Deutsche und polnische Liedtexte im Rap als biographische Textsorte

Abstract

The rap lyrics often deal with the same subjects from different perspectives. The musicians choose the themes for their rap pieces with which they identify the most. These texts have been thoroughly accepted by linguists, but rap has not been viewed as a whole, but the researches rather have been concentrated on its individual manifestations. In the present article I analyze whether we can regard the German and Polish song lyrics in rap as an autobiographical text type and what information they can use to enrich the biographies of their authors. I will start with the history of rap, which provides information about the primary goal and the main functions of this genre. The research material was taken from 401 quotations from 23 German and 25 Polish songs and compared with available information about the authors. All quotations are assigned to the most frequently repeatable life categories and counted. In the light of the materials I have analyzed, it is clear that there is a diver- gence not only between individual authors, but also between the German and Polish perceptions of many aspects of life.

Keywords

• rap
• rap lyrics
• autobiographical text type
• biography