In the English language, the word nigger is a racial slur used against black people, especially African Americans. Starting in the 1980s, references to nigger have been progressively replaced by the euphemism "the N-word", notably in cases where nigger is mentioned but not directly used. In an instance of linguistic reappropriation, the term nigger is also used casually and fraternally among African Americans, most commonly in the form of nigga, whose spelling originated from the phonological system of African-American English.
Gilbert Scott-Heron was an American jazz poet, singer, musician, and author known for his work as a spoken-word performer in the 1970s and 1980s. His collaborative efforts with musician Brian Jackson fused jazz, blues, and soul with lyrics relative to social and political issues of the time, delivered in both rapping and melismatic vocal styles. He referred to himself as a "bluesologist", his own term for "a scientist who is concerned with the origin of the blues". His poem "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised", delivered over a jazz-soul beat, is considered a major influence on hip hop music.
Richard Franklin Lennox Thomas Pryor Sr. was an American stand-up comedian and actor. He reached a broad audience with his trenchant observations and storytelling style, and is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential stand-up comedians of all time. Pryor won a Primetime Emmy Award and five Grammy Awards. He received the first Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 1998. He won the Writers Guild of America Award in 1974. He was listed at number one on Comedy Central's list of all-time greatest stand-up comedians. In 2017, Rolling Stone ranked him first on its list of the 50 best stand-up comics of all time.
"The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" is a poem and song by Gil Scott-Heron. Scott-Heron first recorded it for his 1970 album Small Talk at 125th and Lenox, on which he recited the lyrics, accompanied by congas and bongo drums. A re-recorded version, with a full band, was the B-side to Scott-Heron's first single, "Home Is Where the Hatred Is", from his album Pieces of a Man (1971). It was also included on his compilation album, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (1974). All these releases were issued on the Flying Dutchman Productions record label.
The word "strategery" was used in a Saturday Night Live sketch, written by James Downey, airing October 7, 2000, which satirized the performances of George W. Bush and Al Gore, two candidates for President of the United States, during the first presidential debate for election year 2000. Bush, played by Comedian Will Ferrell, when asked by a mock debate moderator to "sum up, in a single word, the best argument for his candidacy", replied "strategery", satirizing Bush's reputation for mispronouncing words. SNL later released the episode as part of a video tape titled Presidential Bash 2000.
"Niggas vs. Black People" is one of Chris Rock's most famous stand-up comedy routines. This routine—which appeared both on his 1996 HBO special Bring the Pain and as track 12 on his 1997 album Roll with the New—is widely considered to be the breakthrough routine that established his status as a comedy fixture after he left Saturday Night Live.
Honky is a derogatory term used to refer to white people, predominantly heard in the United States.
Paul Gladney, better known by the stage name Paul Mooney, was an American comedian, writer, and actor.
Evolution/Revolution: The Early Years (1966–1974) is a two-CD compilation of live stand-up comedy recordings by comedian and actor Richard Pryor, that predates his 1974 mainstream breakthrough album That Nigger's Crazy.
Larry C. Johnson is an American blogger and former analyst at the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. He is the co-owner and CEO of BERG Associates, LLC.
Malik Al Nasir, born Mark Trevor Watson is a British author and performance poet, born to a Welsh mother and a Guyanese father. Malik is the band leader of Malik & the O.G's. Spurred by discovering his striking resemblance to early black footballer Andrew Watson, he began to research his family ancestry, discovering both slaves and slave-owners.
"Live from New York, it's Saturday Night!" is a famous phrase typically featured on the American sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live, which runs on the NBC broadcast network. It is generally used as a way to end a cold opening sketch and lead into the opening titles/montage and cast introductions for the program.
Mom jeans is an informal term for high-waisted women's jeans that were first fashionable in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In the late 1990s and 2000s they were mainly worn by adult American women and considered "old" by younger women. High rise, ankle length "mom jeans" have since become fashionable again in the 2010s and into the 2020s with younger women from tween and teen aged girls, on up through college aged women and beyond.
From South Africa to South Carolina is a studio album by the American vocalist Gil Scott-Heron and the keyboardist Brian Jackson. It was released in November 1975 by Arista Records. Scott-Heron performed "Johannesburg" and "A Lovely Day" on Saturday Night Live in December 1975. The album was reissued in the late 1990s via Scott-Heron's Rumal-Gia label, distributed by TVT Records.
Hipster racism is engaging in behaviors typically regarded as racist and defending them as being performed ironically or satirically. Rachel Dubrofsky and Megan W. Wood have described it as being supposedly "too hip and self-aware to actually mean the racist stuff one expresses". This might include wearing blackface and other performances of stereotyped African Americans, use of the word nigger, and appropriating cultural dress. Talia Meer argues that hipster racism is rooted in what she calls "hipster exceptionalism", meaning "the idea that something ordinarily offensive or prejudiced is miraculously transformed into something clever, funny and socially relevant, by the assertion that said ordinarily offensive thing is ironic or satirical." As Leslie A. Hahner and Scott J. Varda described it, "those participating in acts of hipster racism understand those acts as racist when practiced by others, but rationalize their own racist performances through a presumed exceptionalism."
Malik & the O.G's is a spoken-word performance band based in Liverpool. Its founder Malik Al Nasir put the band together in 2006 when he first recorded his poetry to music for his debut album Rhythms of the Diaspora Vol 1 & 2, which was released in on Mentis Records featuring Gil Scott-Heron and The Last Poets′ Jalal Mansur Nuriddin. Malik produced the album in 2006 and Malik & the O.G's produced a video with Emmy Award-winning Director Mitchell Stuart for the song from the album Africa, an adaptation of one of the poems of the same name in Malik's book Ordinary Guy.
This article treats the usage of the word nigger in reference to African Americans and others of African or mixed African and other ethnic origin in the art of Western culture and the English language.
"Word Association", also called "Racist Word Association Interview,""Racist Word Association" and "Dead Honky", is a Saturday Night Live sketch first aired on December 13, 1975, featuring Richard Pryor and Chevy Chase.
"Whitey on the Moon" is a 1970 spoken word poem by Gil Scott-Heron. It was released as the ninth track on Scott-Heron's debut album Small Talk at 125th and Lenox. Recorded over a simple drum accompaniment, it tells of medical debt, high taxes and poverty experienced at the time of the Apollo Moon landings. The poem critiques the resources spent on the space program while Black Americans were experiencing social and economic disparities at home. "Whitey on the Moon" was prominently featured in the 2018 biographical film about Neil Armstrong, First Man. It was also featured in the second episode of HBO's Lovecraft Country. It received renewed interest in 2021 following spaceflights by billionnaires Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson, which were seen as emblematic of the inequities highlighted by the poem.
"Johannesburg" is a song by Gil Scott-Heron and Brian Jackson, with music provided by the Midnight Band. It is the first track on Scott-Heron and Jackson's collaborative album From South Africa to South Carolina, released in November 1975 through Arista Records. The lyrics to "Johannesburg" discussed opposition to apartheid in South Africa, and likened apartheid to the disenfranchisement of African Americans in the United States. The song became a popular hit, reaching No. 29 on the Billboard R&B chart in 1975. According to Nelson George, "Johannesburg" played a role in spreading the cultural awareness of apartheid.
