How do you become popular if you're not from USA?

**Janszoon** · 03-09-2016, 05:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by arnas

Slangs, just like words, can be learned. Or am I wrong? I mean come on, it's 2016 right now, it's not that hard to find american slangs on the net and learn them.

The fact that you just said "slangs" twice is an illustration of the kind of thing I'm talking about. Technically the word "slang" can be pluralized, but no native English speaker would have used it like that. It's a good example of the difference between simply speaking a language well and instinctively understanding the nuances the way a native speaker would.

I don't mean any of this in a negative way, I'm just saying be who you are. The world of hip hop is full of people rapping in English. You have the ability to bring something different to the table and I personally would way rather listen to that than listen to someone trying to sound like yet another American rapper.

Quote:

Originally Posted by arnas

Look at the Dope D.O.D. for example. I had totally forgotten that they were from Netherlands. They are known world wide and probably just a few know that they are not from USA, because when you listen to them, you can't tell that.

I've never heard of Dope D.O.D. but I just looked them up and they don't even have an English language Wikipedia page. That should tell you something about their level of popularity in the English speaking world.

arnas · 03-09-2016, 06:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Janszoon

The fact that you just said "slangs" twice is an illustration of the kind of thing I'm talking about. Technically the word "slang" can be pluralized, but no native English speaker would have used it like that. It's a good example of the difference between simply speaking a language well and instinctively understanding the nuances the way a native speaker would.

I don't mean any of this in a negative way, I'm just saying be who you are. The world of hip hop is full of people rapping in English. You have the ability to bring something different to the table and I personally would way rather listen to that than listen to someone trying to sound like yet another American rapper.

I've never heard of Dope D.O.D. but I just looked them up and they don't even have an English language Wikipedia page. That should tell you something about their level of popularity in the English speaking world.

Quote from their website:

Quote:

After the release of their debut video What Happened (almost 19 million views on YouTube) their international career took off. Leading to sold out shows and performances at the biggest Festivals in Europe where they’ve shared stages with Cypress Hill, Method Man, Redman, Snoop Dogg, KoRn, Limp Bizkit, Die Antwoord, A$AP ROCKY, Onyx, Skrillex and Danny Brown.
The group also played the infamous SXSW festival in the United States and scored a deal for their first album (Branded) with Duck Down Records. So far the group has won an EBBA award and released 3 albums (Branded, Da Roach, Master Xploder) and 2 EP’s (The Evil EP, The Ugly EP).

So I suppose they're pretty big.

And talking about which language I should rap in... I don't enjoy my native language as much as I enjoy english. And I never tried to "learn" english. It just came to me naturally. I never studied it in school or anywhere else. Watching movies in english, reading forums, news in english, playing games in english was the way of learning this language. I'd enjoy rapping in english much more than I'd enjoy doing it in my native language.

Besides that, there're only 3 million people in my country, so the market is really small here. And I'm pretty sure only a few people would listen to a rap song that they don't understand.

RoxyRollah · 03-09-2016, 06:16 AM

The who?

arnas · 03-09-2016, 07:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RoxyRollah

The who?

What?

**Janszoon** · 03-09-2016, 07:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by arnas

Quote from their website:

So I suppose they're pretty big.

I have no idea whether they're big in general or not, I'm just saying they aren't big in the English speaking world. Playing SXSW doesn't mean much. A lot of not very well known artists play SXSW in addition to the well known artists.

Quote:

Originally Posted by arnas

And talking about which language I should rap in... I don't enjoy my native language as much as I enjoy english. And I never tried to "learn" english. It just came to me naturally. I never studied it in school or anywhere else. Watching movies in english, reading forums, news in english, playing games in english was the way of learning this language. I'd enjoy rapping in english much more than I'd enjoy doing it in my native language.

Besides that, there're only 3 million people in my country, so the market is really small here. And I'm pretty sure only a few people would listen to a rap song that they don't understand.

Hey, if you want to rap in English then rap in English. I'm just saying that the odds of striking it rich as an ESL rapper affecting American slang are very low so you'd be better off focusing on doing what you love rather than worrying about targeting the right market. Personally, I like to have some linguistic variety in my rap (and music general) so it's always a bit of a bummer when I see someone who feels obligated to use English lyrics just because popular artists in their genre use English lyrics.

Paul Smeenus · 03-09-2016, 12:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by grindy

Basically you're David Hasselhoff.

<-- Made this my user title

Ol’ Qwerty Bastard · 03-09-2016, 12:20 PM

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Originally Posted by Paul Smeenus

<-- Made this my user title

But how will people know it's a spoonerism?

arnas · 03-09-2016, 03:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Janszoon

I have no idea whether they're big in general or not, I'm just saying they aren't big in the English speaking world. Playing SXSW doesn't mean much. A lot of not very well known artists play SXSW in addition to the well known artists.

Hey, if you want to rap in English then rap in English. I'm just saying that the odds of striking it rich as an ESL rapper affecting American slang are very low so you'd be better off focusing on doing what you love rather than worrying about targeting the right market. Personally, I like to have some linguistic variety in my rap (and music general) so it's always a bit of a bummer when I see someone who feels obligated to use English lyrics just because popular artists in their genre use English lyrics.

Well, that all comes down to my question: how do you become popular if you're not from USA? They are so good in english that I couldn't tell they are from Netherlands. So I suppose it doesn't really change much if you know english well?

grindy · 03-09-2016, 03:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paul Smeenus

<-- Made this my user title

Quote:

Originally Posted by Qwertyy

But how will people know it's a spoonerism?

I actually tried to come up with a Hoff-based spoonerism, but failed.

**Janszoon** · 03-09-2016, 05:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by arnas

Well, that all comes down to my question: how do you become popular if you're not from USA? They are so good in english that I couldn't tell they are from Netherlands. So I suppose it doesn't really change much if you know english well?

What I'm saying is, when it comes to English language hip-hop, you probably don't unless you're from another English speaking country.