亚洲网紅露点

A lexical mixtape

From Big Band to Big Sean, a history of American popular music is very much a history of Black music. It鈥檚 also, in so many ways, a history of slang.

Consider one of slang鈥檚 greatest hits: cool. This catch-all for 鈥渆xcellent鈥濃�攖oday as common as Cardi B on the Hot 100鈥攚as spread by hip-hop鈥檚 forerunners, jazz artists, in the 1940s.

June is African-American Music Appreciation Month, also known as Black Music Month. It’s a time to commemorate the continuing legacy of Black music on American life, and, for our part, we鈥檙e celebrating the lingo, spanning Louis Armstrong’s听blues to City Girl’s听drip, that Black musicians helped take platinum in our lexicon.

And, you can listen along!听In partnership with Universal Music Group鈥檚 urban catalog imprint: , we are听featuring Black artists whose music helped popularize听a lot of our slang terms in the past century.

亚洲网紅露点s plus beats? That鈥檚 our jam.

the blues | Louis Armstrong

A descendant of spirituals sung by slaves, the blues is a genre of music that developed in the South in the late 19th century. It takes its name from the expression the blues听(鈥渄epressed spirits, melancholy鈥�) for the woes its singers soulfully wail.

While the blues is recorded as early as the 1740s, the term took off in the early 20th century, thanks in part to its prominent use in such song titles as 鈥淪t. Louis Blues.鈥�

A 1929 version of this song became a staple of the American songbook by trumpeter and vocalist Louis Armstrong, a giant of jazz (which grew from the blues). What鈥檚 causing his blues in St. Louis? An all-too familiar tune: a man leaving a woman. “Got the St. Louis blues, as long as I can see / Oh, my guy’s got a heart like a rock in the sea.”

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hound dog | Big Mama Thornton

Willie Mae 鈥淏ig Mama鈥� Thornton had enough of the shenanigans in her 1952 hit 鈥淗ound Dog,鈥� famously covered by Elvis in 1956. On it, Thornton growls:You ain’t nothing but a hound dog
Been snoopin’ ’round my door
You can wag your tail
But I ain’t gonna feed you no more

The song was written by legendary songwriting duo Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, who in part chose hound dog in lieu of some 鈥� stronger slang.Hound dog is also a colorful metaphor for a man mooching off a woman. Act like a hound dog today, and you may find Cardi B dog-walking you tomorrow.

killing floor | Howlin' Wolf

Canines, metaphors, and relationship troubles all come together in the 1964 single 鈥淜illing Floor鈥� by electric guitar bluesman Howlin鈥� Wolf, who laments:听鈥淚 was foolin鈥� with ya baby, I let ya put me down on the killin鈥� floor.鈥�

Also called the slaughter floor, killing floor is 1960s slang for a place used 鈥� to have sex. Sometimes it acted as a double whammy: occasionally used as slang for a breakup too.听

We don鈥檛 think we need to spell out the analogy here, but, linguistically speaking,听killing floor is a slang trifecta: 1: It concerns a taboo topic (sex) by 2: talking around it (euphemism) 3: in a vivid, exaggerated manner (hyperbole).Killing floor makes a more recent relationship slang term seem mild: cuffing season, which is when a couple is figuratively handcuffed together during winter.

rock | Chuck Berry

Today, you rock听is a casual way to tell someone they鈥檙e great or awesome. But, this meaning of听rock has become so familiar … many may not remember its roots in rock music and the long history of the genre鈥檚 name. Rocking and rolling was sexual slang in the 1920s. Over the next decades, these very, um, descriptive verbs lent themselves to music鈥攍ike blues, jazz, and their 1950s offspring, rock-‘n’-roll鈥攖hat got people on the dance floor.

Putting his sizzling electric guitar front and center, Chuck Berry is hailed as the 鈥淔ather of Rock and Roll.鈥� You don鈥檛 have to listen any further than his 1957 classic 鈥淩ock and Roll Music鈥� to see why: Just let me hear some of that rock and roll music
Any old way you choose it 鈥�
It鈥檚 gotta be rock and roll music
If you wanna dance with me.
Thanks in part to Berry and his high-energy, edgy sound, rock rolled on as slang for 鈥渢o be full of life and excitement鈥� and 鈥渢o be great,鈥� more generally.

grapevine | Marvin Gaye

鈥淚 heard it through the grapevine 鈥︹�� We dare you to stop singing along to this Motown masterpiece鈥攁bout that perennial source of the blues, infidelity鈥攆amously performed by Marvin Gaye in 1968.

鈥淚 Heard It Through The Grapevine鈥� brought new attention to the slang grapevine, or 鈥済ossip.鈥� It’s much older than many would guess, dating back to the Civil War. Grapevine is shortened from grapevine telegraph, a creative metaphor for an informal network that spreads rumors or secret information. In his 1901 autobiography听Up from Slavery,听Booker T. Washington discussed 鈥渢he whispered discussions鈥� of grapevine telegraphs as important sources of news about Civil War battles and the emancipation of slaves.

Today, you might hear a different plant used for “gossip”: tea, a slang term steeped in Black drag culture.

funkentelechy | Parliament

The band Parliament never missed an opportunity to be funky. Not in their music, funk (a genre that emerged from Black popular music in the 1960s), nor in their words, such as on their 1977 鈥淔unkentelechy.鈥�Funkentelechy riffs on entelechy, a philosophical concept of “realization or actuality as opposed to a potentiality,” aka “being real.” For Parliament, that could be achieved through the down-to-earth-ness of funk.

Parliament, though, was often far out. Their aesthetic drew on science fiction and is an important part of the tradition of Afrofuturism, as recently explored in the Black Panther superhero franchise.

phat | Salt-N-Pepa

Hip-hop queens Salt-N-Pepa open their 1993 track 鈥淕roove Me鈥� admiring the song’s beat: 鈥淕ot that phat groove on the reel.鈥�

This line helped bring the slang phat, or 鈥渆xcellent,鈥� to the masses. And, the word is an incredible showcase of many of the sociolinguistic dynamics of slang:

1. 听Phat is older than you may think, as is often true of slang terms we think are the latest thing 鈥渒ids are saying these days.鈥� It’s听recorded in the 1960s for 鈥渁n attractive woman.鈥�
2. It features a deliberately altered spelling (phat听for听fat). Compare thicc, a contemporary slang term also used of attractive women.
3. Phat deals with ideas of attractiveness and greatness, common topics in slang, from drip to dope.
4. It听isn鈥檛 in fashion anymore鈥攖he fate of many slang terms once they go mainstream. On fleek, anyone?

G.O.A.T. | LL Cool J

In 2000, LL Cool J wasn鈥檛 mincing his words when he released the title track of his album听G.O.A.T. He was abbreviating them.

G.O.A.T. stands for the greatest of all time, as LL Cool J makes plain on the track: 鈥淚鈥檓 the G.O.A.T. / The Greatest of All Time.鈥� While previously used as an acronym for boxing鈥檚 Muhammad Ali in the 1990s, LL made it certified cool.

Since then, other rappers have boasted the title, and other sports stars, from Michael Jordan to Tiger Woods, have worn it. G.O.A.T. has shape-shifted, too, with users cleverly substituting the goat emoji, 馃悙, for the expression.

guap | Big Sean

Clams,听bones. Cheddar,听dough. Bands,听the bag. Moola. Slang loves playing with terms for money, and guap is no exception.

As is often true of slang words, the origin of guap is obscure. It may have been shortened from guapo (鈥渉andsome鈥�) or guapa (鈥減retty鈥�) in New York city, 脿 la 鈥渉andsome sum鈥� or 鈥減retty penny.鈥澨鼳lso spelled gwop, some have creatively proposed it stands for George Washington on Paper (dollar bills).

While used by Nelly as early as 2004 on 鈥淕rand Hang Out,鈥� Big Sean made guap big on his 2012 鈥淕uap.鈥� On the chorus, he and Kanye West tout their successes: 鈥淥K, this to all of my enemies that see me gettin’ guap right now / See me gettin’ guap right now, see me gettin’ guap right now.鈥�

boujee | Migos

In 2016, red-hot hip-hop trio Migos鈥攚ho helped make the dab听go viral, continuing the long tradition of dance moves and names in Black music鈥�also introduced many of us to the slang boujee on their track 鈥淏ad and Boujee.鈥�Boujee can signify something luxurious in lifestyle but still humble in character. On 鈥淏ad and Boujee,鈥� for instance, Migos鈥� member Offset raps about how his 鈥渂itch is bad and boujee.鈥� That is, his love interest听is (or aspiring to be) materially successful (boujee) but still down to earth (bad).听

As is true of many other slang words, boujee听is ultimately an outgrowth of an older concept鈥�bourgeois, shortened by the 1970s as bougie and meaning 鈥減retentious and consumeristic.鈥�

skrrt | SZA

Skrrt, also spelled听skrt and skrr,听imitates听(onomatopoeia)听the sound of a car speeding away or turning a corner.

Several hip-hop artists use听skrrt as an ad lib, which, in hip-hop, is a signature interjection artists often issue at the end of a line for style and emphasis. Remember “Bad and Boujee”? It features skrrt when Offset raps about taking off in his Porsche, nicknamed frog: “Hop in the frog, whoo (skrrt).”

On her acclaimed 2017 track “Love Galore,” soul singer SZA steers听skrrt to the next level by using it as a metaphorical verb for speeding away from a man who isn’t worth her while.Skrt down, you acting like meActing like we wasn’t more than a summer flingWe can almost imagine her in a convertible, top down, peeling off with a laughing smile on her face.听Skrrt!