Long time ago I talked to a young well-educated white American about music and I mentioned rap in general and 50 Cent in particular, whom I’ve always liked (which is probably weird as I’m Russian). I said that I don’t understand sometimes the lyrics and asked him a couple of questions about some song and he said he didn’t understand what the lines meant either.
So, my general question: How hard is it to understand rap lyrics if you don’t belong to the African-American community? Do you make an effort to guess what they mean or do you have to google things?
PS The question is intended to be purely linguistic.
23 comments
I don’t usually have trouble. Keep in mind that hip-hop is a very poetic art form, and heavily relies on symbolism and metaphor.
A good working knowledge of slang is essential, however.
Yikes…you’re convoluting way too many things together here. Throw skin color, communities, etc…all of that goes out the window. Yes, rap is biggest with our Black community, but it is not exclusive, nor is there some kind of magical way that Black people can hear lyrics better than non-Black people. Not all Black people like/listen to rap either.
**You either understand the lyrics, or you don’t. It’s your ear and the automatic memory or responses of your auditory experiences. Fancy way of saying if you already like or listen to rap, you’re more likely to understand it. If you don’t, you’re less likely to understand it.**
I’m a metal-head. I hear lyrics in metal music pretty well, because I’m familiar with the themes and voices used, plus if you listen to individual artists enough, you can pick up words based on your knowledge of the vocalists’ voices. I can’t pick up shit listening to rap…I also don’t listen to rap though.
It has nothing to do with skin color, but more so with the company you keep and other details about how your time is spent.
Think of it as “industry jargon”
I would have equally as hard of a time following along with a farmer using their slang to tell another farmer about how their day went as I have zero experience in the farming community.
However, if I listened to farm inspired music all of the time it would all come to me with time.
Sometimes its not about being from the African-American community, but more about what region of the US you live, and if you live in the inner-city in those regions, as different areas have different slang. There are some slang words that you would only hear in NYC or Atlanta or Los Angeles. Since I’m from NYC I don’t struggle understanding 50 cents lyrics, but I may struggle with an Atlanta rapper or a Bay area rapper. However, using regional slang is becoming less prevalent as the goal is to make music to be heard by many.
I suggest you read the lyrics to the song “Ebonics” by Big L. It basically translates alot of commonly used slang words, especially in NYC.
I can understand the style of rap that was popular in the mid-late 90’s through the mid-late 2000s.
The new stuff is just noise to me, but then I’ve also never been a fan of rap so a large part of that just boils down to not being exposed to it and not having an ear for it.
I understand 50 just fine, but Lil’ Face Tattoo or whoever is popular nowadays? It’s about as easy to understand as death metal. Which I also don’t understand.
Understanding the words can be difficult, when speed rapping or even just regular rapping for non native speakers. This is a skill to learn. Eventually you work your way up to being able to understand things like Rap God or Worldwide Choppers.
Understanding the meaning can be difficult if you don’t understand urban slang and lyrical symbology. This is something that can be only really be learned by being in the environment, I mean to do so fluently. You can get the jist of it by just listening and using context clues, but the feeling of the raps hits you differently than if you understand it at the core.
You mentioned 50 Cent, IMO, he uses a bit of a slurred speech pattern in his delivery. He’s not trying to annunciate like Nat King Cole, it’s a verbal style/manner of speech.
> How hard is it to understand rap lyrics if you don’t belong to the African-American community?
African-Americans don’t have secret words or language. They’re fully integrated into society and talk to people that aren’t African-American. They use a lot of the same slang as anyone else.
> Do you make an effort to guess what they mean or do you have to google things?
Well I’m 45 not 22, there’s a lot of things young people say that I don’t understand.
Much of rap music relies on slang, metaphors, similes, exaggeration, etc. It’s a very colorful expression of language. Some of the language is hyper-regional. A rapper from Atlanta is going to use terms that a rapper from Houston would not. There are references to places, history, sports, etc.
Growing up listening to acts like the Notorious BIG or NWA you came to understand very quickly that they made many references to their hometown/state. A lot of those references were unclear, but that’s what context is for. The more you listen, the more it makes sense.
Rap is expressive poetry, the more colorful it is, the better it is.
Hip hop generally has a lot of slang within it, and some of that slang can be hyper local.
If you listen to some of the local acts from India**nap**olis, they’ll often refer to Indianapolis as “Nap.” Of course without context, that may not make any sense.
its a common perception of those learning a second language that native speakers speak too fast. I thought the same thing learning French in high school.
While there are rappers who kind of specialize in rapping really fast, most don’t.
Worth noting that not being able to understand the lyrics is a pretty common criticism of whatever music is popular at the moment. [20+ years ago Weird Al said the same thing about Nirvana](https://youtu.be/FklUAoZ6KxY?t=88).
>How hard is it to understand rap lyrics if you don’t belong to the African-American community?
It’s not hard but like all genres of music, I can’t understand the lyrics sometimes. I thought “hold me closer tiny dancer” was “hold me closer Tony Danza” for years.
I can understand rap lyrics better than punk lyrics, it’s got nothing to do with race and everything to do with pronunciation.
It’s not a matter of being part of the African-American community. If you like it you do, if you don’t you don’t. As it happens it grates on me to much for me to try to understand.
Not very.
The words themselves are not usually hard to understand. Well, some guys mumble, they don’t call it mumble rap for no reason, but most people pronounce things more or less clearly. Future is hard to understand, Lizzo is not.
The slang can be difficult depending on how plugged in you are to the newest linguistic trends. Which is to say, I’m 35, my age cohort doesn’t usually say whatever the new stuff is. But I figure that is just a consequence of aging lol.
Actually here’s a question for you, do Russian people still say чувак or is that like old fashioned slang?
Depends on the rapper. Some southern rappers and sub-genres of trap music are nearly impossible for me to understand. And a lot of lines go over my head even for big mainstream rappers. I sang some absurd misheard lyrics for Outkast for years. But some are clear as day. It might be mostly accent and dialect for me, but genre has some to do with it, and so does me being an out of touch old man.
Yeah i don’t understand it either. But then again, i don’t even like rap music.
I’m Black and I don’t always understand other Black people, whether they’re rapping or not.
Somewhere between really hard to not at all hard depending on the artist and their rap style.
Depends on the person, really.
Rap lyrics are usually written in AAVE (African-American Vernacular English) which is an entirely different variety of English with its own context, words, grammar and structure. There are broad speakers – and general speakers.
A lot of other English varieties, particularly AmE (American English) and BrE (British English) are greatly influenced by it – and words and phrases eventually makes its way there from AAVE. Even simple everyday phrases like, “what’s up?”
Rap has been mainstream pop culture since the Sugarhill Gang came out with “Rapper’s Delight” in 1979. So for anyone under 43, rap has always been on the radio somewhere. MTV started in 1981, which quickly became a platform for popularizing new music of the time to suburbanites that can afford Cable.
I grew up in Suburban America and musicians like Biggie Smalls, Dr. Dre and Eminem were core listening for pretty much all kids at some point, even to the objections of their parents. You couldn’t get away from it – it was at every party, school dance, etc.
There was also a lot of backlash, because it was a new musical phenomenon and scary. Blatantly violent and profane lyrics were sort of a media-boogie-man in the 90s, in popular metal and rap. There was an attempts at censorship. You can read up about Tipper Gore and the Parental Advisory era.
Anyways, for older and conservative folks, there was far less exposure to AAVE in music. And movies and TV only tended to use general speakers, not broad.
So it’s easy to see where they may struggle. It’s like if *you* were trying to understand Belarusian. Like there’s enough similarities that you can get the main point, but you might miss like half the words.
Language constantly evolves. And AAVE will evolve differently than AmE. I don’t listen to rap, but I watch a lot of TV and learn new phrases and words along the way from broader speakers.
Mildly related: There is a subvariety of AAVE called Jive, which originated in NYC and got popular in the 60’s and 70s. Great joke in the movie Airplane about it, and it’s understandability, where characters require CC translations. [source](https://youtu.be/RrZlWw8Di10)
Unless they’re speaking Atlanta Patois, not hard at all.
There’s a lot of obscure references to other rappers, songs, events that I do not have any knowledge of.
Sometimes the website lyric genius can help.
With most genres of music I have difficulty making out what the words are. I can’t normally hear it well enough to get confused by symbolism or metaphor.
Not hard at all. There are some rappers who are known for mumbling or not speaking clearly but otherwise, if I meet someone who can’t understand ANY rappers period I would assume they are either 65 or don’t speak English well.
Depends on who the rapper is, for someone like J. Cole, Kendrick or Kanye it’s pretty easy. For some of the mumble rappers I swear they ain’t even saying words or making sentences, just talking gibberish over a good beat lol.
I’m white and imo it’s pretty easy. There’s some things that you just learn (EBK, shit like that)