Gender references in rap lyrics
Pauliina Karru University of Tampere School of Modern Languages and Translation Studies English Philology Pro Gradu –thesis May 2006
Tampereen yliopisto Englantilainen filologia
Kieli- ja käännöstieteiden laitos
KARRU, PAULIINA: Gender references in rap lyrics Pro gradu –tutkielma, 65 sivua + 1 liite
Kevät 2006
Rap-lyriikat on aihealue jota on tutkittu hyvin vähän. Se on kuitenkin hyvä peili nykypäivän mustien amerikkalaisten, etenkin nuorten, maailmaan, kulttuuriin, kieleen ja arvoihin. Vastaavasti blues-lyriikat kuvastavat omaa aikakauttaan.
Taustamateriaalina tässä tutkimuksessa toimii lukuisia tutkimuksia naisten ja miesten kielenkäytöstä yleensä sekä myös spesifisemmin mustien amerikkalaisten kielenkäytöstä. Lisäksi esitellään joitakin tutkimuksia jotka ovat paneutuneet rapin ja bluesin maailmaan sekä tutkimuksia jotka käsittelevät naisiin ja miehiin viittaavia sanoja.
Tähän tutkimukseen on valittu viisi mies- ja viisi naisrap-artistia sekä viisi mies- ja kuusi naisblues-artistia. Jokaiselta artistilta valittiin kymmenen suosittua ja siten vaikutusvaltaista laulua. Kahdelta naisblues-artistilta löytyi vähemmän kuin kymmenen sanoitusta ja siksi heidät yhdistettiin ikään kuin yhdeksi. Näistä lyriikoista muodostettiin korpukset joista etsittiin sanoja joilla viitattiin naisiin ja miehiin.
Tulokset esitellään niin sanallisesti kuin taulukoissakin, lukuisten esimerkkien kera, ja niitä verrataan tutkimuksen alussa esitettyihin aikaisempiin tutkimuksiin ja niistä pohjautuviin teorioihin. Tutkimuskysymykset olivat: Kuinka ja millaisia sukupuoliviittauksia käytetään? Kuinka ne ovat muuttuneet blueslyriikoissa käytettävistä? Kuinka eri tavalla naiset ja miehet niitä käyttävät?
Tuloksista käy ilmi, että rap-lyriikoiden sukupuoliviittaukset ovat oletettua positiivisempia. Selvää on kuitenkin, että sanoituksissa vallitsee tietynasteinen patriarkaalinen asenne. Blues- ja rap-lyriikoiden välillä on havaittavissa eroja.
Molemmissa esiintyy sanoja joita ei toisessa ryhmässä esiinny. Lisäksi blues- lyriikoiden sukupuoliviittaukset ovat positiivisempia ja konservatiivisempia kuin rap-lyriikoiden. Naisten ja miesten kesken löytyi joitakin eroja, mutta yleisesti ottaen samat sanat olivat käytössä molemmilla. Ilmeni myös, että mustien naisten käyttämä kieli poikkeaa tässäkin suhteessa stereotyyppisestä naisten kielestä.
Avainsanat: gender references, rap lyrics, blues lyrics, African-American Vernacular English, stylistic change
Table of Contents
1 Introduction__________________________________________________ 1 1.1 Background __________________________________________________ 2 1.2 Males and females _____________________________________________ 4 1.3 Female singers ________________________________________________ 5 2 Linguistic background _________________________________________ 6
2.1 Language and gender __________________________________________ 6 2.1.1 Generalizations ____________________________________________________ 7 2.1.2 African-American speech ___________________________________________ 10 2.2 Word as a concept ____________________________________________ 13 3 Basic concepts and terminology _________________________________ 17
3.1 Rap Music___________________________________________________ 17 3.2 The Blues ___________________________________________________ 20 3.3 Previous studies ______________________________________________ 21 4 Methods Employed ___________________________________________ 25 5 Materials studied _____________________________________________ 27 6 Findings____________________________________________________ 29 6.1 General observations __________________________________________ 29 6.2 Details ______________________________________________________ 38 6.2.1 Nigga and bitch___________________________________________________ 38 6.2.2 Other rap specific words ____________________________________________ 41 6.2.3 Words from the family______________________________________________ 46 6.2.4 Gender reference usage in relation to goals of language usage _______________ 49 6.2.5 Are women more conservative?_______________________________________ 51 6.2.6 Edibles, animals, etc. _______________________________________________ 52 6.2.7 Names __________________________________________________________ 56
7 Conclusions _________________________________________________ 58 8 Bibliography ________________________________________________ 62
Appendix 1.
1 Introduction
The topic of my pro gradu thesis is gender references in rap lyrics. My aim is to study how male and female artists refer to the two different genders in their lyrics.
To do this, a list of the most common words and phrases used to refer to males and females in the songs is collected and the positive or negative values of the words are determined and what kind of connotation they are meant to evoke is considered. This is done by consulting dictionaries and by looking closely at the context in which the word is found. The main focus will be on modern day rap lyrics, but I will also try to see how the language has changed by doing a historical analysis by comparing the words found from rap lyrics to those used in blues lyrics. Blues is considered to derive from the songs African slaves used to sing and rap is seen as a modern version, a derivative and a continuator of the narrative nature of blues, and thus it will be well suited in this study to give an indication of stylistic development in this subject in the African-American speech community. I will also study the differences between male and female artist of both rap and blues and see whether there is a difference in the words used and in their meanings.
Rap music is one of the fastest growing areas in music today and one that has a great deal of influence among its fans (Ryan & Calhoun III 1996, 121), which include young people from many different ethnicities besides African- American. It is also an area that has received very little interest in the scholarly field and has thus been studied very little. In addition, most of the studies that have been made are from the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. Therefore this study is interesting and hopefully useful. The questions this study is trying to answer are:
How and what kind of gender references are used?
How have they changed from those found in blues lyrics?
What kinds of differences exist between male and female usage of the gender references?
The study contains only American blues and rap artists as the focus is on African American English speakers. The blues artists are chosen from the early 20th century and the rap artists are those most popular and most influential in 1995- 2005. The popularity is determined by record sales, placement on different singles charts and possible awards and award nominations. All artists chosen will be African American. This is again to bring coherence and comparability to the group.
1.1 Background
Rap music is predominantly black music, but it has fans and listeners in all ethnic groups, black and white being the most common (Ryan & Calhoun III 1996, 126).
As already said, it is also a style of music which has been studied very little. The limited amount of studies that have been conducted have focused on the themes, styles and use of rap music (Ryan & Calhoun III 1996, 124). The lack of previous studies adds some challenges to doing this one, but it also makes it very interesting.
Blues and rap are both forms of music where the performer dominates the song and the lyrics are often his or her personal experiences and feelings (Bowers 1993, 29). Even when this is not the case, the lyrics tend to reflect typical experiences and thoughts common to the performer’s community and audience (Bowers 1993, 29). As Stephens says “rap music evidences the discursive practices of an imagined community in which the outgroup can no longer be defined along color lines” (1991, 86 quoted in Ryan & Calhoun III 1996, 126). It has also been noted that “even when rap goes international, it remains proudly local; we find in French rap, for example, the same targeting of specific neighbourhoods and concentration on local problems” (Shusterman 1991, 619).
Therefore it can be assumed that the gender references found in rap lyrics, and also in blues, reflect the attitude towards the two genders in the groups that they influence, mainly African-American youth of the 21st century and the African- American working class of the early 20th century, respectfully. Of course, both rap and blues have branched out and both include a section that is more performance
and entertainment oriented in style, where the reflective quality of the words used is more uncertain (Bowers 1993, 29).
Davis (1990, quoted and referenced in Rose 1994, 153) writes:
“Music has long permeated the daily life of most African- Americans; it has played a central role in the normal socialization process; and during moments characterized by intense movements for social change, it has helped to shape the necessary political consciousness. Any attempt, therefore, to understand in depth the evolution of women’s consciousness within the Black community requires a serious examination of the music which has influenced them – particularly that which they themselves have created.”
This argument by Davis links African-American music with everything from African-American politics to black women’s identities. Therefore studying African-American music is an excellent source when trying to learn about the
“collective consciousness of black Americans” (Davis, 1990).
Rap music is known to have a great influence on young African Americans and as said above it can be seen to be representative of their speech, I believe that the results of my study could also be applied to the African American youth speak in general and thus further the understanding of African American Vernacular English of today. It should be noted, however, that one of the key aspects of rap is showing one’s power through verbal prowess (Ryan & Calhoun III 1996, 125) and thus the complexity of the lyrical speech and the perhaps large vocabulary cannot be seen as the stereotypical speech of the audience members. However, this study, as stated, will focus on word choices and these can easily be reflected and replicated from the artist to the youth and vice versa. Also, although rap can and often is spontaneous, the rap songs included in this study are thought out and memorized and it is also true that rhythm and rhyme are important and can influence word choices. However, this does not lessen their popularity and the potential influence they have. In addition, since rap is directed to African Americans it is likely to use words that are meaningful and common to the listening community as well.
My assumption is that the gender references used in blues differ from those used in today’s rap songs and that at least part of those that are common to both groups have changed their meaning. Krims (2001, 47) says that even just within
“the rap and hip hop worlds” “ideas of style are constantly changing… and not only because of ‘stylistic innovation’, but also because of reconfigurations of internal relationships between and within styles”.
1.2 Males and females
Rap and blues music are fields that are greatly dominated by male artists. Because of this the music genres in general will, naturally, mostly reflect the male usage of the words and phrases. In this study, however, the ratio of men and women artists and their lyrics is equal. The hypothesis derived from the common expectations given by the media and supported by some studies (for example Teachout, 1990) says that in rap songs women mostly appear as a source of sexual gratification for males (Ryan & Calhoun III 1996, 125). There are however a group of female rappers whose work “carries an expressly feminist message” (Ryan & Calhoun III 1996, 125). Therefore it will be useful and interesting to separate the two genders and see how differently males and females refer to and address the genders. I will also expect to see a difference in the word choices themselves. Music from a certain group, ethnic or other, “transcodes the social dynamics” (Krims, 2001, 46) of that group and therefore rap music and blues in a way reflect “the gender relations (and gender domination)” within the African-American population of their time (Krims, 2001, 46).
According to Brown (1998, 83) people are involved in different social networks in which they interact with other people and these networks give the people belonging to them social motivations that determine their actions which in turn create the need for communicative strategies by which people try to achieve their goals. These strategies lead to making certain linguistic choices with which the communicative strategies are implemented. The linguistic choices, such as the tone of voice or the words used, are not thought to be random, but expressive of the features of the style of speech (such as “feminine style”). The masculine and feminine speech is further discussed in chapter 2.1 Language and gender in general. The language styles can then be related back to the sex roles and social relationships in the community. This is because when individuals use language, whether to express or create something or to challenge or conform existing social
meaning, they “draw on established sociolinguistic norms in doing so” (Holmes 1997, 196).
A successful rap artist possesses the skills of “verbal mastery, mastery of delivery, creativity, personal style, and virtuosity” (Rose 1994, 163) and during a performance the artist must win the audience’s attention and admiration and acquire an identity that exudes confidence and power (Rose 1994, 163). This is true for both genders and thus female rap artists have to break the conventional moulds of female performance and cultural identities in order to succeed. Hence their lyrics may differ from the stereotypical feminine language use and from the way females are expected to speak. However, they can be thought of as representatives of black females, who look up to female rap artists, because they are bringing their voices and their experiences in to the public sphere. It is also worth noting that black women’s speech in general differs somewhat from the standard women’s speech, which is mainly based on white women, as can be seen in chapter 2.1.
1.3 Female singers
As a further incentive to comparing the words used by male and female artists, Bowers (1993) has observed that “the emergence of women singers in ‘classic’
blues introduced a shift in the viewpoints and gender images represented in blues”
and with the help of the female singers public image “reclaimed female sexuality from being an objectification of male desire to a representation of female desire”
(p. 29). The women singing blues introduced the audiences to “a new, different model of black women – one that was assertive, sexy, sexually aware, independent, realistic, complex, and alive” (Bowers 1993, 29). Considering just the lyrics, it would seem that the female rap artists would also promote this type of image.
Another study has found that lyrical themes in rap songs differ by gender.
The lyrics of male artists tend to be about “individualistic boastfulness”, whereas females focus on emotions and often sing about relationships between males and females and, further, about the treatment females receive from males (Ryan &
Calhoun III 1996, 144).
2 Linguistic background
This chapter will look into the general area of language and gender as well as specifically African American speech. It will also outline the central element of this study, the word as a concept.
2.1 Language and gender
The general study of language and gender gives further incentive to studying gender references in rap music. For example Johnstone (1993, 68) says that
“Evidence of a variety of kinds suggests that men and women do not – or do not always – use and interpret language in the same way.” Furthermore, Ochs (1992, 336) says that “gender hierarchies display themselves in all domains of social behaviour, not the least of which is talk.” She continues: “Gender ideologies are socialized, sustained, and transformed through… verbal practices that recur innumerable times in the lives of members of social groups” (1992, 336). As we can see, language is used to symbolize the different social identities a person has.
Through speech we humans “assert or cede control, we indicate the different social groups with which we identify, the social roles we embrace, and the sometimes conflicting values we espouse” (Holmes 1997, 195). Milroy (1987, 14) defines a community as a cohesive group “to which people have a clear consciousness of belonging”. This is undoubtedly true among the African- Americans as a group and as a speech community.
McConnell-Ginet (2003) uses the term communities of practice to define a group of people that share some mutual endeavour and to which they all are also accountable. These groups have shared resources, including linguistic resources. She says that “social identities, including gendered identities, arise primarily from articulating memberships in different communities of practice”
(McConnell-Ginet 2003, 71). The gender categories, male and female, are shared globally by all communities, but “much of the real substance of gendered experience arises as people participate in the endeavours of the local communities of practice to which they belong and as they move between such communities”
(McConnell-Ginet 2003, 71). So, how for example females are perceived and referred to in speech and how females view themselves can be different from one community to another. McConnell-Ginet (2003, 72) further explains the concept of communities of practice, which is similar to what this study refers to as a speech community. The following quotation (McConnell-Ginet 2003, 72) also shows how and why studying rap lyrics is important and worthwhile:
Communities of practice are not free-floating but are linked to one another and to various institutions. They draw on resources with a more general history – languages as well as various kinds of technologies and artefacts. Their members align themselves not only to one another but with others whom they imagine have shared values and interests. it is not only those we directly encounter who have significant impact on our sense of possibilities for social practice and identity.
2.1.1 Generalizations
According to Stenström (2003) gender influences, in general communication, the choice of topics, the mode of interaction and the vocabulary, and all these are also connected to one another. Stenström has studied teenage talk and found that girls use language to maintain relationships and to create a feeling of closeness and equality. They also use it to interpret correctly and accurately the speech of other speakers, especially other girls. Girls can be critical, but they try to do it in acceptable ways. Boys, on the other hand, use language to establish and reinforce their position and dominance. Boys also often speak for an audience and try to maintain its attention as long as possible. Speech for boys is a way to compete with each other. (Stenström 2003, 94). Stenström (2003, 94-95) summarizes the differences by saying that “girls’ talk is said to be non-hierarchical, co-operative and non-competitive, and to reflect intimacy, loyalty and commitment, while boys’ talk is characterised by a hierarchical structure and power, briefly competitiveness and lack of cooperation.” This study will try to find out if these same characteristics can be seen in rap lyrics as well.
Pilkington (1998, 268) arrived at the same conclusion when she studied the speech of adults in same-sex interaction. However, she notes that while the behaviour and the style of interaction between males and females is very
different, the goal of the interaction is the same, to demonstrate that they belong to the group and to show solidarity towards the other members of the group.
One common generalization about male and female speech is that women’s speech is more conservative than men’s. The common explanation for this is that women are more polite and more concerned about their status and of other’s opinions of them, where as men are more practical and rough. Trudgill (1972, quoted in Eckert 1998, 67 and Brown, 1998, 81) has studied this aspect in detail and thinks a possible explanation could be that as women are in a subordinate role in the society and have fewer occupational opportunities to establish their position in society they instead use symbolic means to enhance their standing. Eckert (1998, 67) also notes that the more conservative speech of women could be due to the jobs women traditionally do, such as those of a secretary, receptionist, writer and teacher, all of which require clear and polite language to be used. It must be noted that Trudgill’s research was done some time ago and that society and women’s status in it has changed since then.
The studies of language history done by Romaine (2003) partly support Trudgill’s results and partly challenge them. She agrees that in the past women may have been using speech as a way of achieving the status otherwise denied from them and that “since women have long been denied equality with men as far as educational and employment opportunities are concerned, these are not reliable indicators of a woman’s status or the status she aspires to” (Romaine 2003, 104). She also points out another historical source for what is considered feminine speech and its connection with Standard English. During the Victorian era a woman wanting the status of a lady could not attain it independently, but only through marriage, so it was very important for her to act and also speak like a lady in order to attract a suitable husband and was trained to do so from a very young age. Thus, the use of Standard English “became associated with being a female and with being a lady, in particular” (Romaine 2003, 104).
Despite all the historical evidence Romaine (2003) found, she also found data in the modern society that contradicted it. “If women are using the standard to achieve status denied to them through conventional outlets, we might expect that this need should diminish once women have more access to high- status and high-paying jobs, for example” (Romaine 2003, 105-106). However, the studies she has done and other’s whose results she has looked into, show that
is not the case. She concludes that the way women and men speak is not straightforward “but mediated through other identities and ideologies” and that
“as variables both gender and language comprise rather complex social practices and performances” (Romaine 2003, 116). Thus, more research with different kinds of research methods is needed.
This difference in the level of conservativeness has also been found among smaller speech communities, and considering Trudgill’s explanation it should not be surprising that the pattern has been most consistent among the African American communities. Eckert (1998, 68) notes that “among the women in our [American] society, African American women are the most subject to denigration, and that their very systematic use of standard language may well be a response to their greater social vulnerability.”
Speech that contains stereotypical masculine and feminine features, like the ones mentioned above, is called genderlect (Hoar 1992). Even though not everyone speaks according to the stereotypical features of their gender, and certainly not all the time, it is a useful term and a subject that deserves to be studied as “expectations and stereotypes are, of course, powerful filters in our perception of others” (Hoar 1992, 127). Hoar (1992) also uses the term powerlect to describe speech that contains features that show the status of the speaker.
Genderlect is derived from powerlect and “genderlect is actually the expression of powerlect interpreted according to culturally based gender expectations” (Hoar 1992, 127). Romaine (2003, 104), although not using the same terms as Hoar, came to the same conclusion, and said that this might be another “reflection of women’s powerlessness in the public sphere”. In her studies Hoar (1992) confirmed the descriptions of many other scholars (for example Lakoff, Kramarae, West and Zimmerman, and Fishman) in that women’s speech can often be described with adjectives like weak, tentative, hesitant and trivial (Hoar 1992, 129). She points out that, in fact, these are also features of the speech of a person whose status is low or lower than those of the other speakers. “We see, then, that what is actually being communicated by “genderlect” is not so much masculinity or femininity but relative amounts of status and power” (Hoar 1992, 129-130).
Women who have achieved a powerful position or a high status, for example in their careers, are not likely to use stereotypically insecure feminine speech, in other words features of low powerlect, in their professional lives.
Romaine (2003) has studied variation in language and gender and mentions many of the same studies as others here as well as their results, such as that women’s language is more polite and that women use more standard forms.
She has also studied carefully the different explanations given to this phenomenon, but in the end finds them unsatisfactory. “After all, it is in some respect paradoxical that women should tend to use the more prestigious variants when most societies accord higher status and power to men” (Romaine 2003, 103). She is also questioning the common approach that is usually taken when studying language and gender, the approach that it is the women’s behaviour that is being studied and seen as the deviant.
When viewing the result of recent surveys and studies done in the field of language and gender it is clear that “the over-reaching conclusion to be drawn about the language practices among girls, boys, women, and men is the presence of elaborate variability” (Freed 2003, 702). There is data of a diversity of speech patterns and language practices in the categories called male and female.
“When studied closely, gendered linguistic practices that have been overgeneralized “unravel” and become more complex” (Freed 2003, 702). Freed (2003) is worried that despite the modern data and results that have been analyzed and interpreted, the common impression that people, scholars included, have about male and female speech remains mostly unaltered. It might be due to the fact that the new data does not give exact answers, but mostly just states the old theories or reasons behind them as being incorrect. Many questions are still left unanswered and many new questions emerge.
2.1.2 African-American speech
Gender and gender images in blues lyrics have been studied and it has been found that women singers usually direct their songs to other women (Bowers, 1993).
The topics of the songs are things that women confront in their daily lives and can easily relate to. Female singers become, and to some extent portray themselves as, role models to the target audience. A typical topic is for the singer to tell the other women how to get good treatment for themselves, from their husbands or boyfriends and even from the society at large (Bowers 1993, 28). A similar
composition, of women singing to other women, can be observed in rap music as well.
Johnstone (1993, 68) points out that “work on language and gender in the United States has tended to be about well-educated middle- to upper-middle class women, who are white and either Jewish or Christian”. Therefore a study concentrating on African-American speakers of English will be interesting, especially when it comes to differences between males and females. Johnstone (1993) goes on to list the several reasons scholars have attributed to the differences between male and female speech. These include psychological differences, differences in social status and prestige as well as cultural differences.
Tannen (1993) also points out the effect of cultural background in language use and says that the more the backgrounds differ, the more the “lines of interpretation and habitual use of many linguistic strategies” will differ (165). Clearly, the background of white middle- and upper-middle class women is greatly different from the background of African-American women and so the results of the studies conducted on gender cannot directly be attached to those speakers.
Despite there being plenty of middle-class African Americans these days, they have a greatly different background to white Americans and thus their speech and language use should be studied separately for more accurate results.
Similarly the speech of African-American women should not be grouped together with that of white women. Black female identity is composed of many different elements and black females thus have a different background to those of white females. Race, gender and social class all play a part. Scott (2000) claims that it is very important to study the language behaviour of black women as they are in a large part responsible for the language development of the children and thus ultimately of the whole speech community. The language use of black women is often described as assertive and outspoken. This is in contrast with the general stereotypes of collaboration and focus on relationship maintenance given above for female speech. However, on closer inspection this distinct feature is just another way to communicate and show the same nurturing characteristic that is associated with the language use of females in general (Scott, 2000). Tannen (1993) writes along the same lines and says that for both men and especially women, the methods are different, but that the meaning and end result is the same:
to show solidarity towards a group and to show belonging.
Another interesting aspect of the language use of African-American women is that they tend to have a more complex communicative repertoire than white women, as they often can speak using both the African-American Vernacular and the standard form of English, which they often use when speaking to white women (Scott, 2000) or in their professional careers. In addition, women’s speech in general has a wider stylistic variability than men’s speech (Holmes 1997, 197).
However, despite this ability to switch between different registers, many black women still use the vernacular as a way of identification with cultural norms and practices even when they are pursuing professional and economic advancement. Scott (2000, 239) writes that: “As a result of movement across social and cultural roles, language becomes a vehicle for marking identity in those various worlds.”
Milroy (1987), who has studied what she calls low-prestige ethnic and status groups all over the world, has made similar observations. She has noted that these groups, among which she lists for example Lowland Scots in Southern Scotland, Catalan in Spain, Canadian French in Canada and Black English in the United States, perceive their language or dialect as a powerful symbol of group identity. Usually these groups maintain the language or dialect despite continued pressure from the standardized speech around them. African-Americans are using their vernacular as “a symbol of adherence to [their] local communities” (Milroy 1987, 18) and also “to indicate loyalty to a local community and rejection of metropolitan and national prestige values” (Milroy 1987, 19), in their case the values of the governing white society.
Therefore it is clear that the African-American vernacular is very important and essential to those speaking it. It is a way for them to express their identity and also to express their culture and talk about their daily lives in a way that feels natural to them. Language closely reflects the world the speaker lives in and thus “in order to talk about black cultural experience, [they need] the language created out of that experience” (Scott 2000, 239). Johnstone (1993) made a similar observation about language in general. She studied how differently men and women created their worlds in conversational storytelling, usually recounts of things that had happened to the speaker and of things that they had encountered during the day, and wrote that “talk is certainly often about the world
and reflects what the world is like” (Johnstone 1993, 68). Telling stories is a very explicit means of constructing and presenting a particular social identity for one’s self or for others (Holmes 1997, 196). Rap lyrics, with their very strong narratives, are stories of their own kind, often directly representing the black community and life in it.
Johnstone’s results showed that women tended to include more details about the people involved and more reported speech in their stories than did the men. Men tended to use their stories to create a world of “contest in which power comes from the individual acting in opposition to others” (Johnstone 1993, 75). However, she added that the stories men and women tell “are not simply the products of women’s and men’s worlds. People create worlds in discourse, as they create selves, communities, and places” (Johnstone 1993, 76). In other words, she came to the conclusion that although differences do exist between men and women and their language use, the speakers own persona is also an important factor. Also the sense of any community is partly created and maintained by speech.
2.2 Word as a concept
As this study concentrates on single words and their meanings and positive and negative values, it is worthwhile to briefly look at how a word originates and what processes it can go through to arrive at the point, or points, it is at today. The methods outlined below also serve as a reminder that words and their meanings are not stable, but that a language, and how people use it, is constantly evolving and changing. Studying isolated instances of language use within a single speech community, as is done in this study, it is important not to bring the value judgements attached to the words being studied in one’s own speech community into the research.
A word has a denotation and a connotation. Denotation is the generally accepted and largely fixed meaning of the word, the relation between a word and an entity, while connotation is more flexible and less determinate.
Connotations can change and vary from one generation to the next. Therefore connotations are subjective and not necessarily shared by all speakers of the same
language. The connotations of the community are learned just as the language of the group is learned and are thus inherently known to the individuals of any given community. Because of all this variety, the connotation of a word can sometimes be difficult to derive, especially when dealing with speakers from a different speech community. In addition to this, new ways of using words, new connotations, are invented all the time. To truly understand the meaning of a word, one must take into account the linguistic context of the word as well as the situational context (Jackson 1988, 50-60).
According to Nida (1975, 25-28), word meaning is composed of three parts: the conceptual meaning, contextual connotation and emotive value.
Ullman (1962, 54) adds that in a speech process, the context is the determining factor and gives the word its concrete meaning, in that particular utterance. Nida (1975) also writes that word meaning can be looked at from several perspectives.
The extensionalist approach concentrates on word usage and contexts and the intensionalist approach looks at the conceptual structures of different linguistic units (Nida 1975, 22-23). This study will use the extensionalist method.
While studying the meaning and usage of the words used to refer to gender, the study will then, naturally, also show the way language in this area has changed in the African-American community during the time span between the two generations, blues artists of the early 1900’s and present day rap artists. Word meanings can change by various different methods and some of the most common ones are explained below. The following examples, numbered 1 to 6, are from Gramley & Pätzold 1992, pp. 31-34.
1. One way for a word to get a new meaning is if the speakers no longer understand the old meaning or when two words are formally similar. An example of the former one is bridegroom which used to be bridegome, but the speakers no longer recognized the word gome meaning ‘man’ and thus the word changed. An example of the latter is using the word technological instead of technical or realistic instead of real. This is called folk etymology but it has never been a very productive method of creating new meanings for words.
2. Another method is ellipsis where a part of a word or a phrase takes on the meaning of the whole. For example Adidas for Adidas running shoes, anchor for anchorman and microwave for microwave oven.
3. Metaphors are another way to give a new meaning to a word. In a metaphor some of the qualities of the original meaning are maintained, but they are used in a different context. For example bank in bottle bank and blood bank still mean a place something is collected in, but it no longer has any association with money.
Many metaphors can be found from the world of computers, for example mouse and window.
4. Metonymy is when a proper noun is used as a general noun, for example Xerox and Kleenex. It can also mean when a word changes from abstract to concrete as in the leadership meaning the leaders.
5. Specialization and generalization are another method. For example the word straight and gay have been given specialized meanings, ‘heterosexual’ and
‘homosexual’ respectively. An example of generalization is the phrase you guys which can now be used for a group of people of both males and females and also for a group of women as well.
6. Amelioration and deterioration are word changes where the meaning of the word becomes either more positive or more negative, respectively. A good example of amelioration is the phrase state of the art which used to mean a report that described the achievements of a particular field. Now the phrase has risen from its neutral state to mean the latest and best, as in state-of-the-art technology for example. In other words, it has gained positive value. The word mental, on the other hand, is an example of deterioration. Instead of meaning just ‘of the mind’
or ‘in the mind’ it now has an additional meaning, ‘insane’. The originally neutral word has thus become negative.
The norms of language usage are formed and shaped by the speech community. However, for a new meaning to become accepted and used, it means that the entire speech community must understand the word in approximately the
same manner (Lähteenmäki, 2000). The African-Americans form a speech community, one that is clearly separate from the white American speech community. Thus the words used or the meaning of familiar words can be very different. This study looks at the words from the point of view of the African American speech community, regardless of their meaning in Standard English.
The meaning of the words is derived from the context in which they appear, from my general knowledge of the language used in rap lyrics, from websites that have rap dictionaries and from The New Oxford American Dictionary (2001) and the internet version of the Oxford English Dictionary. Some of the words and their meanings where they differ from the Standard English are explained where appropriate.
These methods for the change in a word meaning hence explain how a word can have different meanings in different speech communities. They also account for how a word can be used differently in blues and rap lyrics and how a random listener from another speech community, for example a white American, may not understand the lyrics fully or correctly.
3 Basic concepts and terminology
Western music can be described with the word ‘harmony’, whereas African and African-derived music can be described with the word ‘rhythm’. Like so many other Afrodiasporic musics, rap is very rhythmic and percussive, showing clearly where its roots are coming from (Rose 1994, 65).
Springer (1995, 1) says that “Black American music is a hybrid music elaborated from African cultural principles transferred to a foreign continent and subjected to its influences”. He also notes that “for the black man, whether African or American, music is part of everyday life and is integrated within the everyday existence”. This can easily be noticed from the lyrics of both blues and rap, which both are a part of everyday life and also often tell stories of the daily life.
3.1 Rap Music
“Rap music is a confusing and noisy element of contemporary American popular culture that continues to draw a great deal of attention to itself” writes Rose (1994, 1). She continues by listing many benefits she sees in rap music. Those include cultural criticism, women rappers as rare examples of pro-women lyricists in popular music and bringing out in the open the problems of racism.
Rap and hip-hop are terms that are well known but that people sometimes have difficulty in explaining or distinguishing their meanings from one another. Berns and Schlobinski (2003) define hip-hop as a lifestyle involving rap, graffiti and break-dance and say that hip-hop culture was born sometime in the 70’s and late 80’s. They also offer the following definition for rap:
Rap is the umbrella term for the fast spoken lyrics of a hip-hop song.
The verb ‘to rap’ nowadays mainly means singing or speaking rhythmically, but throughout its history it has been used in quite different contexts. Back in 1971, Clarence Major defined ‘rap’ as
“holding conversation”, or a “long, impressive monologue”. Rap has become a pars pro toto for the whole hip-hop music in America.
(Berns & Schlobinski 2003, 199)
They also speculate on why rappers rap instead of sing and say that it probably has to do with “the complex beat structures” (Berns & Schlobinski 2003, 199) and the fast paced rhythm of rap songs, therefore making rapping the easier and more practical choice. The added benefits of rapping are that it “can be performed almost everywhere, and can contain more information than any other kind of song lyrics because of its speed” (Berns & Schlobinski 2003, 199).
Rap might be thought of as a new genre in music, but actually its
“lyrical style of the long narrative… has a long history firmly derived from black culture” (Ryan & Calhoun III 1996, 145). Hess (2005) agrees saying that rap music “has roots in oral traditions of testimony and bearing witness” (p.297).
However, the content of the songs could be viewed as new. Blues songs and the slaves’ songs before them have told about the conditions and lives of the black Americans, but they have mostly focused on the rural life. Rap, on the other hand, comes from a new environment and tells accurate stories and “the emotional orientations” that depict “the existing minority conditions of poor, urban blacks”
(Ryan & Calhoun III 1996, 145). It is a way for the black minority to express and prioritize their voice “from the margins of urban America” (Rose, 1994, 2).
Rap is further divided into different categories. Possibly the most distinctive style and one that certainly gets most attention from the media is that called gangsta rap. This particular style has its roots in a district of Los Angeles called South Central (Berns & Schlobinski 2003, 199). Gangsta rap “tells stories about life in the ghettos, criminality, drugs, and sex. The language of gangsta rap is very harsh, just like its music. It can be regarded as an authentic report of the situation in certain areas at the time of its inception” (Berns & Schlobinski 2003, 199). Other styles include dance-oriented “commercial” rap, mixed genre rap, party rap, mack or pimp rap and jazz or bohemian rap (Krims, 2001). A common feature of all rap music is self-praising, often in the form of sexual desirability and material wealth, but most importantly about the rapper’s verbal talent (Shusterman 1991, 614-615). This study will not focus on any particular style, instead a broad range of the different rap styles is covered, but popularity of the artist and availability of the lyrics and recordings are the determining factors. In other words the so-called underground artists are by necessity left out, although
their potential influence on and reflective quality of the African-American youth culture is recognized.. The artists who receive the greatest public exposure are most interesting for this study as they also have the greatest possibility of affecting the most people.
The usual themes in rap lyrics are sex, sexism, racism, crime, black pride and the ghetto experience (Ryan & Calhoun III 1996, 124-125). In addition, rap songs tend to be very critical. It is common to find “1) self-critique or critique of the rap culture; 2) societal critique; 3) cultural critique including a belief in the redemptive power of black music –especially the ability of shared rhythm to overcome status boundaries; and 4) racial critique or discourse on race relations”
(Ryan & Calhoun III 1996, 125). Realness is a very vital part of rap lyrics and a rapper claims his right to speak and be heard through claims of realness and by proving through “narrative evidence that those claims are rooted in lived experience” (Hess 2005, 299).
Rap lyrics protest against racism and the accustomed ideologies of the white-majority society (Rose 1994, 104). Yet they at the same time appear very sexist and reinforce patriarchal domination, especially in regards to African- American women. The same phenomenon can be observed in blues lyrics.
Therefore black women rap artists, and blues artists before them, are seen as very important for the black females, whose voices have otherwise been “relegated to the margins of public discourse” (Rose 1994, 146).
Gilroy (1993, quoted in Hess, 2005) and Smith (1997, also quoted in Hess, 2005) talk of rap music’s “doubleness”. They say rap has two aspects that are operating within it at the same time: the ghetto and the mainstream commercial culture. The ghetto is a mark of their authenticity, which is crucial in rap music, and at the same time it is a marketable feature, the Other, in the mainstream culture. As Smith (1997, 346) says, rappers use “mimetic narratives to secure and maintain ghetto territory simultaneously as commodity and safe- haven”. This is a complicated and often contradictory process, and because of it, despite their commercial success, rappers are still rapping for and in behalf of the people living in the ghettos (Hess, 2005).
3.2 The Blues
As well as rap, blues is also “a form of oral literature” (Springer 1995, 8). It originates from the period between the end of the American Civil War and the beginning of the twentieth century (Springer 1995, 29). Carney (1987, 4) says this time period is a time of transition in American music. Before, the music listened to and played in America had been borrowed and adapted from that played in Europe. During this period the social and musical developments led to two distinct music styles America can call its own: the Anglo-European hillbilly and the Afro-American blues. These were not only new musical genres, but they also represented a break from the view that music was somehow aristocratic and connected it with the lower classes. In the beginning blues was considered to be the music of the rural black working class (Springer 1995, 27). The songs discussed the loss of the old rural way of life and the troubles and sorrows of the new environment and now they depict an accurate picture of the social conditions and values of their time (Carney 1987, pp.4-5). Carney also says that “the factors that contributed to the lyrics of the roots of American music were the result of complex and deeply ingrained mores and behaviour patterns bred by the Southern rural environment.” (1987, 36)
Blues has always been an activity performed and listened to in one’s free time (Yurchenco 1995, 449) and the same is true of rap music. Just as in rap music today, different styles of blues can be identified, mostly based on the region of the singer, such as New Orleans blues, but also in more general terms, such as rural blues and modern blues (Springer, 1995). The artists used in this study represent different styles, although they are from a rather small time period.
Both rap and blues music have achieved notable commercial success that would have not been possible if the audience had been all black. Although the songs are about black people and culture, they do not exclude others from listening. Rose (1994, pp. 4-5) notes that “white America has always had an intense interest in black culture”.
3.3 Previous studies
Considering the topic of this study, one of the most interesting studies done previously on rap lyrics is the one conducted by Ryan and Calhoun III (1996).
They studied the emotional models present in commercial rap and country music.
In their study they found that “the dominant emotional theme of the male rap songs has to do with feelings associated with competence/strength” (Ryan &
Calhoun III 1996, 131). Maybe surprisingly, the same was true for female rap songs, but they stress that it does not mean that the context of these emotions is the same for the different genders (Ryan & Calhoun III 1996, 134 and 136).
The findings of their study contrast with the stereotypical view of rap and, according to Ryan and Calhoun III, “reflect the fact that the media tend to focus on gangsta rap –a form which, in our sample [taken from Billboard magazine’s charts], did not receive the highest airplay and sales” (1996, 134). In other words, they feel that gansta rap is not just by itself a true representative of rap music and in a wider scope, of the opinions and ideals of African-American youth.
Bradby (1993) has studied gender, among other things, mainly in dance music. She notes that historically speaking women have been portrayed as wives and mothers in the media. This has, however, now greatly receded. In the context of popular music “representations of women have clearly been much more partial than in [other media], and mainly confined to ‘sex’ rather than work or motherhood” (Bradby 1993, 160). Popular music thus shares a general view of a freed woman, although “within the confines of a patriarchal sexuality” (Bradby 1993, 160). She, however, sees a difference between white music and black music, saying that “generally in rock and pop, women have had to be ‘young’ or ‘teen’”
whereas in black popular music, here mainly blues and soul, “there has been a place for the mature, more maternal body and voice of a woman” (Bradby 1993, 160).
Holland and Skinner (1987) have studied the different words used to refer to the two genders in the English language in general. They say the meaning of the words, such as hunk or stud, are ingrained in the culture and the user automatically knows what they mean and how to use them. “A great deal of
knowledge about gender-marked types is taken for granted” (Holland & Skinner 1987, 79). The words contain “unspoken expectations and implicit common knowledge” and explaining the meaning of them is difficult (Holland & Skinner 1987, 79).
Their study was conducted in America and they found that Americans have hundreds of words for both males and females. They also noted that the vocabulary is very varied and colourful and contains many metaphorical expressions derived from many different domains ranging from food to animals.
(Holland & Skinner 1987, 79).
In their study, they asked people to group the gender words given to them together according to their connotations, for example according to the positivity or negativity of the words, or prestige and intimacy. Holland and Skinner were surprised to find that the people in their study didn’t group the words by focusing on the main attributes of the types, but rather they “related the types to a set of scenarios in which the prototypical male/female relationship is disturbed” (Holland & Skinner 1987, 103). In other words, the key to understanding the implied meaning of the words is to know the possible situation in which they interact. “Our studies indicate that individual Americans understand talk about jerks, wimps, he-men, chicks and broads, and their behaviour by thinking of these characters in relation to a taken-for-granted relationship between males and females” (Holland & Skinner 1987, 103). An interesting finding was that most “gender-marked types” have negative connotations, i.e. they are types who cause disruptions in the relationship (Holland & Skinner 1987, 103).
Studying the words used to address people or refer to them can reveal a lot about the given speech community and its values. The words used are “always grammatically optional, but they are often socially required” and, even more importantly, “they are always socially loaded” (McConnell-Ginet 2003, 77). The meaning of any particular word used to refer to or address another person can be found from within the speech community and from the history of usage the word has in it. The history of the word and other aspects of social practice in the given community are what mark a word “with respect and affection or with contempt, condescension, or dislike” (McConnell-Ginet 2003, 79).
Women are usually defined by their relation to men, with terms such as Mrs. Smith and Mr. Smith’s widow, while men have autonomous status
(Thorne et al. 1983, 9). In addition, men tend to name women after body parts, fruit, animals, mindless creatures or as child-like. This is said to reflect men’s disrespect for women and to support their control over them and to maintain their role at the top of gender hierarchy. As an example to the difference between the terms for women and the terms for men, Stanley (1977, quoted in Thorne et al.
1983) has found that in the English language there are 220 terms for sexually promiscuous women and only 22 terms for men.
Female gangsta rappers have been studied by Haugen (2003). He concentrated on their “ladylikeness” or lack thereof. He looked at their lyrics, their performances and their interviews. He found that the most common derogatory words used by males to refer to females, such as bitch and ho, are being used in two different ways by the females. The female rappers can use these words as negative reference to other women but also as solidarity statements, where the word has positive connotations, much the same way as black people, especially black male rappers, use the word nigga or nigger, which spoken by anyone else would be highly inappropriate and derogatory. In other words, female rappers are doing what Haugen calls “reappropriating male words” (Haugen 2003, 434-435), making the words their own and turning their meaning around.
Rose (1994) has studied the lyrics of male and female rappers in terms of sexism and feminism, among many other views. She finds that the lyrics of male rappers clearly aim to sustain patriarchal dominance and objectify black females. Female rappers are generally seen, and confirmed by Rose to be, as a feminist voice, trying to transform the image of black women. However, there are cases where the message they send out is contradictory. Rose says that “some female rappers affirm aspects of sexual power relationships as they raise incisive questions that seriously challenge the current distribution of power between men and women” (1994, 147). Rose writes that the way female rappers place a black woman’s body in the spotlight also sends a very contradictory message. It is positive in that it shows the beauty of African-American females but also at the same time preserves sexual objectification. On the other hand, there are rap lyrics by male artists where black men are disapproving of men who abuse women and lyrics that call black men to support their families and black women in general (Rose 1994, 150).
One explanation to the degrading words men use for women can be found in Di Mare’s (1992) studies. She has taken a historical perspective in her studies of language and says that the differences between the language use of men and women, and the reasons for these differences, can be traced far back in history.
Di Mare (1992) has studied women and rhetoric and points out that throughout history, women have been encouraged and even forced to stay at home and were forbidden from, for example, making public speeches. Women were perceived as less intelligent and less capable than men. Di Mare (1992, 47) writes that “the rhetorical tradition has acted as a tool of the dominant cultural position to promote the notion that women are capable of only one function – a biological one”. This eventually has led the whole society to believe that women cannot operate in the public realm and that this belief is something that modern women today have to deal with as well. According to Di Mare (1992) women today are still “perceived as having limited rhetorical skills” (47) and thus they often “find it difficult to succeed in the public sphere” (47). This perceived lack of rhetorical skills is one of the reasons women have a lower status in the economic and political fields, but also in the society at large as well.
One of the problem areas in today’s rhetoric is the fact that men do not know how to speak to women. Di Mare (1992, 48) quotes two sources (Janice Halper and Fortune 500) when she makes her claim that men only know how to interact with women in sexual terms. This all reaches back to society viewing women as serving only biological functions, which are mainly sexual in nature, and hence encourage men to interact with women in a style and language that does not meet with the expectations of public language use (Di Mare 1992).
However, the very thing that is at the root of the problem can also be the solution.
“Rhetoric serves as the condition for the possibility of the emergence of any situation that the community desires. So, in as much as rhetoric has stood as the condition for the emergence of patriarchy, it can also stand as the condition for the emergence of a dialectical reciprocity between men and women that would undermine patriarchy” (Di Mare 1992, 48).
4 Methods Employed
This study uses two corpora to conduct the research, one with rap lyrics and one with blues lyrics. I had to compile them myself as none were available. This turned out to be a positive circumstance as it allowed me to control the number of the artists and lyrics included, in this case an equal number from all the groups involved. I was also able to choose songs from a time period suitable to the purposes of this study. In compiling the corpora, the various sites on the internet providing written rap and blues lyrics were an important source. The lyrics thus found were then studied and the gender references picked out. Next the findings were compiled into different charts, which were then studied closely and compared with one another.
The research was started by doing a quantitative study of the words used. Some of the words whose meaning may be obscure, particularly those found only in rap lyrics, are explained with the help of dictionaries further on in this thesis. Some of the words clearly formed lexical sets, such as words from the family, and these are further looked into and analyzed under their own subtitles.
Comparisons between male and female artists and between rap and blues artists were conducted and the results are clearly stated and illustrated with the help of tables and diagrams.
The next step was to study the perceived charge (positive, negative or neutral) of the words. This was done by assuming a neutral status for a word at the beginning and then studying the context of the word to see whether the given word was meant as a positive or a negative expression. Of course, some of the words are generally viewed as positive or negative within the society, but in this study the words were assumed to be neutral to begin with and acquired their value only through the context, the words and the tone. Naturally, these kinds of decisions always involve value judgements and another person may have viewed individual cases differently, but nevertheless, the overall results are what matter.
How a word is interpreted can differ greatly from one person to another and also be different to the meaning intended by the speaker. The interpreted meaning cannot be studied in this study, so the perceived intended meaning of the word is studied, by studying the context of the word, as already stated before.
Thus, the first stage of the research consisted of compiling the list of lyrics, which is described in detail in chapter 5. Materials studied. The lyrics were then read through and a word list was collected. Some songs, especially among the rap songs, feature other artists alongside the main artist. These parts of the lyrics were read as part of the main artist’s lyrics regardless of the gender of the featuring artist. Most songs have repeated chorus lines and the words occurring in them are counted as many times as the chorus is repeated throughout the song.
The exception to this is at the end of the song where the chorus is sometimes repeated until it fades out, thus the words in a chorus at the end of the song are only counted once. The artists often refer to themselves in their lyrics and these are counted as well. For example a male rap artist referring to himself as a stud is included in the references for male gender.
5 Materials studied
The materials for the study come from five male rap artists and five female rap artists as well as five male blues artists and six female blues artists. Six female blues artists were needed to get an even number of lyrics from both genders. The male rap artists chosen are 50 Cent, Tupac, Notorious B.I.G., Jay-Z and Dr. Dre and the female rap artists chosen are Missy Elliott, Queen Latifah, Eve, Lil’ Kim and Lauryn Hill. The focus is on modern day rap and the artists chosen are those that are the most popular at the moment or otherwise having a great influence on it.
The male blues artists chosen are Mississippi John Hurt, Charley Patton, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Blind Boy Fuller and Blind Willie McTell and the female artists are Bessie Smith, Memphis Minnie, Ma Rainey, Alberta Hunter, Victoria Spivey and Ida Cox. All the blues artists are from the early days of blues, the early 1900’s. They were chosen based on their popularity at the time and also on the availability of their lyrics today.
The lyrics of ten songs will be chosen from each artist, with the exception of Alberta Hunter (four songs) and Victoria Spivey (six songs), resulting in a data base of 200 song lyrics. The rap lyrics were chosen on the basis of the popularity of the songs. The popularity was determined by chart placements, mainly Billboard Music Charts, and nominations and awards the song has won as well as general opinion which comes through different fan sites. When there were more than or less than ten clear candidates from an artist the suitability of the lyrical content in regards to this study was considered. In addition to the common practice of remixing songs, it is possible for a single song to have many versions for different media and different purposes because of the sometimes vulgar content of rap songs. The original, unedited versions were chosen for this study.
The availability of blues lyrics is not as great as that of rap lyrics and therefore there is less choice in which songs to include. Where there has been the possibility for choice, the suitability of the lyrics has been the determining factor.
All the lyrics used in this study have been found from the internet.
Several different websites have been used and a list of them can be seen in the bibliography. All the lyrics have been carefully read through and if the
authenticity of the lyrics was doubted, they were checked against other sites’
lyrics and whenever possible by listening to the actual song.
While studying the lyrics it is noticeable that some words can be spelled and pronounced in various ways and also it must be remembered that spelling mistakes are possible. In the best interest of this study some spellings must, and should, be combined, thus for example ho and hoe are grouped together, but separated from hooker although they are derivates of it. Also the s/z variation is left without attention as in words like niggas and niggaz. These are examples of variations in spelling which do not affect the meaning or usage of a word so they are not relevant to this study.
A complete list of artists and songs used in this study can be found in the appendices. The year of recording is also listed where known.
6 Findings
Studying the lyrics was challenging but also very interesting. Statistics and other general findings are shown below in 6.1 General observations. A more detailed analysis looking at the theories and questions raised above follows in 6.2 Details.
In all of the following graphs, tables and numbers mentioned only those words that have appeared more than once are taken into account, unless otherwise noted.
6.1 General observations
In all of the following graphs, tables and numbers only those words that have appeared more than once are taken into account. In the sample of lyrics used in this study, there were 73 words that appeared more than once that were used to refer to males and females. 40 words were used to describe males and 40 to describe females. There were only 7 words that were used for both genders. The total number of references, counting only words that have been used more than once, is 2411 of which 1607 instances were found in rap lyrics and 804 in blues lyrics.
Male rap artist referred to the genders 973 times, 548 to males and 425 to females. Female rap artists, on the other hand, referred to males 360 times and to females 274 times, the total being 634. Blues artists had fewer instances with males referring to other males 123 times and to females 355 times and females referring to males 223 times and to females 103 times. Looking at these numbers it can be seen that usually the artists refer to the opposite sex more than to their own. This is only broken by the male rap artists.
The tables 1 and 2 below show what were the most popular words for males and females in blues and in rap. As can be seen only some words are common to both genres: man, boy and baby for males and girl and baby for females. The number in the parenthesis, in this and all the following tables, indicates the number of times the word was used. Following the tables are examples of the words being used.
Table 1. Top 5 words for males and females in rap lyrics
Males Females
nigga (369) bitch (162)
man (112) girl (113)
boy (68) baby (66)
baby (64) lady (66)
homey (41) ho (60)
1. Nigga you mad? I thought that you'd be happy I made it (50Cent:
In Da Club)
2. C'mon man, you know how I shine (50Cent: Piggy Bank) 3. He and his boys gon be yappin to the captain (Jay-Z: 99
Problems)
4. and I'm gonna love you baby (Missy Elliott: Take Away) 5. On what me and my homey Snoop Dogg came to do (Dr. Dre:
Nuthin’ But A G’Thang)
6. bus stop full of fly bitches and skeezers (Dre. Dre: Let Me Ride) 7. Girls used to diss me (Notorious B.I.G.: Juicy)
8. I'll break it down for you now, baby it's simple (50Cent: Candy Shop)
9. Don't cha know we love ya? Sweet lady (Tupac: Dear Mama) 10. All respect to those who break their neck to keep their hoes in
check (Tupac: I Get Around)
Table 2. Top 5 words for males and females in blues lyrics
Males Females
man (164) baby (117)
daddy (49) woman (99)
papa (29) mama (97)
boy (27) gal (24)
baby (20) girl (23)
11. That bad man, oh, cruel Stack O' Lee (Mississippi John Hurt:
Stack O’Lee Blues)
12. Oh, daddy, you with your foolin', think what you're losin' (Bessie Smith: Oh Daddy Blues)
13. Papa likes his sherry, mama likes her port (Ma Rainey: Barrel House Blues)
14. Boy, you better watch it 'cause she's tricky (Memphis Minnie:
Hoodoo Lady)
15. I want you to come here, baby, come here quick (Memphis Minnie: Dirty Mother for You)
16. I asked you, baby, to come and hold my head (Mississippi John Hurt: Big Leg Blues)
17. She's a tailor-made woman, she ain't no hand-me-down (Blind Lemon Jefferson: Bad Luck Blues)
18. Going to leave this town, pretty mama, going away to stay (Blind Willie McTell: Statesboro Blues)
19. I wants all you men to let my good gal alone (Blind Willie McTell: Weary Hearted Blues)
20. Girls I'm gonna tell you this, ain't gonna tell you nothin' else (Ida Cox: Four Day Creep)
It is also interesting to see that the most common terms for males and females in rap lyrics are words with a possible negative connotation (nigga and bitch). The most common word for males derives from race but the most common word for females derives from being a female. The words having the second place (man and girl) also seem to show a typical patriarchal society as the males are referred to as adults but the females are referred to by a word describing a child. It is appropriate to mention already here that nigga is a very sensitive word associated heavily with racism. The history and usage of the word is explained in detail in 6.2.1 nigga and bitch, although the general results of the usage of the word are mentioned here.
In blues lyrics the top five words seem to have a balance with both genders being called by the terms referring to adults, children and infants as well as pet names with parental origin.
A change in language use between the two musical genres can also be seen from these tables as both contain words not found in the other. For example nigga, homey, bitch and ho did not appear in the blues lyrics at all and gal and papa only had one occurrence in rap lyrics although they were fairly common in blues lyrics.
