‘Trapping my way up’: a corpus-assisted discourse analysis of Black Sherif’s songs

ABSTRACTTaking cognisance of the social and linguistic power of trap music and its song lyrics as crucial avenues for language use in society, this study set out to conduct a corpus-assisted discourse analysis of selected song lyrics of Black Sherif. The study synergised Wmatrix and a socio-cognitive approach to CDA to interpret the song lyrics. The analyses revealed three linguistic strategies: (a) pronouns; (b) Ghanaian Student Pidgin; and (c) metaphors in the song lyrics that served as a means of empowering the youth to survive and strive for success despite social and psychological aggressions in life. Also, the individualistic self-representation in the song lyrics included plural identities of people who share a common experience of struggle, pain, survival, and self-empowerment. Finally, the study highlighted crucial societal issues, such as economic hardship and social injustice, that may otherwise be overlooked or underrepresented in mainstream media or academia. Based on these findings, the study provides recommendations for practice and further research.KEYWORDS: Corpus-assistedidentitiesself-representationsong lyricssurvivaltrapping AcknowledgementI am grateful to the reviewers for their constructive and critical comments that improved the quality of this paper.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Additional informationNotes on contributorsEmmanuel Mensah BonsuEmmanuel Mensah Bonsu is an MPhil candidate at the Department of English, University of Cape Coast. His research interests include Academic Discourse, (Critical) Discourse Analysis, English for Specific/Academic Purposes, and Sociolinguistics. He is a member of the Linguistics Association of Ghana (LAG) and the West Africa Systemic Functional Linguistics Interest Group (WASFLIG).