English Vocabulary in Korean Hip Hop

By analyzing 15,000 lines of lyrics in Korean hip hop songs from 30 most famous hip hop artists in South Korea, 500 lines of lyrics from each artist, this project shows you how English words are used in Korean hip hop songs.

1. Top 100 Frequently-Used English Words

The most used word "i" was used for 1548 times, while the 100th one "off" was only used for 51 times, in 15,000 lines of lyrics. 5 Out of the top 8 most frequently-used words are personal pronoun, including "you / u", "me", "it", "my", "we", and "i", which makes sense since Korean hip hop artists love to talk about themselves in their songs.

2. Category Insights

Abbreviation
Alcohol Related
Artist
Brand
Crew / Label
Culture Related
Loanword
Interjection
Place
Slang

It's interesting to find some words are unique in hip hop songs, like the names of some luxury brands, some loanwords from Spanish, French, and Japanese, some slang words that are less used in other genres of songs like "gang(s)", "skr / skrt", and "homie(s)". Also, they use a lot of interjections. Some of the artists have their unique interjection words and they use those words in every song they write, which almost becomes a new signature. (Some of the artists do have their official signatures, which is also known as producer tags, in the songs they write, especially those who not only write lyrics but also produce music.)

3. The Top 10 Most-Used English Words by Each Artist

For each artist, the top 10 most-used English words are listed. You can also click on each donut chart to take a look at the music videos I picked for you (not their most famous ones but my favorites^^).

Lyrics from GENIUS.COM

Developed by Jinqi Li

Special Thanks to: Lenny Martinez