Cancel culture in pop music: What can we learn from the Brazilian rapper Karol Conká’s case?
Abstract
What does cancelation tell us about music culture and relationships between musical artists and their audiences? In this article, we examine the cancelation episode of the rapper Karol Conká on the TV reality show Big Brother Brasil 21. Taking it as an exemplary case of the canceling of celebrities, the phenomenon is firstly situated as a typical dynamic of current culture wars that is guided by political debates and divergences staged in digital life, and its trajectory is discussed in historic terms, followed by a methodological proposal for analyzing the case, based on the perspective of performance studies.
Fields of Study & Subjects
Music History and Culture
Gender
Feminism
and Media
Cultural
Social
and Media Studies
Publication details
- Journal / source
- Social Semiotics
- Volume
- 36
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 303–318
- Publication date
- 16 February 2026
- Language
- EN