"The Best Poet Always Loses" : the Influence of African American English Discourse Styles on the Slam Poetry of Non-AAE Speaking Performers

Abstract

In its short 30-year history, slam poetry, a performative art with roots in hip-hop, has been dominated by African-American (and other minority) slammers. Interestingly, despite the primary audience of slams being middle-class Caucasians features of African American English and the Black Oral Tradition are commonly used by not only African American English speaking performers but also performers of other ethnicities/dialects. This project demonstrates that discourse characteristics common to African-American English and the Black Oral Tradition -- spontaneity (improvisational deviation from a practiced piece), braggadocio (a type of boasting), call and response with rhythmic features typical of African-American church services, and others -- are frequently used in the slam poetry of non-African-American English speaking performers.