What in the hell?

It doesn't even sound like English. How can these kids' English be so...off?

Dey just dreamin' big head-bopping dreamz, yo.
Phat bankrolls, nasty cashouts & scary nikes.

Yes. And end up in jail.

To find out, that isn't cool at all.

It's very sad.

dJJ said:

Yes. And end up in jail.

To find out, that isn't cool at all.

It's very sad.

I only watched the beginning (N-word too much for me), but the title says that they made a promo for their rap group...

Their speech may not be our preference, but why assume that they are headed to jail?

Visionnaire said:

Dey just dreamin' big head-bopping dreamz, yo.
Phat bankrolls, nasty cashouts & scary nikes.

I thought rich people these days don't really use cash.

Nice cheap plastic MIDI controller in the background. Maybe it allows them to save some of their "cash" for later use.

These kids are pretty eloquent compared to the one and only Chief Keef a.k.a Soza from Chicago.

Keef often uses the same word over and over again and thinks that it rhymes...well, it does, because he uses the same word. And you can barely understand what he´s saying when he speaks.

I´m not blaming the kids though.

Ironically, the music from the golden era of rap used proper grammar and spelling, an enormous range of vocabulary, and even taught you about politics, sociology, love and crime. And most of the rappers were not exactly academics but were very, very eloquent nevertheless. That kind of rap was one the best way to learn English. These days....not really.

One day I'm gonna speak like this at a staff meeting. I think some of my colleagues might literally pass out.

Not that I suspect these guys are Winston Churchill offscreen, but I'd wager none of them speak this way to, say, their grandmas. They almost certainly are playing to their audience in large part. That said, what's more troubling to me than the assumption they'll wind up in jail from actually being half as bad-ass as they pretend to be here is that, as artists and potential role models to their peers, they pander to a status quo that facilitates a sort of self-destruction more broadly.

[Edited 4/6/13 18:14pm]