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‘First things first, I'm the realest’: Linguistic appropriation, white privilege, and the hip‐hop persona of Iggy Azalea[Note 1. The authors are greatly indebted to Sonya Fix, Sonja ...]
Author(s) -
Eberhardt Maeve,
Freeman Kara
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
journal of sociolinguistics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1
H-Index - 51
eISSN - 1467-9841
pISSN - 1360-6441
DOI - 10.1111/josl.12128
Subject(s) - lyrics , appropriation , privilege (computing) , slang , linguistics , persona , sociology , azalea , cultural appropriation , white (mutation) , art , political science , literature , anthropology , humanities , philosophy , horticulture , law , biology , biochemistry , chemistry , gene
The ‘hip‐hop nation’ is a multiethnic, transnational community that originates from and privileges urban African American experiences. Scholars have explored ways that non‐African Americans worldwide use linguistic features of African American English ( AAE ) as a way of constructing hip‐hop affiliated identities. The current paper ties these strands together in a study of the linguistic patterns of white Australian rapper Iggy Azalea, who makes use of AAE in her music, but not in other public speech. Our study presents a variationist analysis of copula absence in her lyrics. Findings show that her rates of this hallmark feature of AAE are extremely high, when compared to similar analyses of other rappers. We argue that her overzealous application of AAE features in her music, in order to create a specific linguistic style, enables a success that rests ultimately on the appropriation of African American language and culture, and the privilege that whiteness affords.