"I will enter, like Jesus, this city Jericho." Self-mitisation in Beton.Hofi's album trilogy

Abstract

The lyrics of rap songs often combine the biographical experiences of the artist with themes such as poverty or wealth, individual success or group identity. Considered to be a fundamentally masculine genre, rap often has themes of sexual debauchery, conquest, musical success, and the talent of a rapper breaking out of poverty and becoming rich. In the case of the Hungarian rap scene, we can also see the construction of the performer's persona, the alterego. In my article I analyse Beton.Hofi's trilogy of mixtapes and show how the topos of rap and autobiographical elements are interconnected in the artist's works, how he creates the performer's persona. I will discuss how the sin motif of the albums comic sins (2021), PLAYBáNIA (2022) and 0 (2024) is linked to capitalism, the biblical Adam, the Adam Schwarz who created under the name Beton.Hofi or Jesus. Beton.Hofi's lyrics are defined by a mixture of the sacred and the profane and by intertextual references: he touches on literary, historical, pop-cultural and religious themes, and also makes connections with his own works. The trilogy of albums offers the possibility of approaching the rapper's work not only through the notion of autobiography or autofiction, but also through the notion of biomythography.