Did Will Smith invent African-American slang for the show?
-
Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
nurhaci — 9 years ago(October 11, 2016 08:40 PM)
I noticed that many of the slang words I learned from the show were later used by African-Americans. Did Will Smith coin these words himself, or did he simply popularize them? Or were they already in popular use when the show came out?
These words include: "def", "word up", "honey" (for a female), "fly", "trippin'", "home boy", "dope". -
hubcap18 — 9 years ago(November 03, 2016 06:12 PM)
No way. Bob Marley released a song called "Jamming" in 1977, long before Will Smith started recording, and it's entirely likely the even he's not the first to use Jam/Jamming in reference to music.
The sun is shining but the ice is slippery.
-
robert-macc — 9 years ago(November 07, 2016 01:55 PM)
Some of these words were in existence before 1990. Whether they were common is debatable.
"Homeboy" "Watch the bag homeboy" 1988 Eazy-E "Nomore Questions"
"Fly" "Flygirl" 80s rap song
"Dope" "Dope Beat" - KRS One (1987)
"Honey" is a hard one.
"Word up" probably came later. That's more new school East Coast slang.
I think "homeboy" is Southern in origin. Black and white Southerners say "boy" and "girl" a lot. And no white Southerners don't always mean it in a racist way. They just talk like that to youth, regardless of race.
Unrelated note, "B" (which is short for "brotha") is debatable. I never really heard many Northern blacks say it, despite what the movies might seem to show. That would be Southern blacks. -
arcticdragon340 — 9 years ago(November 21, 2016 04:31 AM)
I doubt Will Smith invented the majority of the slang words he used, except maybe "fresh", because I've never heard anybody else in real life being described as "fresh" besides the Fresh Prince himself.
But this show was pretty much the introduction to Black urban youth, hip hop, slang and culture for me. -
gc18 — 9 years ago(December 02, 2016 12:01 AM)
On the first season DVD Bennie Richburg a writer talks about how he was hired to basically help write dialogue for the Will Smith character.
He was credited as "West Philly Homeboy Consultant" so a lot of the slang used was written by him.