Language, identity, and urban youth subculture: Nigerian HIP HOP music as an exemplar

Michael Tosin Gbogi

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.

Quick links
A browser-friendly version of this article is not yet available. View PDF
Abati, Reuben
(2009) A nation’s identity crisis. The Guardian. June 21: 35.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Adedeji, Adewale
(2010) Yoruba culture and its influence on the development of modern popular music in Nigeria. Ph.D. Dissertation. The University of Sheffield.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2011) Negotiating globalization through hybridization: Hip hop and the creation of cross-over culture in Nigerian popular music. Paper Presented at the 4th European Conference on African Studies (ECAS 4) , Uppsala, Sweden 15-18 June 2011.
(2013) African popular culture and the path of consciousness: Hip hop and the culture of resistance in Nigeria. Postcolonial Text 8.3 & 4: 1-18.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Adelakun, Abimbola A
(2013) Coming to America: Race, class, nationality and mobility in “African” hip hop. MA Thesis. University of Texas.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Adeleye-Fayemi, Bisi
(1994) Gender, sexuality, and popular culture in Nigeria. Institute for Advanced Study and Research in the African Humanities: Media, Popular Culture, and 'the Public' in Africa 8: 1-2. Retrieved from http://​quod​.lib​.umich​.edu​/p​/passages​/4761530​.0008​.002​/-gender​-sexuality​-and​-popular​-culture​-in​-nigeria​?rgn​=main;view​=fulltextGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Adetunji, Akin
(2013) The interactional context of humor in Nigerian stand-up comedy. Pragmatics 23.1: 1-22.  BoPGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Afokpa, Kodjo JB
(1994) On the Eue sex-related idiom Nafɔ: An interpretation of gender-sensitive speech in a rural setting. African Languages and Cultures 7.2: 83-90. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Agbo, Maduabuchi
(2009) Language alternation strategies in Nigerian hip hop and rap texts. Language in India 9.1: 34-62.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Agheyisi, Rebecca
(1988) The standardisation of Nigerian Pidgin English. English World-Wide 9: 227–241. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Aito, Emmanuel
(2005) National and official languages in Nigeria: Reflections on linguistic interference and the impact of language policy and politics on minority languages. In J. Cohen, K.T. McAlister, K. Rolstad, and J. MacSwan (eds.), Proceedings of the 4th International Symposium on Bilingualism. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press, pp. 18-38.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Akande, Akinmade T
(2013) Code-switching in Nigerian hip-hop lyrics. Language Matters 44.1: 39-57. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Alim, Samy H
(2002) Street-conscious copula variation in the hip hop nation. American Speech 77.3: 288-304. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2009) Translocal style communities: Hip hop youth as cultural theorists of style, language, and globalization. Pragmatics 19.1: 103-127. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Amos, Alex
(2012) History of Nigerian hip hop music: A tale of 3 decades. Retrieved from http://​www​.360nobs​.com​/2012​/07​/history​-of​-nigerian​-hip​-hop​-a​-tale​-of​-3​-decades/
Anderson, Benedict
(1983) Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. London: Verso.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Anibeze, Onochie et al.
(2014) Today, content doesn’t sell in music, ‘beats’ do. Vanguard newspaper, Nov 1 2014 Retrieved from http://​www​.vanguardngr​.com​/2014​/11​/today​-content​-doesnt​-sell​-music​-beats​/#sthash​.YNDgWlMr​.dpufGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Babalola, E.T., and R. Taiwo
(2009) Code-switching in contemporary Nigerian hip-hop music. Itupale Online Journal of African Studies 1: 1-26.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Baker, Houston A., Jr
(1986/2000) Belief, theory, and blues: Notes for a post-structuralist criticism of Afro-American literature. In Winston Napier (ed.), African American Literary Theory: A Reader. New York & London: New York University Press, pp. 224-241.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bamgbose, Ayo
(1999) African language development and language planning. Social Dynamics: A Journal of African Studies 25:1: 13-30. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2000) Language and exclusion: The consequences of language policies in Africa. New Jersey: Transaction Publishers.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2014) The language factor in development goals. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 35:7: 646-657. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bosire, Mokaya
(2009) What makes a Sheng word unique? Lexical manipulation in mixed languages. In A. Ojo, and L. Moshi (eds.), Selected proceedings of the 39th annual conference on African linguistics. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project, pp. 77-85.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre
(1991) Language and Symbolic Power. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.  BoPGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Butler, Judith
(1990) Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1997) The psychic life of power: Theories in subjection. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Charry, Eric
(2012) A capsule history of African rap. In E. Charry (ed.), Hip hop Africa: New African music in a globalizing world. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, pp. 1-25.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dare, A. Samson
(2005) Sexual discourse in Niyi Osundare’s poetry: A sociolinguistic reading. African Study Monographs 26.2: 89-97.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
de Klerk, Vivian
(1990) Slang: A male domain? Sex Roles 22.9/10: 589-606. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Deuber, Dagmar
(2005) Nigerian Pidgin in Lagos: Language contact, variation and change in an African urban setting. London: Battlebridge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Deuber, Dagmar, and Lars Hinrichs
(2007) Dynamics of orthographic standardization in Jamaican Creole and Nigerian Pidgin. World Englishes 26.1: 22–47. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Duranti, Alessandro
(2006) Narrating the political self in a campaign for US congress. Language in Society 35.4: 467-497.  BoPGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Egbokhare, Francis O
(2003) The story of a language: Nigerian Pidgin in spatiotemporal, social and linguistic context. In Peter Lucko, Lothar Peter, and Hans-Georg Wolf (eds.), Studies in African varieties of English. Frankfurt am Main: Lang, pp. 21–40.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Falola, Toyin, and Ann Genova
(2009) Historical dictionary of Nigeria. London: Scarecrow Press, Inc.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Federal Republic of Nigeria
(1979) The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1979. Lagos: Federal Government Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1999) The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999. Lagos: Federal Government Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Finnegan, Ruth
(1970/2012) Oral literature in Africa. Cambridge: OpenBook Publishers.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fitzpatrick, Patrick
(2007) Analyzing hip hop discourse as a locus of 'men's language'. Texas Linguistics Forum 51: 64-73.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Forchu, Ijeoma I
(2009) Nigerian popular music: Its problems and prospects in development. Ujah 2: 103-114.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Garuba, Harry
(2001) Language and identity in Nigeria. In S.B. Bekker, M. Dodds, and M.M. Khos (eds.), Shifting African identities. Pretoria: Human Sciences Research Council, pp. 7-20.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gates, Henry Louis, Jr
(1988) The signifying monkey. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gilroy, Paul
(1993) The black atlantic. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gumperz, John J
(1982) Discourse strategies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.  BoPGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hale, A. Thomas
(1994) Griottes: Female voices from West Africa. Research in African Literatures 25.3: 71-91.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Harding, Nancy
(2008) The “I”, the “me” and the “you know”: Identifying identities in organisations. Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: An International Journal 3.1: 42-58. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Heritage, John, and G. Raymond
(2005) The terms of agreement: Indexing epistemic authority and surbordination in talk-in-interaction. Social Psychology Quarterly 68.1: 15-38. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hess, Mickey
(2007) Is hip hop dead? The past, the present, and the future of America’s most wanted music. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Housley, Meghan K., H.M. Claypool, T. Garcia-Marques, and D.M. Mackie
(2010) ‘‘We” are familiar but ‘‘it” is not: Ingroup pronouns trigger feelings of familiarity. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 46: 114–119. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hunter, Linda
(1982) Silence is also language: Hausa attitudes about speech and language. Anthropological Linguistics 24.4: 389-409.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hymes, Dell H
(1972) On communicative competence. In J.B. Pride, and J. Holmes (eds.), Sociolinguistics: Selected readings. Harmondsworth: Penguin, pp. 269-293.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ihemere, Kelechukwu U
(2006) A basic description and analytic treatment of noun clauses in Nigerian Pidgin. Nordic Journal of African Studies 15.3: 296–313.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ikonne, Uchenna
(2009) Nigerian rap: The first decade (1981 – 1991). African HipHop. Retrieved from http://​www​.africanhiphop​.com​/naija​-nigerian​-80s​-rap​-on​-vinyl/.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Johnson, B. Guy
(1927) Double meaning in popular negro blues. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 22.1: 12-20. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Keyes, Cheryl L
(2004) Rap music and street consciousness. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kochman, Thomas
(1981) Black and white styles in conflict. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.  BoP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1986) Strategic ambiguity in black speech genres: Cross-cultural interference in participant-observation research. Text 6.2: 153-70.  BoP Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lambert, Ian
(2011) Chris Abani’s Graceland and Uzodinma Iweala’s Beasts of No Nation: Nonstandard English, intertextuality and Ken Saro-Wiwa’s Sozaboy . Language and Literature 20.4: 283–294. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lane, Nikki
(2011) Black women queering the mic: Missy Elliott disturbing the boundaries of racialized sexuality and gender. Journal of Homosexuality 58.6-7: 775-792. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lave, Jean, and E. Wenger
(1991) Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Liadi, Olusegun F
(2012) Multilingualism and hip hop consumption in Nigeria: Accounting for the local acceptance of a global phenomenon. Africa Spectrum 1: 3-19. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mehlman, Jeffrey
(1972) The "floating signifier": From Lévi-Strauss to Lacan. Yale French Studies 48: 10-37. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mitchell-Kernan, Claudia
(1972/2001) Signifying and marking: Two Afro-American speech acts. In Alessandro Duranti (ed.), Linguistic Anthropology: A reader. Malden, MA: Blackwell, pp. 151–64.  BoPGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Morgan, Marcyliena
(2002) Language, discourse and power in African American culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2003) Signifying laughter and the subtleties of loud-talking: Memory and meaning in African American women’s discourse. In M. Farr (ed.), Ethnolinguistic Chicago: Language and literacy in Chicago’s neighbourhoods. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2009) The real hiphop: Battling for knowledge, power, and respect in the LA underground. Duke: Duke University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2010) The presentation of indirectness and power in everyday life. Journal of Pragmatics 42: 283–291.  BoPGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mvula, Timpunza E
(1991) Strategy in Ngoni women’s oral poetry. Critical Arts: South-North Cultural and Media Studies 5.3: 1-37. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ndolo, Ike S
(1989) The case for promoting the Nigerian Pidgin language. The Journal of Modern African Studies 27.4: 679-684. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Okeilome, O. Albert
(2013a) ‘Are women just bad porn?’: Women in Nigerian hip-hop music. The Journal of Pan African Studies 5.9: 83-98.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2013b) Pop musicians and the 'evergreen' status in present day Nigeria: A discourse from the social media. Contemporary Experiences: Journal of African Humanities 1.2: 69-89.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Okome, Onookome
(2007) Introducing the special issue on West African cinema: Africa at the movies. Postcolonial Text 3.2: 1-17.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Okuyade, Ogaga
(2011) Rethinking militancy and environmental justice: The politics of oil and violence in Nigerian popular music. Africa Today 58.1: 78-101. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Olaniyan, Tejumola
(2004) Arrest the music! Fela and his rebel art and politics. Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indian University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Olusegun-Joseph, Yomi
(2014) Transethnic allegory: The Yoruba world, hip hop and the rhetoric of generational difference. Third Text 28.6: 517-528. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Omoniyi, Tope
(2005) Toward a re-theorization of code switching. TESOL Quarterly 39.4: 729-734. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2006) Hip-hop through the world Englishes lens: A response to globalisation. World Englishes 25.2: 195-208. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2009) So I choose to do am Naija style: Hip hop, language, and postcolonial identities. In H.S. Alim, A. Ibrahim, and A. Pennycook (eds.), Global linguistic flows: Hip hop cultures, youth identities, and the politics of language. New York: Routledge, pp. 113-135.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Omoniyi, Tope, S. Scheld, and D. Oni
(2009) Negotiating youth identity in a transnational context in Nigeria. Social Dynamics: A Journal of African Studies 35.1: 1–18. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Orekan, George
(2010) Language policy and educational development in Africa: The case of Nigeria. Scottish Languages Review 21: 17-26.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Orie, Olanike Ola
(2009) Pointing the Yoruba way. Gesture 9:2: 237–261. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Osundare, Niyi
(1982) Caliban's curse: The English language and Nigeria's underdevelopment. Ufahamu: A Journal of African Studies 11.2: 96-107.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1993) Midlife. Ibadan: Heinemann Educational Books.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pennycook, Alastair
(2009) Refashioning and performing identities in global hip-hip. In N. Coupland, and A. Jaworski (eds.), The new sociolinguistics reader. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 326-340. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2007) Global Englishes and transcultural flows. London: Routledge.  BoPGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pennycook, Alastair, and Tony Mitchell
(2009) Hip hop as dusty foot philosophy: Engaging locality. In H.S. Alim, A. Ibrahim, and A. Pennycook (eds.), Global linguistic flows: Hip hop cultures, youth identities, and the politics of language. New York: Routledge, pp. 25-42.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Potter, Russell A
(1995) Spectacular vernaculars: Hip hop and the politics of postmodernism. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rose, Tricia
(1994) Black noise: Rap music and black culture in contemporary America. Hanover, N.H.: Wesleyan University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Saah, Kofi K
(1986) Language use and attitudes in Ghana. Anthropological Linguistics 28: 367-377.  BoPGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sajnani, Damon
(2013) Troubling the trope of “Rapper as modern griot.” The Journal of Pan African Studies 6.3: 156-180.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sarkar, Mela, Lise Winer, and Kobir Sarkar
(2005) Multilingual code-switching in Montreal hip-hop: Mayhem meets method or, “Tout moune qui talk trash kiss mon black ass du nord”. In J. Cohen, K.T. McAlister, K. Rolstad, and J. MacSwan (eds.), Proceedings of the 4th International Symposium on Bilingualism. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press, pp. 2057-2074.  BoPGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sendén, Marie Gustafsson, Torun Lindholm, and Sverker Sikström
(2014) Selection bias in choice of words: Evaluations of “I” and “We” differ between contexts, but “They” are always worse. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 33.1: 49–67. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sholola, Damilola
(2014) What Dorobucci really means—Dr Sid. Vanguard September 21 2014 Available through: http://​www​.vanguardngr​.com​/2014​/09​/dorobucci​-really​-means​-drsid​/#sthash​.OdoYQnYl​.dpuf. . 02/16/2015.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Shonekan, Stephanie
(2012) Nigerian hip hop: Exploring a black world hybrid. In E. Charry (ed.), Hip hop Africa: New African music in a globalizing world. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, pp. 147-167.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2013) “The blueprint: The gift and the curse” of American hip hop culture for Nigeria’s millennial youth. The Journal of Pan African Studies 6.3: 181-198.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Siegel, Jeff
(2010) Pidgins and creoles. In N. Hornberge, and S.L. McKay (eds.), Sociolinguistics and language education. Bristol: Multilingual Matters, pp. 232-262. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Smitherman, Geneva
(1977) Talkin and testifyin: The language of Black America. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1997) “The chain remain the same”: Communicative practices in the hip hop nation. Journal of Black Studies 28.1: 3-25. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tang, Patricia
(2012) The rapper as modern griot: Reclaiming ancient traditions. In E. Charry (ed.), Hip hop Africa: New African music in a globalizing world. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, pp. 79–91.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wise, Christopher
(2006) Nyama and Heka: African concepts of the word. Comparative Literature Studies 43.1-2: 19-38. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
 
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue