Black English for Lawyers: An Audio Repository
Sounds
Consonant Reduction:
Morgan Freeman in NatGeo’s Creation. Listen to the ends of the words <old> and <undernourished>, note that this is relatively careful speech and it still happens.
Al Sharpton at Jordan Neely’s Funeral. Note <behind>, this clip also exhibits some monophthongizaton.
Al Sharpton’s <chokehold>
Attorney Benjamin Crump speaking to the press about Tyre Nichols. Note the pronunciation of <trust>.
<can't> rhyming with <ain't>:
Coolio - Gangsta’s Paradise
J. Cole - G.O.M.D.
<man> sounding like <main>
Consonance with the /v/ sound:
Glottal Stops for Consonants even in Careful Speech
Atlanta Mayor Dickens (note <ground>, <project>, <heart>, <downtown>, and <Atlanta>)
<I'on> for “I don’t”:
Reduction of <ain't>:
The feel-fill merger:
J. Cole - Middle Child
Again from the same song
R-lessness:
<man> & <ma'am> as near homophones:
/skr/ sound for /str/ sound:
Zero Marking of Present Tense
J. Cole - G.O.M.D.
Another place in the same song
Narrative <had>
Possessive <they>
The Habitual <be>
Emphatic version <stay>:
Negation
<gon'>, <'a>, and <finna>
Recent and Counterexpectational <done>
Desire or Intent <tryna>
Negative Inferential Necessity: <must don't> & <must ain't>
<nigga> in reference to a white person
They Cloned Tyrone. Note that <coon> in Black English is a complicated term. In general Southern English it is a recognized ethnic slur referring to white people of Cajun descent (that is, like <nigga>, often reclaimed and used by the very people it has been used to degrade). In Black English, <coon> can also derogatorily refer to a black person who “plays the coon,” that is, fulfills the stereotype of a black fool (think minstrel shows) for an audience, especially one that includes white people. The conversation here juxtaposes the use of <coon> for black people, and <nigga> for white people.
<a nigga> meaning “I” or “Me”
They Cloned Tyrone. This is a humorous extension of <a nigga> to <a> plus any self-describing noun (in this case, <pimp> becaues the character in the movie is, in fact, a pimp).
<bitch> as a humorous location
They Cloned Tyrone. The context is that they have just walked into a creepy house (hence the creaking of the floorboards), and she is saying that the interior of the house, despite being creepy, is kind of nice and has “good bones.”
The <-ass> Suffix
2 Chainz - No Lie. Compare that with Sydney Renae - How You Gonna where she uses the unsuffixed word <deadass>.
The Intimate <up>
Sociological Points
Listen to Barack Obama (note the pronunciation of the word <early>) when he is in Georgia (note the monophthongization of the word <lie>).
The spread of Black English into Spanglish: Snow Tha Product - BZRP Music Sessions #39. She is, by all accounts, of Mexican descent and not black, but makes heavy use of AAVE in her music. In this clip she says something like: <Because ya llegó la mexicana, la mera mera, la nena que todos pensaban nada was ever gon’ happen> which, roughly, translates to “The Mexican girl is here (referring to herself), the pure-pure, the girl that everybody thought was never going to happen (get famous/be successful).”
