Andrew Powell-Morse and the folks at BestTickets.com get a shout-out today, in thanks for publishing the best data analysis report we've read this month so far (it's only been two days, but this report is excellent). "Profanity in Rap Lyrics Since 1985" tracks just that, by taking five of the most popular albums from each year between '85 and '13 and counting up every curse word within.
The results aren't that surprising, at least from a strictly linguistic perspective. Anyone who listens to hip-hop can probably tell what the most popular curses will be. The "n-word" received the most usage, tallying up more than 10,000 instances in the albums examined. The "f-word" came in second, at 7,770 uses. The total count also reveals somewhat surprising information, such as the fact that only 87 "homophobic slurs" were used in that span, but received more attention thanks to popular user Eminem. For those interested, the word "skeet" totaled 27 uses.
So who does the PMRC have to blame? BestTickets broke the study down into three sets of rankings for frequent usage: most profane album, most profanity per song and most profane rap artists.
Tupac Shakur proved king of cursing when it came down to the most profane albums. His All Eyez on Me topped the list with 905 instances of cursing, and Until The End of Time followed closely behind with 895.
That's just a count of all curses on an album however. All Eyez slips down to fifth overall if you consider how much profanity is used per song. That album featured 27 tracks, seriously watering down the curse-per-song. Too $hort's Raw, Uncut & X-Rated took that prize, as the emcee used an average 49.8 cusses across the five tracks on the EP.
Too $hort's output wasn't enough to earn him the title of "Most Profane Rap Artist" however. That prize goes to the Geto Boys, who cursed an average of 46.4 times a song for their careers. No. 2 was Scarface, who (surprise!) is a member of the Geto Boys when he's not doing his solo thing.
BestTickets also provided a list of the most obscene individual songs on the list. Unsurprisingly, the top eight tracks had a curse built right into the title, ranging from no. 1 "Some Hoes" by Bun B to no. 8 "Two Type of B-----s" by UGK. The site added a side note that Lil Jon and The East Side Boyz' "Real N---a Role Call" wasn't included, although it features 329 instances of cursing.
Finally, the data for the "worst" year for parental advisory hip-hop: 2001. That year included albums such as Jay Z's Blueprint, Nas's Stillmatic, Ludacris's Word of Mouf, Ja Rule's Pain Is Love, and finally, a new entry from Tupac with Until The End of Time.
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