Rapping the 'Better folk': Ideological and scalar negotiations of past and present

•Rap engages in and projects language ideological debates in multilingual societies.•Ideologies are (re)constructed on several scales, scopes of understandability.•'Fixed' ideological categorizations between language and social status are assumed.•These categorizations are also criticized and made fluid and contestable via irony.•Reconstruction and critique of ideological negotiations of belonging and Otherness.

Drawing on sociolinguistics of globalization, discourse studies and global hip hop studies, this article examines how the ideological sociocultural and -historical reality of Finland is (re)constructed and (re)negotiated in a local rap song and how the song takes issue with the official, but often tension-ridden Finnish-Swedish bilingualism. Its specific, ironic take arises from the fact that the rap artist is Finnish-speaking, but echoes a Swedish-speaking minority who are traditionally and stereotypically seen as a privileged, historical elite. The song exemplifies how rap can constitute a site for investigation of language ideological debates in bi/multilingual societies and how nationalistic-laden ideologies (one nation-one language-one state) are taken for granted, brought forth but also significantly problematized and questioned.