Edited by Azizi Powell
This is Part I of a pancocojams series about contemporary vernacular meanings for the word "Ye".
Part I present information about the vernacular meanings of the word "ye" that have recently become known or have recently developed in Great Britain, the United States, and elsewhere thanks to African American rapper Kanye West, thanks to Black British twitter commenter and YouTube video singer Osh This Side.
Note: Since Osh This Side developed his twitter video and his YouTube video as a result of Burna Boy's song "Ye"* (which uses the traditional Yoruba Nigerian meaning for the word "Ye"), Burna Boy can also be credited for indirectly influencing the contemporary meanings of the word "Ye".
Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2020/01/osh-this-sides-youtube-video-of-your-ye.html for Part II of this pancocojams series. Part II showcase a YouTube video of Osh singing "My Ye Is Different To Your Ye" and a YouTube video about the "My Ye Is Different" viral meme.
The content of this post is presented for cultural and linguistic purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post.
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*Click the tag "Burna Boy song Ye" for pancocojams posts on that song.
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CHRONOLOGY OF THE USE OF THE WORD "YE" AMONG THE PERFORMING ARTISTS BURNA BOY, KANYE WEST, AND OSH
June 1, 2018 - release date for Kanye West's album Ye
August 6, 2018 - release date for Burna Boy's single "Ye"
October 30, 2018 - date that Osh posted a brief comedic video on Twitter of him singing "My Ye Is Different To'
Your Ye", and thus starting the viral meme of this saying.
Nov 26, 2018 -date the music video of Osh singing the song "My Ye" Is different" was published on YouTube
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Here are the two entries from https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Ye for the word "yé" (as of January 12, 2020 at 12:16 PM EST)
"yé
'Ye' has multiple meanings, one of which is a nickname referring to rapper and producer, Kanye West. The term is pronounced as if pronouncing 'yay'.
Fan: Ye, you lit it up on the stage tonight.
West: I know.
#kanye west#west#yay#kanye#nickname
by eiln March 08, 2008"
**
"yé
The level of style, swag, sauce, finesse, or skill one has. Usually used to compare oneself to other people.
“My yé is different to your yé. Dripping the sauce..”
#sauce#finesse#uk#yé#drip too hard#drip
by Essexgirll, October 31, 2018
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TRADITIONAL MEANING OF "YE" IN NIGERIA (AND IN SOME OTHER AFRICAN NATIONS, AS WELL AS IN SOME CARIBBEAN NATIONS)
(from the discussion thread of that song's official YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPe09eE6Xio) Burna Boy - "Ye"
I've added numbers to these comments for referencing purposes only.
1. IAmATanker TheTankerIsMe, 2018
"For all those that are not familiar “Ye” is an exclamation Nigerians do when they are surprised, excited, shocked or scared. Normally with this action as demonstrated in the emoji 🙆🏾♀"
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REPLY
2. Miss Krystal63, 2018
"IAmATanker TheTankerIsMe thanks for the information because I really didn’t, now if I could hear it being use on a sentence would be great"
**
REPLY
3. May Show, 2018
"@Miss Krystal63 Ye! They have increased my rent."
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This is probably the meaning that Burna Boy meant in his hit 2018 record "Ye".
For more comments about the traditional meaning of the word "Ye" in Africa and in the Caribbean, click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2020/01/the-traditional-use-of-exclamation-ye.html
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THE TRADITIONAL AFRICAN MEANINGS OF THE NAME KANYE
Since "Ye" as used by Kanye West probably started as a clip of his name, here's some information about the meanings of the Africa name "Kanye":
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanye_(name)
"Kanye ... is a Yoruba name meaning "next in line to the chieftaincy". It is also an Igbo name meaning "Let's give" or to give honor, tribute.
Further Kanye means "Once" or "One time". It also means "together" or "togetherness" in the Nguni languages (Ndebele, Xhosa, Zulu) of South Africa.
Kanye also means “Disgust” in the Ewe language of Ghana/Togo."
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EXCERPT FROM WIKIPEDIA PAGE ABOUT WHAT KANYE WEST SAYS THE WORD "YE" MEANS
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ye_(album)
Ye … is the eighth studio album by American rapper and producer Kanye West. It was released on June 1, 2018, through GOOD Music and distributed by Def Jam Recordings. Following controversy surrounding an interview with TMZ, West re-recorded all the work on the album, completing it over the course of just two weeks at his ranch in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
[...]
West initially debuted Ye on June 1, 2018 without any singles, as is popular among musicians using the sudden release option that don't want a big marketing roll out.[71] On June 8, "Yikes" was released to UK mainstream radio stations by West's labels as the lead single from the album… After having been released as a single, the song made its debut at number ten on the UK Singles Chart, standing as West's 19th top ten single on the chart.[75] On August 14, 2019, "Yikes" was certified platinum in the US by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for sales of 1,000,000 units.[7]
[...]
In an interview conducted with Big Boy during the listening party for the album, West explained the title, which is a diminutive of his own name commonly used in his songs, by stating: "I believe 'ye' is the most commonly used word in the Bible, and in the Bible it means 'you.' So I'm you, I'm us, it's us. It went from Kanye, which means 'the only one,' to just Ye – just being a reflection of our good, our bad, our confused, everything."[86] However, West was incorrect in his belief of "ye" being the most commonly used word in the Bible.[87] West went on to tweet out in June 2018 that without his ego, he is "Just Ye," potentially giving context into why the album is titled as such.[88]”...
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It's interesting to note that Kanye West's album Ye includes the single "Yikes" and "yikes" is given as a traditional meaning for the Yoruba (Nigerian) exclamation "ye pa":
http://naijalingo.com/words/ye-pa
"Ye pa
Definition:Yikes!
Example: Yepa yawa don gas means there's a problem"
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CONFUSION BETWEEN KANYE WEST'S ALBUM "YE" AND BURNA BOY'S RECORD "YE"
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ye_(song)
...[The Nigerian song] "Ye" saw a 200 percent spike in its streaming numbers after searches for Kanye West's album Ye unintentionally caused listeners to stumbled upon it.[5] Burna Boy thanked Kanye West for the confusion on Twitter.[6]"...
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EXCERPT FROM AN ONLINE ARTICLE ENTITLED
From https://thetab.com/uk/2018/11/02/my-ye-is-different-to-your-ye-the-viral-meme-explained-85338 My Yé is different to your Yé, the viral meme explained
Dripping in sauce, the drip-dripping so saucy
by Diyora Shadijanova, News UK, 2018
“You might have seen the "My Ye is different to your Ye" video meme everywhere this week and not understood what it means. Is it about Kanye West? Is it a song? What's going on? Why is everyone on Twitter referencing this catchy meme?
But don't worry, because I have traced the history and meaning of this week's very niche, viral Twitter meme.
What does My Ye is different to your Ye mean?
To put it simply "My Ye is different to your Ye" roughly translates to "Me and you are not on the same level." Or you can explain it as "I have a different vibe to yours."
Where did the My Ye is different to your Ye meme originate?
The backing track to the meme is Burna Boy's 2018 song "Ye". Apparently the original Burna Boy song has reached international fame because Kanye West's latest album, which dropped recently, so happens to also be called "Ye."
A British musician, Osh This Side, sang over the song with "My yè is different to your yè. Dripping in sauce, the drip-dripping so saucy." He posted it on Twitter and this is the full video:
My Yè Is Different#ThisSide #MyYèIsDifferent #MyYèIsDifferentToYourYè pic.twitter.com/yrQZgw2rsO [presented as a hyperlink]
— OSH (@oshthisside) October 30, 2018
Since posting it, it has gone viral and the catchy song inspired a full on Twitter trend and very funny memes about superiority.
... Dotty from BBC 1Extra thinks “My Ye is different to your Ye” means "We may be in the same lane but we are not on the same level."....
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A lot of commenters in YouTube discussion threads for Osh's YouTube video "My Ye Is Different" ask what "ye" means. Some of these comments spell "ye" the same as the English word "yeah" (or "yea" or "yay") which probably adds to the confusion since the word "ye" in Osh's song (and in Burna Boy's song) definitely do not mean "yes".
Others write comments that use the word "ye" in ways that differ from the supposed meaning "Me and you are not on the same level". Some commenters wrote that "ye" meant "swag" [Oxford Online Dictionary "derived from swagger, and used in slang to denote ‘bold self-assurance in style or manner’, or ‘an air of great self-confidence or superiority].
The unfamiliarity with the word "ye" (apart from those who recognize it as an African exclamation that is traditional to some languages) and/or the lack of agreement about what that word means leads me to conclude that there's more than one contemporary vernacular meaning for the word "ye" and/or that the contemporary vernacular meaning or meanings of the word "ye" isn't (aren't) really established yet.
That said, I think that Osh's twitter comic music video "My ye is different to your ye" started out as joke that Kanye West's album Ye was different from Burna Boy's song "Ye".
All of these other contemporary vernacular meanings that are out there for the word "Ye" and the "My Ye is different to your ye" saying are after-the-fact back stories.
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This concludes Part I of this pancocojams series.
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