The article deals with the topic of contestation in hip-hop songs. The author goes through historical sources that have created hip-hop and notices that this subculture has been built upon cultural tradition of contestation. This fact allows to include hip-hop in a wider aspect. The analysis of selected examples shows how the subculture in question creates the image and the concept of power. The author observes that the hip-hop subject defines social reality as a cause of imprisonment. The study of rappers’ textual self-creations allows to deduce that they claim to know the only path to freedom. As a result, hip-hop culture is constructed around the dichotomy, exemplified in a division into “us” and “them”. The author detects that hip-hop songs use propaganda language and war stylizations, thus they foreshadow and fight for a total reformation of power scheme
