Crunk - Etymology

Etymology

The term has been attributed mainly to African American slang, in which it holds various meanings. It most commonly refers to the verb phrase "to crank up". It is theorized that the use of the term came from a past-tense form of "crank", which was sometimes conjugated as "crunk" in the South, such that if a person, event or party was hyped-up, i.e. energetic – "cranked" or "cranked up" – it was said to be "crunk".

In publications, crunk can be traced back to 1972 in the Dr. Seuss book Marvin K. Mooney Will You Please Go Now!. He uses the term "Crunk-Car" without any given definition. The term has also been traced to usage in the 1980s coming out of Atlanta, Georgia night clubs and meaning being "full of energy" or "hyped". In the mid 1990s, crunk was variously defined either as "hype", "phat", or "pumped up". Rolling Stone magazine published "glossary of Dirty South slang", where to crunk was defined as "to get excited".

Outkast has been attributed as the first artist to use the term in mainstream music, in the 1993 track "Player's Ball". A seminal year for the genre was 1996, with the releases of Three 6 Mafia album Chapter 1: The End (featuring "Gette'm Crunk"), and Memphis-based underground hip hop artist Tommy Wright III's album On the Run, which featured the Project Pimp track "Getting Crunk".

Artist Lil Jon was instrumental in bringing the term further into the mainstream with his 1997 album titled Get Crunk, Who U Wit: Da Album. He later released other songs and albums using the term, and has been credited by other artists and musicians as galvanizing use of the term as well as mainstreaming the music genre itself.

Lil Jon further disambiguated the word with his 2004 album Crunk Juice, and has been credited with inventing the potent alcoholic cocktail by that name. This use of crunk became synonymous with the meaning "crazy drunk". Non-alcoholic drinks, to which alcohol could be added, were manufactured and marketed under the Crunk brand name, with Lil Jon as spokesman.

The term has continued to evolve ,taking on a negative stigma with police, parents, and the media. In 2011, the same company that manufactured the drink "Crunk" came out with an alcoholic version of the beverage naming it "Crunk Juce" (also known as "CJ"). This drink has allegedly been marketed towards individuals between 19 to 21 years old (i.e., under the legal alcohol-drinking age in the United States and Canada), Crunk Juice drinking was being blamed by police as a cause of people committing crimes and becoming crime victims. The mainstream media began publishing stories in which the term crunk was being used to refer to "crazy and drunk" criminals.