Authentic crossing? Jamaican Creole in African dancehall

Gerfer, Anika

Abstract

The present study investigates the linguistic behaviour of African dancehall performers, some of which have been harshly criticized by their fellow artists for using “fake patois” (Sarpeah 2017) and for copying Jamaicans instead of singing in their local languages. I examine how African dancehall singers “cross” (Rampton 1995) into Jamaican Creole (JC), often also called ‘Patois’ or ‘Patwa’, in their songs by analysing songs by Shatta Wale (Ghana), Patoranking (Nigeria) and Redsan (Kenya) and comparing them to contemporary successful Jamaican dancehall artists. More specifically, I aim to find out 1) which JC phonetic, morphosyntactic and lexical features occur most frequently, 2) whether and to what extent the artists incorporate features of other languages and 3) which notions of authenticity apply to the African dancehall performances. A mixed-methods approach combining quantitative and qualitative research methods gives insight into the dynamic relationship of the co-existence of various linguistic resources and the construction of authenticity in a globally available and increasingly prestigious music genre. An auditory analysis is carried out to investigate the performers’ use of JC phonetic features. The quantitative part entails the phonetic analysis and includes the dancehall artists’ use of JC morphosyntactic features to find out whether their crossing into JC is systematic and consistent. For the qualitative part of the linguistic analysis, the performers’ use of Jamaican lexemes and local languages is analysed.