Abstract
The paper presents a Pragma Sociolinguistic analysis of anti-social themes found in some Nigerian Hip-hop music lyrics. Universally, utterances reliably reflect personality which is consequent upon what we listen to and what we read. The personality of an individual is shaped by their linguistic environment and their relationships in all labour relations. These interactions are within what can be regarded as social circumstances that are in one way or the other related to our linguistic values. Specifically, Lagos as the centre of the Nigerian Hip-Hop music comprises a group of artists who have gained global recognition and have impacted linguistically on the populace especially the youths. The lyrics of their music is characterized by vulgar slang that are sexually volatile and accentuate the objectification of the female gender. In addition, there exist the glorification of drug abuse and fraudulently acquired wealth. These colloquial expressions are engendered by the various social-economic activities that are prevalent in Lagos. It is against this linguistic background that this paper examines the psychological, social and linguistic impacts of colloquial dictions of these artists on their listeners and subsequently, the image of Lagos.
Introduction
Every word we utter is influenced by the linguistic and the non-linguistic context in which we utter it, which determines, to a great extent, how the utterance is understood and reacted to by the hearer (Adegbija). Slang seems to be one of the most important language formation having a great influence on the development of language. Slang speech is defined by various linguistic features reflecting the users´ way of living and using the language with emphasis on belonging to a particular group of language users. They are ultimately major exponent and promoters of social trends amongst the youths. It retains formidable elements that could up-turn existing culture because of its potent ability to distill its rebellious nature into any youth.
The importance of slang used by NHHA cannot be ignored because the use of communication strategies among Nigerian Hip-hop artistes greatly affects the language of the environment and even the social behaviour of the youth. The urge to emerge as a chat topping artiste has influenced the unrestrained infiltration of seemingly anti-social themes in the NHHAs songs. The urge to continually go against culture which is perceived as archaic and absent of modernity could be the reason for such themes in their songs. Youths are now setting up their own chiefly influenced by the social media. Hence, the study looks into how NHHAs have deployed the cultural knowledge of sexuality, drugs and financial crimes to create communication devices and strategies that would help them negotiate the established norm to yield successful escapism.
Sangoniran (2011) asserts that Hip-hop artistes deploy these linguistic strategies for indirectness, to reduce the degree of vulgarity, maintain societal moral norms and ensure acceptability. Aside all these, slangs enhance the linguistic aesthetics of songs by utilising salient coded word forms. This prompts some level of language analysis taking the prevailing social contexts into account to unravel these coded messages. This created a thrust for the pragma sociolinguistics analysis of slang used in some selected Nigerian hip-hop songs.