Hip hop jargon
A characteristic of hip-hop culture is its own jargon , which contains many English loan words . There are terms that are used throughout Hip-Hop and those that only appear in the sub-areas of MCing , DJing , B-Boying and graffiti . For some Anglicisms , German equivalents have been found in the course of time. Some of these terms are also used generally in colloquial or youth language.
Hip-hop jargon (selection)
A-F
- Aight - short form of Engl. alright: okay; is often used by rappers in texts at the end of a line and stands for correct, ok or very exact or as confirmation.
- Atze - (noun) expression for friend or buddy in the Berlin area
- B-Boy / B-Girl - (noun) from engl. Break boy or girl, a male or female break dancer
- Backpacker - Term used to describe a person who mainly listens to underground hip-hop. Originally, the word referred to graffiti artists who always carried a bag with their music collection (which mostly consisted of local underground rap acts) and their graffiti utensils, but today only refers to the musical preference of the respective person.
- Backspin - dance step in breakdance and scratch movement
- bangen - (verb) from engl. to bang: bang; having sexual intercourse with someone is usually used in a derogatory way. It is now increasingly used for bass-heavy music with hard or deep kicks that make the speakers "pop". Example: "We let the boxes fear!"
- Bar - (noun) engl. Measure , a line of lyrics from a song
- Battle - (noun) from engl. battle, a test of strength between two opponents, both between MCs and between b-boys, DJs , sprayers and beatboxes . It is usually judged by a jury or the audience (see also battle rap )
- Beat Juggling - is the manipulation of two identical or different records to create a new melody
- Beef - (noun) quarrel or animosity between people
- Bitchmove - doing something unfair
- biten - (verb) from engl. to bite: bite; Copying , copying / imitating texts, styles and / or flows from other MCs or writers, whereby it is stated that the service provided is a product in itself
- Bling-Bling - Shiny jewelry
- bounce - English. for "bounce"; this means the typical body movements to the beat of hip-hop music, which can be observed en masse at scene concerts.
- broke - engl. for "being broke"; Especially in original hip-hop it was not uncommon for rappers to literally have "nothing" except their music
- burbs - from engl. Suburbs; derogatory for "good neighborhood", stuffy suburb
- Cat - engl. Cat; People you don't know directly, but who are there
- Chabo - (noun) boy (from Rotwelsch tšabo "boy")
- chill - (verb) hang out; messing around; being relaxed
- Cred - (noun) from engl. Credibility; credibility
- Crew - (noun) engl. Group; Association of friends (e.g. sprayer crew or rap crew)
- cutten - (verb) engl. to cut: cut off, cut off; denotes the interruption of the recording in case of lack of air and restarting the recording from the point where it was interrupted; also used as a synonym for “ scratching ”
- Cypher : a freestyle by several people that is performed one after the other
- rough - another word for very, mega, bad, etc., although it is not possible to verify exactly from which subculture the loan originally originated. The electronic music scene also seems to be decisive, in which the word "violent" was substituted by "rough" in the late nineties.
- Diss - (noun) from engl. disrespect: is an insult or the loss of respect
- diggin 'in the crates - English for " rummaging through boxes". This describes the z. Sometimes time-consuming search for "special" records in record stores, second hand shops, etc.
- dogg - (noun) from engl. dog ( dog ), originally from the United States , only means “colleague”, “friend” or “buddy”; therefore equated with homie.
- Dope - (noun) from the original meaning “doping” or “stimulant”, probably the best known and most frequently used synonym for cannabis or hashish . Other English meanings such as "idiot", "idiot" or "sucker" are not implied in hip-hop jargon.
- being down - being in a bad mood, being sad, also: "being down with sb." agreeing with someone, understanding someone
- drip - "drip" means that somebody wears a chic outfit or a chic hairstyle
- Esé - self-designation of the Latin American population in the USA, comparable to Chicano
- Faker - (noun) from engl. fake: someone who pretends to be or to be able to do something, a blender
- bold - form of enthusiasm. Stands for: "great", "great", " awesome ". Quite often to be found in the combination “Derbst fat!” Or just “That's fat!”. It means something like: “That's really good” or “Damn cool”.
- Flow - (noun) from engl. flow; is the interplay of voice, beat, melody, intonation, text and pronunciation of the rapper
- fly - (adj.) cool, wacky, also youth word of the year (Germany) 2016 ("fly to be")
- Freestyle - (noun) from engl. Freestyle; improvised rapping or breaking; Freestyle battles are also common
- fronten - (verb) from engl. to front: to pretend something to someone, (attempted) to pretend that there is no realness , “preach water and drink wine” or even challenge
G-M
- G from engl. Gangster, abbreviation for gangster. There are also known G rappers, i.e. gangsta rappers
- Game - a term from the USA that generally stands for the rap scene
- Ganja - another term for marijuana
- haten - (verb) from engl. to hate: to hate; Often used expression between hip-hoppers, has less to do with hatred and more to do with envy. Haten means making bad for no reason
- Homeboy - (noun) Means as much as friend / mate. In its original form, an address to a friend or gang member. Over time, the word became increasingly ironic and now mostly has a negative meaning. Homeboy is not in itself a diss (abuse) to the person addressed, but increasingly a form of address to a person who is dissed.
- Homie - (noun) Abbreviation for Homeboy, but with different meanings; Usually addressed to a friend (in this case "Homes" is often used), but in battle rap as a neutral form of address to the opponent
- Hood - stands for the residential area in which you live (I come from the hood). Derivation or abbreviation of (English) neighborhood (neighborhood)
- Hook - can be translated as a refrain
- Holla - greeting. Derivation from (English) to holler (roar, shout), to give a holler (let me know, get in touch )
- Hustler - someone who gets through various (often illegal) jobs such as B. Keeps drug sales or pimping alive
- Ice - (noun) from engl. Ice; In hip-hop a visual comparison, meaning diamonds and overall eye-catching jewelry
- JC - English initials of J esus C hrist ( Jesus Christ ), are found more in rap texts than in everyday discourse.
- Jam - (noun) hip-hop party in the traditional sense
- The Jects (pronounced: Jets) stands for Engl. Housing Projects ; Ghetto district, social housing
- Kalle - allusion to the Berlin rapper Yin Kalle who used Kalle as Adlib (exclamation after the end of a sentence). Can be added after each sentence as an emotion enhancing element or used as a standalone exclamatio.
- killer / killa / killah - (adj.) Used the same as bold.
- Kek - (noun) something like: victim, failure
- lit - (adj.) roughly: great, super, beautiful; Expression of enthusiasm. In English , lit is the past tense of the verb (to) light and the adjective lit means “illuminated” or “lit”. In 2017 the word reached the 6th place in the election for the youth word of the year in Austria .
- Lowrider - (noun) rhythmic movement of the outstretched forearm.
- Mary Jane - from Engl. Marijuana (sometimes also written with “j”), feminine personification and endorsement of the drug. The expression I love you, Mary Jane (German: I love you, Mary Jane) is often found in the scene and in some rap texts , e.g. B. in the song "Hits from the Bong" - Cypress Hill .
- MC - (from English: master of ceremony) is a rapper or generally a person who takes part in a battle, or simply a hip-hop artist
- Mic - (from the English: microphone) is used as the microphone described
N-S
- Nigger - (noun) Derivation from "Negro" (negro), derogatory comment by the slave traders about the oppression of black slaves. Used up to the present day to show contempt for a black person. As a slang term (in jargon also nigga, niggah or niggar ) it is used among blacks, but increasingly also among whites in an ironic way in the sense of “friend”, “buddy”. This term is often used by black rappers. In battle rap it can also be used to describe the opponent in a provocative but also ironic way. Compare Homie / homeboy
- OG - Abbreviation for "Original Gangsta". That means someone who really comes from the street and has had a hard life and not only glorifies this, also: founder of a street gang or older gang member
- Sacrifice / Opfa - swear word that is used for a male person who cannot defend himself adequately or shows weaknesses in other ways and generally does not correspond to a specific concept of masculinity.
- Peace - (noun) engl. for peace, in the jargon of the scene (as peace! or peace out! ) is the quintessential farewell formula. Sometimes it is also written out according to the mother tongue, that is, in Switzerland and Germany there are versions like piis or piice. For example, if two friends say goodbye with this farewell, they often also demonstrate the typical hand sign: the V-Victory sign reversed or with the outside hand facing outwards.
- Player / Playa - (noun) Prolet or " Pimp "; describes a young man with a dissolute sex life with rapidly changing and short partnerships. If the term is used by a woman, one understands the term as derogatory (fig. Male whore ).
- Propz / Props - (noun) from engl. proper respect; Expressions of respect (People Respect Other People Seriously)
- Punchline - engl. Punchline ; Humorous line of text that hits the opponent hard
- Punk (s) - swear word, but not related to political opinion
- Pussy - female sex organ or (derogatory) term for women (fig. Bitch , whore ) or as Diss to men (figurative coward or sissy )
- Rap game or Rapbizz - (noun) the rap business or the rap scene
- Shit - stands for 1. hashish , 2. for pieces of music (often in the following context: "Your shit is tight!") Or more general "stuff"
- Shorty - term for girls / women. Means something like "sweetie / little one". Also used colloquially as "Shawty".
- spitten - (verb) from engl. hissing, spitting: Special rap technique in which words or sequences of words are rhymed with each other that are (almost) the same, but have different meanings.
- straight - straightforward, purposeful, describes a determined rapper, but can also mean heterosexual
- strugglen - (verb) from engl. to struggle ( to struggle with something, to fight an inferior fight): Having problems coping with (everyday) life
- Studio Gangster - Term for gangsters who just hang out in the studio and make music instead of the usual gangsta thing
- Stunners - From the Ebonics black -slang US rapper, is meant by the sunglasses, but also as a slang word for ecstasy use
- Swag as a paraphrasing for an enviable, casual-cool charisma or a charismatic-positive charisma found its way into the hip-hop scene through Soulja Boy and the German-language cover of Money Boy .
T-Z
- tight - (adj.) from Engl. tight: tight, tight, good. Is always used in relation to an artist in the scene or his product and means something like very good, in the original / narrower meaning it stands for stanzas that are rapped very precisely to the beat. In the slang of some artists in the scene, however, this word is also used as a synonym for drunk or broad. Simplified, it is now also spelled Tait or Teit in German
- Timbs and Air Ones - short for Timberland Boots and Nike Air Force 1 - the classics among hip-hop shoes
- Wack MC / Whack MC / Weak MC - (noun) An MC that is not respected in the community
- Wack / Whack - adjective for bad, a "whack" MC is a bad MC
- Wanksta / Wankster - (noun) with a song of the same name coined by the US rapper 50 Cent ; Combination of the words wannabe (would-be) and gangster / gangsta (criminal, gang member). The combination written with "k" also purposely alludes to the English expletive expression wanker ( wanker ).
- Whigger - an American neologism from the words “white” and “nigger” to designate white people who dress like black people, how they speak or rap. Whether used by blacks or whites, the term is usually meant derogatory
- Word (or also: "Word on it" ) - this is either a short form for "I swear" if you end your own statement with it, or an agreement or an agreement when someone else comments on a statement with it. Often also "Word Up" (eg: "Word up dog!" - "Exactly old!" Or "Word Is Bond [Son]" ). As a question at the end of a personal statement, the request for consent is also emphasized
- Wannabe - a "wannabe". People who see themselves as "hip hoppers" but only pretend to be "tough"
- Yeet - expression for joy, is mostly called or shouted
- Yo - greeting, collegial. Sometimes also serves as a substitute for the word yes or just as a filler word, e.g. B. when a rapper starts rapping
- twelve-ten - legendary Technics record player. Meant is the model SL-1210, which is known for its reliability and durability
Web links
Wiktionary: Directory: German / Hip Hop - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations
- Rap Dictionary - Wiki about hip-hop slang , bands and artists
- urbandictionary - online dictionary with slang words, (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Körber Foundation ( Memento from October 15, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) short article on the history of Homeboy Industries .
- ↑ Bravo: What does "Lit" really mean? January 3, 2019, accessed May 2, 2019 .
- ↑ Hello, I bims! "- Do you speak Vong?, Lehrerweb.wien, November 29, 2017
- ↑ lit | Definition of lit in English by Oxford Dictionaries. Retrieved May 2, 2019 .
- ↑ election result Youth Word 2017 , oedeutsch.at (Society for Austrian German)
- ↑ Tina Stommel: Ey, Opfa, are you on? ( Memento of February 6, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) in General-Anzeiger-Bonn, April 20, 2010, accessed on May 11, 2015.