Popularized African-American Slang

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Voltaire. I’m a woman from San Diego, California.

Oh, great.

Okay, welcome to the show. What can we help you with?

Thanks so much. Well, you know, I’ve been interested for a long while in slang,

And specifically words like bae, fleek, that this, you know, past year were really popular,

But maybe the most greatest example might be a word like bling-bling,

Which has been added to the American lexicon.

And you know how that happens, like how words like that catch on throughout the country.

Did it start with hip-hop artists, or did it start in another way?

I’m just really interested and curious as to how that ends up being the case.

You’ve come to the right place.

Yeah, those are all three really, really great examples of one particular kind of slang catching on,

Because they all have African-American origins.

Bae, that’s just for the audience that doesn’t know, bae is B-A-E.

It’s a condensed version of the word babe or baby, and it means you’re sweetie or you’re shorty.

Fleek is usually given as on fleek.

I was popularized in 2014

By a young woman named Peaches Monroe.

Monroe spelled with two E’s on the end.

It was a young African-American woman who did this

Six-second video, like a vine,

Where she’s really proud of her appearance

And she said something about being on fleek

And she does this particular move with her finger

Across her eyebrows to show that everything was perfectly

In place. So if you’re on fleek, you’re

Perfectly appointed. You’re well-dressed.

You’ve got style and class.

And then bling-bling, everybody knows at this

Point this is money or ostentatious wealth maybe.

Jewelry.

Jewelry, yeah.

So what’s really interesting about all of these is that they kind of show what’s really

Happening in pop culture over the last, say, 20 or 30 years, where as African-Americans

Started to dominate some of the art forms, particularly music, they developed a following

Among kids of all ages and all races and all backgrounds.

And the language that they use in their music and in their interviews, you know, on television,

What have you, started to be adopted by their fans, the people who adore them and go to

Their shows and by their albums. And then we get this new age where somebody like Peaches Monroe,

Who was basically a nobody before this happened. Because I’ve never heard of Peaches Monroe.

Yeah, there we go. But her video has been watched tens of millions of times at this point.

Millions. Yeah. And of course, parodies were done and it’s now showed up in songs. I see it pop up

In tweets. Here we have a really great example where On Fleek was popularized because this

Particular kind of connectedness we have, these, I call them networks of influence. You get

Jokes, fashion, and new language from the same people in your life.

They tend to be people you respect and people that you spend a lot of time with

Or you pay a lot of attention to.

And in some cases, they’re performers.

In some cases, they’re just YouTube stars.

Like Peaches Moreau.

Yeah, Bling Bling is a really great one.

I think this came up from a New Orleans group in 1999.

BG and the Cash Money Millionaires had an album that just kind of broke out just big.

It was a nice hit.

It was a good club song, a lot of great remixes of that.

And everybody kind of got it when you talked about your bling.

Originally, I guess it meant the ostentatious gold jewelry that hip-hop performers would sometimes wear,

But eventually it could just be the big fat diamond engagement ring that you got

Or the really swank car that you got or, like, the shiny suit that you wore to your wedding or your prom or whatever,

And it just started to be, like, where you dressed up something special and you’re showing off your style, you know.

And then when it started to appear in, like, airline advertisements on tops of taxi cabs in New York City, we knew that Bling was done.

And now it’s usually just given as Bling.

But another one, how did that get big?

Well, this New Orleans group that had a lot of respect, made a big hit song that had a lot of remixes.

And through the pure force of pop culture, it spread to the entire country, basically the English-speaking world.

You’ll find Bling in Australia and the UK also.

Yeah, Bling is such an amazing example because you actually can look that one up.

It’s in like the Merriam-Webster dictionary.

So I know I just dumped a lot of stuff on you.

Yeah, you got an earful there, Volter.

What do you think?

No, I think that’s great.

I mean, very helpful.

I appreciate it.

Thank you.

And say hi to your bae for me.

Okay, will do.

Bye-bye.

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