Strategic Orthography in rap: monikers, aliasing, and naming practices of MCs

Brent Nicholas & George Figgs

Abstract for paper presented at
Culture, Language and Social Practice Conference
University of Colorado
5-7 October 2007

Names and naming practices are central to hip-hop culture and language. This is especially evident in rap performance(s), narrativity, the identity of MCs, and the notion of doing being a rapper. Unconventional orthographic and naming techniques and unorthodox approaches to labeling are often utilized in the names MCs use as aliases in raps and rap discourses. These names often seem to emerge for a range of linguistic functions beyond functioning as mere monikers. Orthographies and unconventional labeling techniques are reflective of indexing of larger cultural meanings, attention to the possibility of rhythmic and metrical constraints, the interplay of and amplification of the density of various intertextual connections or intersecting semantic planes, and of the fact that they are often smaller parts in larger semiotic systems constructed by rappers and crews. This project examines labeling practices on a number of levels. Specifically in terms of names rappers choose for themselves (such as Method Man who is also known as Jonny Blaze), the names that crews of groups of rappers and other hiphop artists self-proclaim (for instance the Funky Four plus One, the treacherous Three, the Furious Five, Death Row), and finally semiotic systems built in part on the these naming practices (such as the Shaolin mythology appropriated and developed by Wu Tang Clan). Both localized practices and more general patterns of naming across these three domains are explored on structural and ethnographic levels. Data is drawn from a wide range of the possible sources offered by hiphop, including but not limited to performance data, audio recordings and radio broadcasts, reviews of historical documents, interviews, and participant observation. Structural and ethnographic analyses are bridged in the examination of possible motivations for naming hiphop practices. Motivations include, but are not limited to, the following: (1) Identity manipulation or design for specific recipients. (2) Potential for future manipulation and referencing of the name in raps (through rhythmic manipulation, modulation, and metrical interpolation, e.g. snoop dogg —> s-n-double-o-p d-o-double-g) and also in production/music that accompanies raps (i.e. in terms of conceiving of a name/moniker/alias that is an easily sourceable and able to be found on old records or other previously existing sources/recording, in order to sample in production or have a DJ scratch over for instance. (3) To index, enact, and/or recreate the density of meaning or the intertextual effect or connections of a name (for instance one might look at the double g in Snoop Dogg as alluding to the concept of a G or gangster given that Snoop was a crucial piece in the rise of the g-funk era/sound, another example is DJ/producer RJD2 who's name seems to be a mutation of or allusion to the name of the star wars character RJD2, while simultaneously indexes the identity or concept of the DJ or DJing. (4) To provide an easily remembered and marketable name - a kind of recipient design in the name of commodification (5) Or, quite the opposite, the choosing of an alias in order to obscure one's identity (say for instance if one is bound by contract to record on one label yet wishes to record at another, or if one is bound by fear of prosecution for some crime to remain anonymous so to speak - the deferral of one's identity accorded by an alias can be useful in situations like these). (6) As a mediation of the last two, combining a kind of marketability with obscurity, and the ability capitalize on multiple markets/niches afforded one by multiple names (especially if one name/alias/moniker is already played out so to speak and no longer profitable or credible in the eyes of consumer-fans). (7) Names are often designed or chosen that incorporate some element(s) of one's real/birth name (8) Innovative pronunciations and spellings can be adopted to distinguish oneself from someone of the same or a similar name that one has co-opted (and in some cases in which the fame or prestige associated with the name is also co-opted on some level) (9) Ideological motivations can also play a role. The study of rap is clearly important to linguistics since it is one of the richest sources data on AAVE and language change available to us. This study is also relevant to certain orthographical concerns and the issue of privileging of non-standard orthographies (or de-privileging of standardized orthographies and practices) within these naming practices. It is also provides a step toward answering questions about how to treat such data (i.e. that drawn from the language of the Hip-Hop community) methodologically.

Brent Nicholas is a PhD student at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He can be reached at:Brent.Nicholas@Colorado.EDU.

George Figgs is a PhD student in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and a member of the Colorado Research in Linguistics editorial board.