Style in Revolt Music, Social Protest, and the Hawaiian Cultural Renaissance

There have been, in social science, few studies of the impact of popular music as political expression. This paper is an analysis of the role of popular music in an ongoing social protest movement that is an important and focal concern of the people of Hawaii, known as the "Hawaiian Renaissance." In the analysis, which treats music as symbolic communication, use is made of Raymond Williams's classification of ideologies as dominant, residual, emergent, oppositional, or alternative. Using historical data, participant observation, interviews, and content analysis of the music, the author considers not only song lyrics, but also (and perhaps more importantly) styles of performance, melodies, types of instruments, and performer presence and dress, to see how, together, they make up a "style in revolt" against the dominant, mainland-derived ideology and culture of the islands.