Recreolization in rap music: a matter of authenticity

What is it about?

Despite rap's African American roots, there has been a great amount of rappers from different ethnic groups, which has placed authenticity under the spotlight. In this article, we hypothesize that the recreolization process carried out by African American rappers can be directly connected with the appropriation of African American Vernacular English (AAVE) features by non-African American rappers. We also argue that, from a sociocognitive point of view, the recreolization process constitutes an in-group strategy that enables African American rappers to preserve their distinctiveness as a way of responding to a perceived identity threat.

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Photo by Joel Muniz on Unsplash

Photo by Joel Muniz on Unsplash

Why is it important?

This article tries to find socio-cognitive explanations to sociolinguistic behaviors. In connecting these two areas of investigation, we achieved a deeper and more solid explanation of a central element in the rap scene: the significance of language. The parallelisms between rappers' linguistic uses and intergroup behavioral patterns constitute a new tool of analysis to explore this and other linguistic realities.