Narrating the Indian hip hop OG: Ethnography, epistemic-deontic stance, chronotype

Singh, Jaspal and Cardozo, Elloit (2025). Narrating the Indian hip hop OG: Ethnography, epistemic-deontic stance, chronotype. In: Haugh, Michael and Márquez-Reiter, Rosina eds. Morality in Discourse. Oxford Studies in Sociolinguistics. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press (In Press).

URL: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/morality-i...

Abstract

In this chapter, we trace how the figure of the OG is evoked in oral narratives to construct moral stances that position the narrator as knowledgeable of and affiliated with Indian underground hip hop. In global hip hop language, the OG (Original Gangsta) is a figure of personhood that indexes chronotopic firstness and underground authenticity. The OG is someone who was there at the beginning and has practiced a particular element of hip hop for the first time in a given locale. When the figure of the OG is evoked in narrative talk, the narrator positions themself both as knowledgeable of the history of underground hip hop and as morally responsible for sustaining underground hip hop culture in the future. The positioning practices we discuss in this chapter are thus future-oriented, although they are embedded in narratives that recount events that have taken place in the past.

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