Class, Culture and Struggle: A Conversation with Esra Özmen (EsRAP), Ana Ryue and Petar Rosandić (Kid Pex)
The talk will explore Rap, Migration, and Class from my post-migrant perspective. Organized by the Studio Art and Intervention /Concept/ Post-conceptual Art Practices / Prof. Marina Gržinić and the PEEK project Conviviality as Potentiality (FWF-PEEK Project AR 679).
Esra Özmen began her role as a predoctoral researcher in the PEEK project Conviviality as Potentiality (FWF-PEEK Project AR 679) on November 1, 2024, and will continue until January 30, 2025. This talk is part of a series of three lectures focusing on the history and future of Austrian rap and hip-hop culture.
Esra Özmen, MA is a visual, conceptual artist and rapper. She holds an MA in arts from the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, where she focused on rap, hip-hop histories, migrant backgrounds, and empowerment. She is currently doing her PhD at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, where she is part of the research project Conviviality as Potentiality. Esra Özmen is best known as one half of the Austrian hip-hop duo EsRAP, which she formed with her sibling Enes Özmen. EsRAP originates from a Turkish guest worker family and grew up in Ottakring, Vienna's 16th district. In their music, EsRAP explores political themes such as identity, alienation, racism, the migrant diaspora experience, their connection to their homeland, and life in Vienna. The duo performed at the opening of the Vienna Festival in 2018 and 2019. They have released several songs and music videos online. In June 2019, their debut album Tschuschistan, which blends hip-hop with Turkish-oriental arabesque sounds, was released under the Berlin label Springstoff.
Ana Ryue works as a host, music journalist and PR manager in Vienna. She took her first steps on the radio and on poetry slam stages back in 2007 and later wrote for the Austrian hip hop magazine The Message. From 2021 to 2023, she worked as a co-host for the Viennese music magazine AUX on Canal+ and since 2021 she has been hosting the HEAST! HipHop Open Stage by WienXtra. She has also been working as a presenter for Kultursommer Wien since 2023. In 2024, she hosted the Jugend Innovativ Award Show.Ana Ryue is also active in the context of political education and journalism for a wide variety of projects, such as the splash! Festival, the FLINTA* Festival the Healer HipHop as well as in panel discussions and as a speaker on the topic of sexism in rap.
Petar Rosandić, aka "Kid Pex," is a self-proclaimed JugoslaWiener and Tschuschenrapper, activist and human rights defender through his award-winning initiative SOS Balkanroute. Born in Zagreb, Croatia, in 1984, he arrived in Vienna at the age of eight following the outbreak of war in the former Yugoslavia. Torn between "down there" and "up here," he discovered hip-hop as a teenager and found a new home in Vienna's rap scene, a space where he could express himself fully.