University of Heidelberg
Wintersemester 1998 / 1999

TERM PAPER

“Rapping – Historical and Social Background, The Different Kinds of Rapping and
Language and Style of Raps”

by

Emel Elbek

Table of Contents

A) Introduction: Rap Music Is Becoming More and More Popular

B) Historical and Social Background, the Different Kinds of Rapping and Language and Style of Raps

1. The Historical and Social Background of Rapping 4

2. The Different Kinds of Rapping 5
a) Boastful Talk 5
b) Love Raps 7
c) Church Raps 8

3. Language and Style of Raps 9
a) Exaggerated Language 9
b) Proverbial Statement 10
c) Spontaneity 10
d) Images and Metaphors 10
e) Braggadocio 11
f) Indirection 12

C) Conclusion 13

A) Introduction: Rap Music Is Becoming More and More Popular

There is no denying that rap music has been taking the whole world by storm in the last couple of years. While almost everyone is familiar with rappers like Snoop Dogg and his album Doggystyle¹ or with LL Cool J’s famous rap song ”I’m bad,”² only few know that rapping itself is a special kind of communication among African Americans. A number of questions come to mind: What is the historical and social background in which rapping came into being? Are there different kinds of rapping? What are the basic features concerning style and language of raps?

The present paper will try to answer these questions by also referring to some rap songs in order to demonstrate the authenticity of rapping as a verbal performance.

B) Rapping – Historical and Social Background, The Different Kinds of Rapping and Language and Style of Raps

1. The Historical and Social Background of Rapping

The historical and social background of rapping is very profound because of its origin in African culture. The African cultural set, which arrived in America with the slaves, contains the traditional African worldview that places great value on the spoken word – Africans believed in the word and its power called ”Nommo.” Every action had to be accompanied by words, even ”a newborn child is a mere thing until his father gives and speaks his name.”³

Despite the fact that African-Americans today regard English as their mother tongue, they have been holding on to this worldview and the belief in the power of the word for centuries. According to their African traditional belief, spoken words are precious and useful for teaching and learning. In the Black communication network, which is based on the African world view, verbal performances play a crucial role because of the fact that a spoken word can teach much more about life than a written one:

[...] from a black perspective, written documents are limited in what they can teach about life and survival in the world. Blacks are quick to ridicule ”educated fools,” people who done gone to school and read all dem books and still don’t know nothin! They have ”book learning” but no ”mother wit,” knowledge, but not wisdom.⁴

This is the difference between white Americans and African Americans: while white Americans stick to their print-oriented culture, which came to America with the Europeans, African Americans emphasize on their orally-oriented one. The European culture sets great store by literature, therefore – according to white Americans - knowledge can be acquired by ”book learning.” In African Americans’ eyes, however, ”to ‘talk like a book’ is to ‘talk like a white man.’”⁵

They maintain their cultural set by practicing their oral tradition, which helps African Americans in ”gittin ovuh.” Their every day life is determined by this phrase. It represents two different meanings, dependent on the context. The first, religious meaning describes spiritual survival in a frightening world of sin whereas the second, secular meaning represents material survival in a white world of oppression.⁶

Lessons about how to ”git ovuh” have been passed down orally from generation to generation. As a consequence, knowledge and wisdom can be acquired through spoken words, i. e. via verbal performances like the narration of myths, folk stories or proverbs.

[....]

1 Doggy: hard, mean or unfeeling in African-American vernacular.
2 Bad: outstanding, satisfying, formidable or stylish in African-American vernacular.
3 Smitherman, Geneva 1977. Talkin and testifyin: the language of Black America. Boston: Haughton Mifflin. 78.
4 Ibid., 76.
5 Ibid., 77.
6 Ibid., 73.