"Keeping it real"

[Baker, John]

        A little earlier, from a 2/6/1987 article in the Philadelphia Inquirer about rock star Joan Jett (who, according to the article, likes to call herself a populist):

        <<Before the populist swoops off to her next campaign stop, she utters a phrase that could be her slogan, pointing her finger in emphasis: "It's important to keep it real.">>

        This implies that the term was used by mainstream rock artists before it was appropriated as a rap term.  It could even have been originated by Joan Jett, though that's not how I would bet my money.   It may have been influenced by "It's been real," which I recall was popular in the 1970s.

John Baker


-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf
Of Benjamin Zimmer
Sent: Wednesday, April 13, 2005 3:35 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: "Keeping it real"


I believe the hiphop exhortation to "keep it real" emerged in the early
'90s and became widespread by mid-decade.  The rapper Apache of the Flavor
Unit MCs had a song called "Keep It Real" in '93, and Kool Moe Dee had a
song with the same title the following year.

http://www.ohhla.com/anonymous/rap_comp/lost_art/keepreal.rla.txt

These cites from Nexis and Proquest suggest that "keep it real" may have
already been in use by black entertainers c. '91-'92, though the phrase
hadn't necessarily become a fixed idiom yet: