiences. Those particularly fond of it suggested it would be a rightful representation of Greece at the Dusseldorf Eurovision, for it would convey a powerful message of resistance and defiance to the enormous pressure by the EU, IMF and ECB for further austerity measures and budget cuts. Its detractors, however, considered it a shameful hybridisation that did not do any justice to either its rap or zeibekiko elements.

My paper scrutinises this polarisation, predicated upon aesthetic and moral criteria, and discusses wider issues of place-making and the complex ways in which Greek identities are being (re-)invented and/or (re-)affirmed through the internationally mass-mediated genre of hip-hop.

Ioannis Polychronakis is currently finishing his PhD at the University of Oxford, St Hugh’s College, under the supervision of Dr Martin Stokes and Prof. Emanuele Senici.

Düsseldorf, 12 points – An introduction to the Bundesvision Song Contest

Since 2005, artists from each German Bundesland (state) have competed in the so-called Bundesvision Song Contest. Stefan Raab, the German Eurovision entrant in 2000 and co-host of this year’s contest in Düsseldorf, conceived the Bundesvision format. Without a doubt, the connections to the ESC competition are clearly evident. Nevertheless, the Bundesvision Song Contest has achieved substantial marketing success and is driven by its own mission: to offer popular German language music publicity in commercial television and to increase sales of local music artists. The following presentation shows the similarities and differences between the Bundesvision Song Contest and its bigger European brother. We will also take a look into the voting procedures, including voting patterns and the predictability of results.

Daniel Koch is member of the OGAE Germany and studied communication management at design akademie berlin. He is working as a marketing manager for a European outsourcing company.

Analysing the Eurovision Song Contest as a Visual Brand: A Brazilian Perspective

How has the Eurovision Song Contest developed its visual branding throughout the years of broadcasting on TV, and how is it being perceived by the viewers and fans? How does Eurovision connects with Brazil? What kind of aspects should be taken into account when communicating the Eurovision brand to the European audience? These are the main questions that my research addresses in order to build a consistent visual and textual basis for my visual identity in vignettes project, which will be produced in the second half of 2011, as my final project for the Graphic Design graduation course in Fundação Armando Alvares Penteado, in São Paulo.

Starting with an overview of Eurovision since the very beginning I compare it to Brazilian music festivals, and also analyse the latest visual brand identities and a reflection of how they have been affecting the image of the Eurovision Song Contest.

Leonardo Vaz is 20 years old and I lives in São Paulo, Brazil. He is currently concluding a Graphic Design university course at Fundação Armando Alvares Penteado (FAAP), and working as a Graphic Design trainee at Casa Claudia, the high profile interior design magazine in Brazil. He also writes for ESC12points.com, which he sees as a way for developing an analytic view on all the things Eurovision.