Code-switching in Nigerian hip-hop lyrics

Akande, Akinmade T.

doi:10.1080/10228195.2012.744083

Cited by 24 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…In contrast to English and the three languages mentioned above, Nigerian Pidgin English (NPE) is seen as the quintessential Nigerian language. This belief is hinged mainly on its perceived neutrality, both with regard to geographical spread, ethnicity, and class (see Egbokhare 2003;Akande 2013;Olusegun-Joseph 2014), and the huge population of its speakers. Today, NPE is considered the first or second language of some thirty million people (Ethnologue).…”

Section: Language Situation In Nigeriamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In this "Boomerang Hypothesis," he argues that hip hop in Africa can only be read as a re-appropriation, not appropriation or imitation (see also Omoniyi 2005Omoniyi , 2009. Apart from Omoniyi (2005Omoniyi ( , 2006Omoniyi ( , 2009, other works that have engaged with the language of NHHM include Agbo (2009); Babalola and Taiwo (2009); Liadi (2012); and Akande (2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Language, identity, and urban youth subculture

Gbogi¹

2022

PRAG

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Towards the turn of the 20th century, a new wave of hip hop music emerged in Nigeria whose sense of popularity activated, and was activated by, the employment of complex linguistic strategies. Indirection, ambiguity, circumlocution, language mixing, pun, double meaning, and inclusive pronominals, among others, are not only used by artists in performing the glocal orientations of their music but also become for them valuable resources in the fashioning of multiple identities. In this paper, I interrogate some of these linguistic markers, using four broad paradigms: “Signifying,” “slangifying,” “double meaning,” and “pronominals and ghetto naming.” Under each of these areas, I show how Nigerian hip hop music is creating–through the mediation of language–sub-identities and a new subculture for a generation of urban youth.

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Section: Language Situation In Nigeriamentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Language, identity, and urban youth subculture

Gbogi¹

2022

PRAG

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“…The lyrics of Afrobeats, the hip-hop-influenced reigning Nigerian musical style, have Pidgin at the center of their constant code switching. 36 In 2011, Google launched a Pidgin interface, and the BBC established an immediately successful Pidgin language service in 2017. All the telecommunications companies offer their call center customers the option of using Pidgin.…”

Section: Nigerian Pidginmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nationalism from Below: State Failures, Nollywood, and Nigerian Pidgin

Haynes

2021

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The Nigerian film industry known as “Nollywood” was shaped (and even created) by profound weaknesses of the Nigerian state, but it inherited and carried forward one of the state’s major accomplishments: the creation of a national culture on and through television. This mission was reinterpreted in the context of a low-budget feature-film industry grounded in the informal sector of the economy. Twenty-five years on, governmental failures continue to structure the industry, even as new distribution technologies and the transnational corporations that have entered with them have created a whole new sector of production alongside the original one and have fractured the audience along class lines, adding to original linguistic and cultural divisions. Still, through its storytelling, Nollywood remains a powerful unifying cultural force on the national and Pan-African levels. In this context, Nigerian Pidgin is more important than ever as a linguistic medium of communication and as a symbol of national, regional, and Pan-African unity and communicability.

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“…On account of hip hop culture's African‐American roots, the use of African‐American English (AAE), or broadly speaking, English, in rap music plays a significant role in the transnational hip hop discourse and has drawn the attention of numerous scholars (e.g., Alim, 2004; Androutsopoulos & Scholz, 2003; Cutler, 2009; Lee, 2011; Pennycook, 2007). As both the original “Hip Hop Nation Language” (Alim, 2004) and a global language, English and its hybrid use with local languages serve as valuable resources to negotiate ethnic and linguistic differences in the process of localizing hip hop culture outside the USA (see, e.g., Akande, 2013; Androutsopoulos, 2009; Higgins, 2009; Pennycook, 2007). Prior work mainly focuses on cultural discourses involved in the lyrics of rap music and the way that language practices index and enact hip hop‐related identities.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rhyming style, persona, and the contested landscape of authentic Chinese hip hop

Lin,

Wang

2023

Journal of Sociolinguistics

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Although recent sociolinguistic research on high performance has shown that persona construction is multidimensional and context‐specific, little work has explored how interactions between personae affect their shared semiotic landscape. This study focuses on stylistic practices in 2017′s The Rap of China, China's first hip hop‐themed competition show. A quantitative analysis was conducted to describe the rhyming styles of contemporary Chinese rappers. Based on language uses, visual representations, and lyrical themes, we then identify three rapper personae and discuss the semantic dimensions of hip hop authenticity invoked by each persona. Finally, through an analysis of a combative rap performance and reactions to it, we argue that contestation among different personae shapes the ideological landscape of “authentic Chinese hip hop.” This work demonstrates the potential of the semiotic landscape as a theoretical tool for the analysis of digital communities and cultural forms.

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Code-switching in Nigerian hip-hop lyrics

Cited by 24 publications

References 10 publications

Language, identity, and urban youth subculture

Language, identity, and urban youth subculture

Nationalism from Below: State Failures, Nollywood, and Nigerian Pidgin

Rhyming style, persona, and the contested landscape of authentic Chinese hip hop

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