Negotiating Authenticities: Stylistic Variation in the Rap Performance of Singaporean Amateur Rappers

Abstract

Hip-hop has become a global genre over the past 50 years, and its international dissemination spreads not just rap music, but language ideologies and indexical meanings attached to the linguistic medium of African American Vernacular English (AAVE). Central to success in hip-hop is the idea of keepin’ it real, which prizes authenticity in performance. However, when taken out of the African American context, there rises a disjunct between the projection of genre authenticity – keeping true to the idealised genre of rap and its African American roots – and projection of one’s own local authenticity. While scholars have studied this variation amongst and communities with relatively large music markets and positive orientations towards local varieties of English, Singapore present an interesting case because of the cultural cringe which Singaporeans have towards their local variety of English, which can perhaps further encourage them away from the use of local forms. Moreover, studies have focused on professional musicians rather than amateurs who are in the process of establishing their identities and are thus located within the crossroads of language ideologies. This study takes a variationist perspective towards rap performance to understand how Singaporean amateur rappers perform their rap personas to establish themselves as capable rappers vis-à-vis local and genre authenticities. The study looks at local ideologies towards accents in hip-hop, and measures variation of 5 features distinct to Singapore English and AAVE in rap to determine how and why Singaporeans stylistically shift their pronunciations. The study concludes that Singaporeans do indeed shift their pronunciations towards more AAVE-coded pronunciations in order to project genre authenticity and thus legitimacy as authentic rappers, but that they can also choose to reflect local leanings and even adopt other linguistic codes.