The takeaway is that pop music may not create words from thin air, but it has a track record in putting a new spin on terms we are already familiar with. Take “espresso”, for instance. There is an indisputable “before” and “after” moment dating from the Sabrina Carpenter hit of the same name. Beforehand, it meant a black coffee in a tiny cup; after Carpenter put out Espresso this April, it was impossible to hear the word in your head without immediately jumping to the line “Switch it up like Nintendo… that’s me espresso”.
But none of this fell out of the clear blue – or slime green – sky. As far back as the Sixties, pop’s original mop-topped brats, The Beatles, popularised phrases such as “Whatever gets you through the night”, “hard day’s night”, and, via George Harrison’s solo career, “all things must pass” (though George, to his credit, acknowledged he’d taken that one from the Bible). “Fab” also received a boost from Macca and pals after they were crowned the Fab Four.
However, it was hip-hop that really impacted spoken English. According to the New York Times, the use of “dope” as a superlative comes from African-American rappers. “Dope”, it was suggested, had two origins. The first was the Dutch word “doop”, meaning “dipping sauce”, which by 1909 had come to refer to the “thick treacle-like preparation used in opium smoking”. But the NYT claimed “dope” was additionally about taking ownership of the word that had previously been used as an insult.