"
Definitions of crunkIf someone asked you to 'get crunk', would you biff them on the nose for their impertinence, or raise a silver goblet in the air and yell "Okaaaaay!"?
It depends on which of the many definitions of the word you use. The main one insists that the term, first popularised in the late 1990s on records such as Lil Jon’s Get Crunk and OutKast's single Rosa Parks, is a conflation of "crazy" and "drunk", but another insists it has a darker meaning.
The fact that cannabis is referred to as "chronic" in urban slang leads some to suggest that to get crunk is to get high and drunk at the same time.
By far the most creative and etymologist-pleasing suggestion is that crunk is a Yiddish version of the German word "krank", which means "sick". East European Jewish immigrants to Atlanta, so the story goes, used the word so often that it found its way into the vocabulary of the city's African Americans, who eventually started using the term as a way of referring to an extreme, or "sick", party situation. You choose."
Sidebar to an interview with Ciara. Without declaring interests, I prefer the Torygraph's take on pop culture to any other paper's these days. This is kind of Carmody-bait here, but is the opening of this paper to pop culture a good thing or not? Unequivocally good, says I.
― Miles Finch, Friday, 4 February 2005 12:03 (twenty years ago)
Depends who they've got writing for them. If it's still that idiot Neil "I Could Have Been In U2, Me" McCormick then no thanks.
― Marcello Carlin, Friday, 4 February 2005 12:16 (twenty years ago)
It reads like an exerpt from a patronising guide on "how to understand your children".
― Matt DC (Matt DC), Friday, 4 February 2005 12:23 (twenty years ago)
yeah, that bit isn't supposed to tell you abt the music as such -- there's more discussion of that in the piece on ciara -- it was more that a decade ago the very idea of the telegraph engaging with crunk (or gangsta rap back then) would have been unthinkable.
― Miles Finch, Friday, 4 February 2005 12:25 (twenty years ago)
But that piece tells you absolutely fuck-all about the music. To be fair to them they did try to explain the music in the accompanying Ciara and Lil Jon interviews. They also called "Goodies" a 'witty ode to chastity'. The entire feature is a bit mind-boggling, I found an abandoned copy on the Tube yesterday.
― The Lex (The Lex), Friday, 4 February 2005 12:27 (twenty years ago)
and was just reading it for the crossword, eh alex ;)
― CarsmileSteve (CarsmileSteve), Friday, 4 February 2005 16:35 (twenty years ago)
doesn't the term predate the music? and how much music, really, does it refer to?
― gabbneb (gabbneb), Friday, 4 February 2005 16:37 (twenty years ago)
well, the piece says the word predates the music, which must be true -- 'roa parks' came out in like 1998. crunk refers to a fair amount of music -- well, you can be sure that it will refer to a lot given that it will enter/already has entered the language of pop anyway.
― Miles Finch, Friday, 4 February 2005 16:43 (twenty years ago)
Depends who they've got writing for them. If it's that idiot John "I don't know the difference between Mary J Bilge and Dildo, Me" McCririck then yes please.
― David Merryweather (DavidM), Friday, 4 February 2005 17:12 (twenty years ago)
the telegraph and independent are the best print media i have read for music. everything else is beyond shit, whereas the former just approach shit
― ambrose (ambrose), Saturday, 5 February 2005 01:16 (twenty years ago)