Ebonics & Hip Hop Culture

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Contents
1. Introduction

2. Methods

3. Results
3.1.1. Tupac Shakur
3.1.2. “Changes”
3.1.3. “White Man’s World”
3.1.4. “Ghetto Gospel”
3.1.5. Keep Ya Head Up”
3.1.6. „Until the End of Time“
3.2.1. Eminem
3.2.2. “Public Enemy #1”
3.2.3. “Like Toy Soldiers”
3.2.4. “We as Americans”
3.2.5. “White America”
3.2.6. “My Name Is”

4. Discussion

5. Resources:

6. Appendices

Sociolinguistics of Hip Hop music is a relatively new field in sociolinguistics and deals with both social and linguistic aspects of AAVE. Many studies were conducted to analyse Hip Hop lyrics, with both Tupac and Eminem as the target artists; Tupac being the explicitly angry rebel against racial segregation and Eminem being the sarcastic and incredibly eloquent young man who had managed to enter the Hip Hop safe zone of African-Americans and strike them dumb. However, a detailed comparison study of AAVE features and variations between the two was not yet conducted, or at least published. This small-scale research study aims to analyse five of the most popular songs by each artist, to quantify, compare and contrast AAVE features in some of the most popular lyrics globally and to provide an option for the social background of each song, analysing their purpose, message and language. This paper will answer two of the most obvious questions in Hip Hop sociolinguistics, i.e. whether there is any difference in use of AAVE features between a black rapper and a white rapper, where both are considered masters of their profession. Another question is whether any of them is linguistically “better” than the other, i.e. leaning towards SE. A common string of features was analysed and quantified for the purpose of comparison and the results were somewhat surprising. However, the songs which were selected have a serious background to them, possibly affecting both artists’ use of language.

The following thesis conducts a bulletin board, on the far-reaching interdisciplinarity of literature and its discernible impact on music; particularly hip- hop as a leading genre, using data from an assortment of polemical artists; including high-profile rappers that—suitably contributed to the expansion of this cross- pedigreed relationship. This output also uses books of the literary-musical-related sphere such as; The Anthology of Rap, Book of Rhymes: The Poetics of Hip Hop and Encyclopedia of Hip Hop literature. The background’s focal point is to evince the primary leitmotif of the relationship between the two disciplines, and for the fact that both of them share several characteristics vis-à-vis poetic narrativity. Subsequently, the spotlight will be shed on the genesis of hip-hop and its initially derivational phase, arisen from literature. The premise, however, does not broadly or solely focus on the intersection of literature and music, or name-dropping of artists, but it also attempts to dissect, scrutinize and break down, per capita, literary elements used in some noteworthy works, all from a lyrical-wise standpoint including; literary and poetic devices.

Yeshivish (or Frimlish as some call it, based on Polish Yiddish for frum, devout), is somewhat analogous to Ebonics but also quite different in many important ways. Yeshivish is a sociolect of English spoken by Yeshiva students and other Jews with a strong connection to the Orthodox Yeshiva world.

This is a fiction set in Harlem, New York's Sugar hill section of Washington Heights.  The story is set in the late 70's and tells of how Black teens played, dated and showed their bravery through "the dare game".  The name "tar beach" is a nickname for the roofs of tenements.  It is on tar beach were the all too dangerous dare game is payed.  This is a great story for analysis of the effects of cultural games on the thinking of youth.  This story depicts what was the bold invulnerable state of mind of many inner city youths of that era,

In the Spring 2015 semester, the German Studies department will be offering a new course, GER 380: Yiddish for German Speakers. Alongside learning the semantics of Yiddish, which is a German-cognate language, one focus will be on the role politics plays in legitimizing dialects and defining languages. From the course description: “Students with three semesters of German (GER 201 equivalency) will attempt to answer why Swiss German is a dialect, but Dutch and Yiddish are languages. Why was Yiddish called ‘corrupted German’ and ‘jargon’ before WWI, but is now today its own language? What is the border between dialect and another language?” Terms to be discussed are pidgin, creole, dialect, sociolect, ethnolect, and diglossia. One point of comparison that I hope to discuss is the language politics around Ebonics in the 1990s. These debates intersect with those on Yiddish, which only became a recognized, separate language from German after significant political debates and the forming of an official language conference in 1908. Dr. Mary Zeigler, professor of English at Georgia State University, will engage in a discussion with Dr. Block on Ebonics/African American English and language politics.