the Emcee
Language and Masculine Ideology in
Freestyle Rap Performances
Quentin E. Williams
INTRODUCTION1
It has been more than a decade since the publication of Sally Johnson and
Ulrike Meinhof’s (1997) landmark collection of essays on Language and
Masculinity, a work which shaped some of the arguments in feminist lin-
guistics (Eckert and McConnell-Ginet 2003), language and gender studies
(Bucholtz et al. 1999), and studies in language and sexuality (Cameron and
Kulick 2003). The collection of papers in that volume was an attempt to
think through the various linguistic and discursive practices and implica-
tions of men’s talk, and how men articulate their masculinities, and what
views they have as men, based on class, social status, and other factors such
as race and ethnicity (see in particular Coates 1997). In the introductory
chapter, Johnson laid bare the agenda for casting language and masculini-
ties, among other aspects, through a more critical ambit, from deconstruct-
ing hegemonic or ‘dominance’ framings of heterosexual masculinity to
addressing the idea of ‘difference.’ Particularly, she argued that “[w]hat we
really need is to know more about the complex role played by ‘difference’
in the construction of ‘dominance,’” going on to say that “[t]he study of
language and masculinities is not simply one way of exploring such a role”
but that “it [is] difficult to envisage how this can be done without looking at
men” (Johnson 1997: 25; italics in original).
Today we live in globalised societies where heterosexual men, their ideas
of being men, and their practices are placed under the spotlight and studied
with intense scrutiny (see studies by Shire 1994; Bourdieu 2001; McConnell-
Ginet 2011; Atanga et al. 2013; Milani and Shaikjee 2013). As Milani
(2011) argues in his introduction to a special issue of Gender & Language
on Re-casting Language and Masculinities, it is imperative to have a critical
focus on heterosexual men not only in order to grasp the plurality of mascu-
linities, but also to constantly question how, why, and with what linguistic
and semiotic means men produce their heterosexual masculinities in various
contexts (183–184).
This chapter contributes to Milani’s call to question the conditions that
enable the production of heterosexual masculinities, by focusing on how
underpin not only linguistic form and use but also the very notion of
the person and the social group, as well as such fundamental social
institutions as religious ritual, child socialization, gender relations, the
nation-state, schooling, and law.
(3)
Given the previous discussion, in this section of the chapter, I will demon-
strate how the language ideological associations of (1) working-classness and
the non-standard stereotyping and marginalisation that have come to define
the language variety Kaaps; (2) the violence, gangsterism, and aggressiveness
ideologies typically associated with the use of Sabela; and (3) the use of AAVE
as a racialised variety are taken up and performed by emcees in the perfor-
mance of freestyle rap (cf. Williams and Stroud, forthcoming). I will explore
two instances of toughness in freestyle rap performances during a hip-hop
show held in a popular night-club. Performances are “critical sites for the
play of linguistic ideologies about types of people, the varieties they are sup-
posed to speak and the indexical varieties associated with these varieties,”
and they also serve as important “frameworks of interpretation which people
orient to in their everyday lives” (Lo and Kim 2012: 258). In the context of
this paper, I explore freestyle rap performances as instantiations and pro-
cesses of entextualisation (Bauman and Briggs 1990) central to the enactment
and articulation of toughness by emcees. Entextualisation here refers to how
context-specific interactions become decontextualised and recontextualised
in the extraction of a piece of linguistic interaction, a text, or discourse, from
one particular space, and its incorporation into another in such a way “that
the resultant text carries elements of its history of use within it” (Bauman
and Briggs 1990: 73; Bakhtin 1981). As such, I aim to demonstrate in the
Chuck:
52 Uh
53 Uh
54 Uh (Chucks moves closer to Bio.has.it)
Apart from lines 70 to 71, the hysterical laugh in line 72, Chuck argues
that Bio.has.it is “fucking with” him and as a consequence is looking for
From the start of his performance, line 75, Bio.has.it points out that the
affiliation to Brainstormers, a rap group not affiliated to MobCoW or the
Kuilsriver hip-hop community, compromised Chuck’s toughness: the reason
for this is that Chuck was always seen as a marginal member of the group
and it became general knowledge throughout the larger hip-hop community.
But because this is freestyle rap where creativity is taken seriously, the lyrical
combinations are done in several ways. Bio.has.it accuses Chuck of being
the female of his group, crying when a cucumber is in his ass. This explicit
reference brings Chuck’s masculine body into question, with Bio.has.it ask-
ing why his face is full of pimples; suggesting something has gone wrong;
and further pointing out that Chuck looks like an interbred species that
looks like an ostrich and a mouse.
These comments on Chuck’s body lead Bio.has.it to further associate
his opponent with two popular television personae (lines 86 to 88): ET,
the extra-terrestrial alien who stars in Steven Spielberg’s popular movie by
the same name, and a local and very stereotypical persona captured in the
name Auntie Beattie, modelled after a television character named Auntie
Stienie who stars in the popular 1980s Afrikaans series, Agter Elke Man
(‘Behind Every Man’). Auntie Stienie is a mature gossipy neighbour with
rollers in her hair, who looks for rumours in order to spread them widely.
Thus, in the same way that Chuck entextualised figures and personae
before, so does Bio.has.it.
The point I want to highlight here is that the dialogical construction of
toughness staged by the emcees demonstrates how femininity is not only
entextualised as figures of fantasy (the Little Witch), but that it also tells us
how femininity is tied into the staging of an aggressive articulation of tough
masculinity in the use of linguistic features of Kaaps. This is specifically clear
in the use of Kaaps expletives (such as “fokking,” line 59; “naai” in lines
66 and 71; “fokken,” line 73); as well as the use of sexual image-invoking
words (such as “komkommers,” line 78; “hol,” line 79). We can add to that
Cameron and Kulick’s (2003) argument that the “linguistic features that
index femininity linguistically also index heterosexual identity, because of
the crucial role played by compulsory heterosexuality in the construction of
gender identity and gender relations” (50–51).
Thus it is clear that both emcees make widely relevant the use of Kaaps for
emceeing toughness, and this is particularly the case for emcee Chuck who
suggests explicitly that his toughness is tied to his ouens’ tough masculinity.
They draw on historical discourses to construct each other’s masculinity and
throughout the whole performance Kaaps is made the linguistic resource
on which they draw to maintain their rhythm and cadence of freestyle rap
Jack Denovan:
1 Is ja
Yeah
2 Kykie
Look
3 Is ja
Yeah
4 Kykie
Look
5 Bio, ek is an actual
Bio, I am an actual
6 Die ding is ’n bunny
This thing is a bunny
7 Hy’s ’n fokken Biosexual
He’s a fucking Biosexual
8 Kyk hoe staan hy
Look how he stands
9 Hande in die sak
With his hands in pocket
10 Ek het hom nog nie gebattle nie
I haven’t even started this battle
11 Toe sak hy al my plak
But I’m already unsettled
From the start of his performance, from lines 5 to 11, Jack articulates his
own toughness as real, “actual,” compared to Bio.has.it being a “biosex-
ual,” for several reasons. First, if we take lines 6 and 7 together, we see that
Jack attempts to denigrate the toughness of Bio.has.it by explicitly referring
to him as a “bunny.”6 The word bunny is widely used among gay men and
women who speak Gayle (Cage 2003), although the word is used here to
12 Hy’s ’n nigga
He’s a nigga
13 gangsta rapper
14 but this fucka never pulled a trigger
15 Madonna se figure (gesturing over Bio.has.it’s body)
Madonna’s figure
16 Ek is in Stones
I’m in Stones
17 Ek is bigger
I’m bigger
18 Wat gat jou aan?
What’s going on?
19 Djy one, one two (Jack moving closer to Bio.has.it as he moves
away)
You’re one and two-ing
20 Ek maak vir jou ’n poes
I make you out to be a pussy
21 Vir jou my broe’
It’s you my brother
22 Maak jou hand soe (Bio.has.it gesturing Jack is just talking)
Make hand signs
23 Ek rap freestyle
I rap freestyle
24 Betieken die kom van boe (Jack touching his head)
That means it comes from my head
25 Bring jou rhymes
Bring your rhymes
26 Is djy gecurse
You’re cursed
27 Ek guarantee vir julle (Facing the audience)
I guarantee you guys
28 Rap vir my ’n verse
Rap me a verse
Bio.has.it:
34 Kykie
Look
35 Djy hoor jou naam is Jack Denovan
You hear your name is Jack Denovan
36 Vir jou sit ek liewendig
I take you alive
37 Binne in ’n Stove in
And put you inside a Stove
38 Agterna is djy soes ’n houbou
Afterwards you’ll be like a vagrant
39 Wat kryp binne in jou eie skel
Who crawls within your shell
40 Want hoeko’ djy’s dai bra
Because you that brother
41 vir wie ek gou enigetyd sal bel
Whom I’ll call anytime
42 om te se djy vervel
To tell you, you are shedding skin
43 Die mense wat jou kan sit binne hel
I’ve got people to put you in hell
CONCLUSION
So, how do the data analysed before inform us about discussions about mas-
culinity in sociolinguistics and hip-hop linguistic studies? What do they tell
us about hip-hop in Cape Town? And what have we learned about the local
use of language and language ideological associations among the emcees
active in the hip-hop culture of Cape Town?
In this chapter, I have tried to contribute to the study of masculinities
by demonstrating how language ideologies are associated with the use of
Kaaps, Sabela, and AAVE, and I have tried to demonstrate how tough mas-
culine identities are performed in freestyle rap battles. At the beginning of
the chapter, I asked in what ways emcees draw on language and semiotic
resources to entextualise figures, characters, and personae. I also asked what
sorts of sexuality discourses are usually entextualised by emcees to stage
their toughness (drawing inspiration from Kiesling 1997, 2007).
The analyses in this chapter illustrate how discourses and practices of
femininity that circulate in the practice of hip-hop in Cape Town feed into
performances of tough masculinity and that a language variety such as Kaaps
is used as a linguistic resource to enforce toughness as a dominant form of
masculinity in local hip-hop spaces. Interestingly, the data also reveal that
the emceeing of toughness and the toughing up of an emcee through Kaaps,
AAVE, and Sabela and the activity of entextualisation of figures, charac-
ters, and personae is a matter of position-taking by emcees, with the larger
goal to win. For instance, in the first freestyle rap performance between
emcees Chuck and Bio.has.it, we learn that the mutual display of toughness
is mainly entextualised via figures and personae. The lyrical battle between
Jack Denovan and Bio.has.it gives us an entirely different picture. The data
illustrate how Jack entextualises homophobic sexuality discourses through
chauvinistic lyrics that are meant to ritually insult and emasculate his oppo-
nent. Taken together, these performances of toughness and toughing up of
each other in the freestyle rap space are interesting because they allow us to
show how the display of toughness is not only mediated through local lan-
guages but also demonstrates how emcees use those languages to reinforce
the local masculine order (Milani and Jonsson 2011), be it through popular
figures, characters, or racialised social personae.
The analyses also demonstrate that Kaaps, the language variety for
rap authenticity, is strongly linked to the everyday dynamics of masculine
NOTES
1. I would like to thank Christopher Stroud, Tommaso Milani, and the two
anonymous reviewers for helpful comments that strengthened the final draft
of this chapter. This work was fully supported by the Flemish Interuniversity
Council (VLIR-DBBS, UWC), and partly supported by the Research Council
of Norway’s (RCN) Yggdrasil funding scheme, project number 227492/F11,
and its Centres of Excellence funding scheme, project number 223265.
2. Coloured is a racial category created by the apartheid government in South
Africa for citizens not easily defined as white or black.
3. Kaaps is a variety of Afrikaans.
4. There are three Number Gangs in South Africa: the 26s, 27s, and 28s.
5. A note on the transcription: the performances I have transcribed are mainly
in Kaaps, with a few words in AAVE and Sabela. I have used different fonts
to indicate the difference between Kaaps, AAVE, and Sabela. The Kaaps lyr-
ics are translated into English, and the English translation given in italics. I
have transcribed the on-stage movements of the two emcees to accentuate the
performance as well as given the audience reactions where it occurs. This is
indicated in round brackets.
6. According to Cage (2003, 59), there are two ways to use the referent ‘bunny.’
First, gay men and women talk about ‘bunny bashers’, that is, “homophobic
heterosexual males who go about beating up gay men.” But gay men and
women also talk about bunny boys, teenage male prostitutes, used in Johan-
nesburg round about the 1930s.
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