Naming and Spelling Practices in Hip Hop

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Naming and Spelling Practices in Hip Hop

• by Alleen Pace Nilsen
• Arizona State University

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• Hip Hop grew out of the Civil Rights movement of
  the 1960s and 70s.
• It rejects the status quo and emphasizes the
  individual.
• Besides new approaches to music and rap, it
  includes break dancing, new kinds of art such as
  tagging and graph writing, and entrepreneurship
  related to clothing and entertainment.
• It is not limited to African Americans and in
  fact is now an international movement.

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The Importance of the Disk Jockey or DJ

• Creative spelling is part of Hip Hops rejection
  of the status quo. In the literature we found
  these alternate spellings of DJ
• Deejay DJing DJin DJn
• Several performers added one or both initials to
  their names as did DJ Kool Herc, usually credited
  with making the DJ a performer in his own right.
  Examples include
• Blue Jays DJ AJ DJ Clark Kent
• DJ Craze DJ Evil Dee DJ Kay Gee
• DJ Timmy Tim Jazzy Jay Juicy J

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The Importance of MCs

• In the late 1970s MCs (Master of Ceremonies)
  became almost as important as DJs.
• Various spellings include
• mc, emcee, eemceein, MCing, MCn and Femcee
  for a woman.
• Run DMC was named to honor the speed with which
  he ran between turntables.

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Rock--another favorite in names

• Examples include
• Coke La Rock
• Iroc (aka Roca Dolla)
• King Ad-Rock (one of the Beastie Boys)
• Roc-A-Fella (a record production company)
• Rock City Rockers (a b-boy group)
• Rock Steady Crew (a b-boy group)
• Scott La Rock (originally Scott Sterling)

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Cool or Kool is also important

• Hip hoppers like the strength of the k sound
  whether it is spelled with a k, c, or ck.
• Examples include the Outkast group and the name
  of rapper Kurtis Blow
• Krayzie Bones name also illustrates the sense of
  play that runs through hip hop. He is a member of
  the Bone Thugs-N-Harmony and plays alongside
  Layzie Bone, Bizzy Bone, Wish Bone, and
  Flesh-n-Bone.

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First Association with Kool

• Clive Campbell, a New York high school student,
  an immigrant from Jamaica, is given credit for
  his 1973 invention of a new kind of DJ.
• He didnt like the name Clive, and so decided to
  go by Herc, a shortened form of Hercules, a
  nickname given to him because of his size and
  strength.
• When working as a DJ, he called himself DJ Hurc
  and later added Kool because he liked the TV
  commercials for Kool cigarettes.

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Names That Build on the Idea of Cool

• Cold Crush Brothers
• Cold Crush Four
• Fresh Kid Ice
• Kool Moe Dee

• Ice Cube
• Ice T
• Vanilla Ice
• Wayne Frosty Freeze Frost

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The Value of Being Different

• Leslie Dunkling has said that the secret to a
  successful public name is that it is easy to
  pronounce and easy to remember, while at the same
  time having enough originality that it will
  somehow stand out.
• One way to achieve different spelling without
  changing pronunciation is to double the ending
  letter of a name as in Mobb Deep, Snoop Dogg, and
  Nate Dogg.
• The C.I.A. used this technique for an extra joke
  when they named a cut Ill-Legal.

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Traditional vs. Hip Hop Spellingas in These
Examples

• Traditional Hip Hop
• American Colors Amerikkan Colors
• Deaf Jam Def Jam
• Deaf Leopard Def Leppard
• Craft Works Kraftwerks
• Mamas Mamaz
• Rough Riders Records Ruff Ryers Records
• Soldiers Souljahs
• Stacks Stax
• Houdini Whodini

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Renaming as a Process

• People who have once changed their name, often
  feel free to change it again.
• E. G. Sean Coombs chose the stage name of Puff
  Daddy, but in 2001 changed to P. Diddy.
• Then when he went into business, changed back to
  Sean Coombs, maybe so he could use the eye-rhyme
  of Sean Jeans on his clothing.
• Most news stories listed him as P. Diddy (Sean)
  Combs, but when Michael Jackson died in 2009, his
  memorial statement was released under the name of
  Sean (P. Diddy) Coombs.

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From Codozar Calvin Broadus, Jr. to Snoop Dogg

• When Jon Stewart interviewed Snoop Dogg in
  December of 2009, the singer said that as a kid
  he used to love watching Charles Schulzs Snoopy
  Dog on TV and so he took for himself a name that
  he loved.
• He first took the name of Snoop Doggy Dog, which
  he later changed to Snoop Dogg.
• Feeling free to change ones name apparently
  makes a person fee free to be creative with other
  words. For example, Snoop Dogg is famous for
  using izzle as an infix in such words as
  televizzle, Americizzle, and in a minitizzle.
  One of his TV shows was named Doggy Fizzle
  Televizzle.

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Clipping as a Way of Change

• One kind of clipping is based on dialectal
  pronunciations as when the g is left off in
  World Class Wreckin Cru and Rappin Duke.
• Gangster is spelled Gangsta, Flavor as Flava, and
  Killer as Killa.
• Silent letters are dropped as in DJ Quik and
  double letters are made single as in Geto Boys.
• N (sometimes with apostrophes) is used in place
  of and, while some words are simply abbreviated
  as with Dead Prez.

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Playing with Initials and Capitalization

• Eminem aka Marshall Mathers
• Tanya Sweet Tea Winley
• Spoonie Gee
• Warren G --one of their hit songs is Regulate
  The G-Funk Era
• AC/DC
• Derrick Jones chose D-Nice

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SPELLING IN ALL CAPS

• DOZE
• FAB 5 FREDDY
• FABEL
• IZ THE WIZ
• LADY PINK
• SPAR ONE
• UPSKI Wimsatt
• ZEPHYR

• BMOC
• BOM
• EPMD
• KOS
• NAC
• ODB
• RSO
• URB

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Using Numbers as Names

• There is no set pattern of when to write out a
  number, e.g. 2 Pac and also Tupac
• Curtis Jackson invented the stage name of 50
  Cent.
• The recognition of alliteration comes from the
  sound rather than the repetition of letters, e.g.
  The Furious 5, The Funky 4 Plus One More, and Fab
  Five Freddie.
• C.I.A. cut a record Just 4 the Cash, using 4 in
  place of for, which is a common joke.

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SPELLING TO REFLECT ETHNIC PRIDE

• In 1976, Kevin Donovan went to the same school as
  Kool Herc and when he decided to make a name for
  himself as a DJ, he chose Afrika Bambaataa, to
  honor an ancient African Chief.
• Kaman Daaood, a 1960s poet (one of the Watts
  Prophets) also used double vowels in his name.
• Whether or not these are accurate representations
  of African pronunciations, their differentness
  communicates a rejection of the Biblical names
  most often given to Americans.
• There was a circular effect among
  celebritieswhether in athletics or
  entertainmentas when Cassius Clay changed to
  Muhammad Ali and Lew Alcindor changed to Kareem
  Abdul Jabar to honor Islam.

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The WHY and WHAT of Hip Hop Spelling

• Taking the right to name yourself is a mark of
  individuality.
• With many African Americans, it also reflects
  ethnic pride.
• And both on international and domestic fronts, it
  reveals junex vs. senex conflicts. It is a way
  for young people to declare their independence.

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In Conclusion

• The influence of Hip Hop spelling will continue
  to spread not so much in the spelling of specific
  words and names as in the attitude that its
  okay, or even GOOD, to devise your own spelling.
• This is especially true with the names that
  parents devise for their babies.
• While many parentsespecially African Americans
  who grew up with Hip Hoptake pride in devising
  what they claim are phonetically spelled names,
  the variety in the spelling of terms used
  throughout the community hints at the enormity of
  getting agreement on what letters communicate
  what sounds.
• Teachers of first graders tell me that they can
  no longer assume the spelling of even the
  shortest and easiest-to-pronounce names as shown
  by these four variations Amy, Aimee, Amey, and
  Aimi.

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Sources

• Arizona Humanities Council Symposium in Tempe, AZ
  July 2009.
• Cant Stop Wont Stop A History of the Hip-Hop
  Generation by Jeff Chang. St. Martins Press,
  2005.
• HipHop America by Nelson George. Penguin Books,
  1998.