[Singing]
Language is an important part of all social and cultural groups, but it seems to have
a special place in the African-American experience.
We've come through racial discrimination.
We've come through poverty.
We'll come through the floods, we'll come through a whole lot.
But you know what, Princeville?
You're still standing.
Even inside the African-American community, when you go from region to region there are
really different voices and sounds.
Guy in front of that white house there in the back of that woods, way back there.
It's deep back there.
Wish they would have logged some of it out,
but back on the woods we would hunt bears.
Usually me and dog would go out there mow the field paths so they can see them real good.
So it's $500 just to go and find or if you kill one.
So it's really expensive, shooting bears.
You can tell the difference between an African-American who lives in Northeast because they say "scrate"
which is not something you'd hear in Durham or you'd hear in Winston-Salem or you'd hear
in Fayetteville.
But if you hear "scrate" or "screet" you know exactly where they came from.
Inside the African-American community, too, there is a love of language.
There's a love of listening to different styles of language.
It's the music and the poetry of the language no matter which vocabulary set you're using.
"Say what?"
They'd say, "Say honeychild," because I would always--it's just a part of my language, "honeychild"
because I talk just like the people at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountain with that
kind of twang and that kind of thing.
So that was just a part of me.
I have noticed this: every clique has their own lingo.
Every clique.
It can change from a clique standpoint to a state standpoint to a region standpoint,
you see what I'm saying?
We might say stuff in North Carolina that people in Georgia might not say.
But there may be things that people in North Carolina and South Carolina and Georgia would
say all together, you see what I'm saying?
I've been told off told like I'm from the city, I've been told off told like I'm from
the country.
I just talk like I talk. I am who I am.
(Singing) Only you and you alone
Can thrill me like you do.
And fill my heart with love for only you.
Dialects suggest at times a world view that I was always interested in.
There's a form in Black dialect, the "be" form.
"I be doing x, y, and z," or "I be going."
That particular issue which I always thought was interesting.
But maybe very descriptive of being in process, which is somehow not expressed in the regular
language pattern.
It's a whole bunch of people in New York that we know from down here
and the way they be talking and stuff.
The way they be talking and stuff.
They, like, you can't half understand them.
They have to stutter because they don't know, like, our language and stuff.
I know in my church there's a lot of bending of the rules, you know, i.e. using of language.
But it's the use of language in a way to continue to communicate ideas and often times it's
not just ideas, it's emotions.
(Singing) Only you.
Can make all this change in me
Y'all know who that is? Get over there, camera boy.
That's right, baby, that's right.
When you come to college you get folks from upstate, you get folks from down South,
so, you get a different variety of voices here.
But once you get to know the heart and the spirit of folks, we're all one big family.
I mean, you always want to be connected with a group and making sure that you're continuing
to have that touchstone of this is where you came from and this is how the folk, this is
how the people talk where you come from.
It's really important to not lose that.
You have to be able to relate your peers and, you know, you gotta yell "What up, yo what up,
what's going on, such and such, blah blah."
It's our lingo, man.
"What's crackin'" means "whassup," "whassup" means "hey."
"For shizzle" mean "yeah."
And when most people say....
I can't explain it, you explain it!
If Phonte comes over here and he plays with our daughter and he's like, "Say word up.
She's like, "Word up!"
I mean, you know, it's just like in the 60's, if you got "right on" and "peace" and all of that.
It's about the same thing.
So it's a part of our life just like it's a part of their lives, I guess.
We use that term because that's like a sense of family, you know what I'm saying?
It's like that's what determines the line, you know what I'm saying?
If we're real close then we're at liberty to talk like that because we understand each other.
Where if you're an outsider and I don't really know you and you know it's like,
"Hey, how you doing?"
Yeah, it's like, "Oh, hi, how you doing, man?" until I get that vibe that you loose, then
it's "yeah, wassup," you know what I mean?
But until it gets to that point, then you kind of just do that to kind of draw that line, so
The more closer you feel to somebody then you loosen up and the language plays a big
part in that.
I've heard every walk of life say "I'm chillin'," "I'm coolin'," "What up, bro," "What up, man."
All of that is hip hop music which is an extension of 70's soul music which comes off 60's motown
music.
I mean, it carries on, it carries on.
So with hip hop, I don't know where our generation would be as far as the way we speak and everything
without hip hop music.
Every generation has to identify itself and create it's own language.
They've negotiated a new space.
And yes, I'm over loaded with
rhymes verse punchlines similes and metaphors
for better or worse I crush any competitor's verse
And I keep spittin' for PBS and Phonte off of the top
no second guessin' Course I'm coming through with the right plan
and yes in hip hop we do have friends
and yes he is a white man his name is Joe Scutter
And he free style too And I'm about about show you just how we do
I'm spittin' with my cap on and I'm about to pass it to the left
To Scutter so he can get his rap on now clap on
Yo, I'm back on the grind again Stay remindin' them
We in the front where the line begin you in the back where the line gon' end.
I think it's one of the many markers that people use to decide whether you're in the
in group or the out group.
And that's one of the reasons for kinda mimicking the speech of people who you're around or
unconsciously deciding not to.
We were just talking about that on the way here how people try to express themselves.
Well, you know you don't need to express yourself so much that when you go out to society you
can't function, because when you go for a job interview and the person sitting behind
the desk, you know, they may not want to hear that.
Particularly in the African-American community, there is this idea that yes, you know,
you can speak in a much more relaxed intimate Black speech in certain spaces.
And then in other spaces you have to speak a much more common English.
And for some people, there's internal struggle about should you really do that.
Should you really be trying to talk like white folk?
Or, should you always all the time, no matter what setting you are in, speak the same way?
Speak the same way your mama taught you to speak?
It all depends on what environment you're in, expectations of other people, like what
they think they need to hear from you.
All of these are the kinds of things that you encounter when you're dealing with communication.