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Article published In: Language, Culture and Society
Vol. 7:2 (2025) ► pp.224–245

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Lyrical code-switching in Malayalam Hip Hop songs

Negotiating the local and the global

ORCiD logo with link | The English and Foreign Languages UniversityHyderabad
ORCiD logo with link | Koneru Lakshmaiah Education Foundation, Bowrampet
Published online: 20 February 2026
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/lcs.24049.kj
Abstract
The Malayalam Hip Hop genre of music has experienced an extraordinary surge in popularity in the past decade; a shift in the musical culture in India, particularly Kerala. Malayalam Hip Hop brings forth a heteroglossia in terms of the use of language(s), dialects and the identities indexed. As common in bilingual and multilingual Hip Hop contexts, extensive code-switching techniques are employed in Malayalam rap. In addition to Malayalam-English code-switching, the songs use and intersperse Malayalam dialects, including marginalized ones. The paper analyses select popular Malayalam Hip Hop songs, exploring the extent of language choice, code-switching and its linguistic, discursive, poetic, and sociopolitical functions. The use of English signals participation in a global genre, and the dialects localize the genre, negotiate identities, and reclaim certain values, artistic styles, and memory. While the multidialectal counter-public localizes the genre linguistically, rap in standard Malayalam addresses contextually relevant socio-political themes and this is an alternate strategy of localization.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Situating code-switching
  • 3.Malayalam Hip Hop Music
  • 4.Methodology
  • 5.Analysing code-switching in Malayalam Hip Hop
    • 5.1Analytical approach and argument
    • 5.2Code-switching and Bilingualism among Malayalam Speakers
    • 5.3Malayalam-English and multidialectal code-switching
    • 5.4Dialects and the standard in Malayalam Hip Hop
  • 6.Conclusion
  • References
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