Speaking Smibanese: Hip-Hop, Local Youth Language Variety, and Representations of the Amsterdam Bijlmer

Abstract

‘That shit is just HIP-HOP!’ is how writer Soortkill characterises the popular local youth language ‘Smibanese’. Soortkill is one of the members of SMIB, a trendy Amsterdam hip-hop art collective that uses this self-named and selfclaimed local youth language in their hip-hop-inspired art performances. SMIB, founded in 2014 by artists Ray Fuego and GRGY, currently consists of multiple artists who produce a wide range of hip-hop art, ranging from music to fashion, podcasts, and even books, reaching a national audience with their locally oriented stories. The collective has played a crucial part in the spread of ‘Smibanese’ all over the Netherlands, both through their extensive usage of it in their hip-hop oeuvre (including lyrics, music videos and social media posts) and through their documentation of the local youth language in their two publications of the Smibanese Woordenboek (Smibanese Dictionary, 2017 and 2019).