Hip hop identity in a township reality. - Poppunt

members of the American hip hop scene. Language is an instrument to make the
identity of another (social or ethnic) group your own for a certain period of time.
Since most of our interviewees want to show and prove their surroundings and the
rest of the outside world that they are ‘real’ rappers, they make use of this kind of
speech. Interesting to know is that they adjust their identity according to for
instance the situation, the interlocutors, the topic and so on. They do not have the
identity of being a rapper twenty four hours a day. What they actually do is shift
from one identity to another by making use of different sorts of speech. If we take a
look at the interviews, these shifts are very clear most of the time. In the beginning
of every interview, we asked the informants some biographical questions like how
old they are, where they live for the moment, if they attend school or if they work.
The given answers almost never consist of any slang whatsoever. But from the very
first question about hip hop, the slang appears. Also the amount of slang was
consistently higher after questions about American rap in general or gangsta rap
specifically. The kind of speech they use in their answers, needs to convince us
about the knowledge they have about the topic of gangsta rap. They are namedropping
a lot and they make extensive use of the hip hop slang to confirm their
identity of belonging to the hip hop community of Cape Town (and South Africa in
general). This belonging needs to be constructed by using someone else’s code
though. Note that not the whole repertoire of the code needs to be known to be able
to cross. It is perfectly possible to pass for a real hip hopper in Cape Town when
your vocabulary consists of only ten slang words. In that local setting a few words
are sufficient to be identified as a rapper. In the Bronx however, you would make a
poor showing.
The fact that our interviewees make use of American hip hop slang can be seen as
somewhat contradictory, since they see American rap as too commercial and too
violent. Also, in South Africa the American rap gets much more airplay and is more
successful than the rap music made by people from the mother country. The
interviewees state that they want this to change, that there is a need of appreciation
and a need of a sense of pride for the South African rap music. Still, American hip
hop culture is the source of identity construction for them, in terms of language but
also in terms of material things like clothing.
The question is if they lack hip hop slang in their mother tongue. Maybe this kind
of slang has not been developed yet throughout the years, because rap music is
quite new in South Africa in comparison with America. Also, American rap music
was the first kind they had access to, so that can be a reason why they borrow the