Aaarrggh, Me Homeboys!

BY Jessica Friedmann

For years, historians and social anthropologists have commented on the manifold similarities between the symbols and markers of traditional pirate culture and those of the recently ascendant hip hop subculture, but until now these have parallels been largely speculative. This article will discuss the implications of the recent discovery by archaeologists working in conjunction with the Max Planck Institute of Piratology of certain significant human remains, which seem decisively to confirm a genealogical link between the two groups.

That rappers and pirates are consanguineous would conclusively explain many commonalities, both in inherited cultural traditions and predispositions towards certain behaviour. A quick itinerary of shared character traits reveals that similarities between these two groups go beyond the superficial. First, and most strikingly, the contemporary rapper or hip hop artist shares with the traditional pirate a particular dental aesthetic (more on which later). Furthermore, both share a distrust of authority; both look to rum as their drink of choice; both participate in “boasting” or “playing the dozens”. Both groups glorify, in action and in verse, violent and antisocial behaviour – indeed, the piratical broadside can only be seen as the direct antecedent of the latter-day “drive-by”. Additionally, sea shanties (and their refrain of “yo ho ho”) have much in common with the traditional African call-and-response patterns informing African-American rap rhythm (and their strikingly similar refrain of “yo yo yo”). Furthermore, the link between peg legs and a style of music known as hip hop cannot be refuted. Finally, both groups share a near-insatiable thirst for “booty”.

Historically, the theory that rappers and pirates derived from a common ancestor was considered fanciful and unlikely. However, recently several scholars have mounted convincing arguments pertaining to the likelihood of the illegitimate African descendents of pirates being sold into slavery in the Americas, where they began to develop into the rapper/hip hop sub-group. This revived interest led to a research grant being given to Dr Edward Teach Williams, a dentist located on the Cote d’Ivoire, who, with a team of archeologists, finally hit pirate/rapper genealogical gold – gold teeth, to be precise.

Extensive DNA testing of the teeth and some fossilised gum still attached has conclusively proven them to belong an unnamed Portuguese mercenary who brutally raped women along the Ivory Coast: a man whose skill with a sword was only matched by the swiftness of his tongue. This shadowy figure was said to have to have delivered warnings to his enemies in verse, a skill he has seemingly passed down to his rapping, grill-wearing descendents. Having established this pirate as the antecedent of the rapper, we must now ask: what are the ontological implications for the rapper, and how must the African oral history be reinterpreted to accommodate this startling discovery?

In this article we will attempt to answer these questions, as well as repositioning the hip hop artist within the framework of a piratical anti-authoritarianism. We will also reevaluate hip hop’s tendencies towards criminality in light of rappers’ somewhat mitigating genealogical compulsions. However, as the following pages make clear, this discussion may raise more issues than it resolves. The success, for instance, of faux-piratical, overly literal rappers Captain Dan and the Scurvy Crew is something not even this thesis can claim to understand.