How ispoti became the bucket hat, the cool kid's guide to trendy lingo

Since when did ispoti become a bucket hat? Or light skinned people referred to as yellow bones? How about the phenomena of calling ikasi the hood? If you are scratching your head then you better read on. We are about to school you on the cool kid's guide to trendy lingo!

iSpoti versus the bucket hat

For years you have known it as ispoti. Your favourite uncle wore one and you might even have sported one as a kid. The coolest guys wore the Dickies or Kappa branded ones and these hats were a pivotal part of local street culture. Fast forward to the early naughties and the ispoti was slowly fading out.

In came the poorboy's cap and snapbacks, New York, Brooklyn and LA were the titles branded on these caps and ispoti was relegated to second class state.

But now with the popularity of local hip hop, ispoti has been reintroduced under the moniker of "the bucket hat".

Rap artists such as K.O, Kid X and AKA have injected life into this revived trend by wearing the bucket hat in their CaraCara video.

The bucket has become so trendy that it is what some new school rappers such as Cassper Nyovest exclusively wear. So fashionistas take note, never refer to ispoti again, it's now the sexier sounding bucket hat.

Tsipa versus Twerking

When Miley Cyrus took to the VMA stage to show off her back bending skills, "twerking" suddenly became all the rage. Nevermind that in SA, this provocative move has been doing it's rounds for years.

When kwaito star Tsekeleke squeezed and shook his butt, it was dubbed the tsipa. We don't mind the twerking title though, it does have a nice ring to it.

Kasi/Loxion versus 'hood

First it was the informal term location which was remixed to loxion and even inspired a brand of clothing, loxion kulca. As soon as we got used to loxion, kasi came along and that was the standard term. SA is heavily influenced by US culture and soon neighbourhood, a popular term for suburbs and urban dwellings, replaced the kasi. Neighbourhood was soon shortened to 'hood and that's how it has been ever since.

Light skinned versus Yellow bone

US rap artist Lil Wayne started a major lingo trend about four years ago when on one of his verses on the Right Above It track which featured Drake, he said: I bet that b**** look better in red. While Wayne's verse was derogatory in that it dissed dark skinned women, it helped coin the term yellow bone as a red bone was considered a mix between light and dark. The term caught on fast in SA and before we knew it, the yellow bone was considered a normal way to describe a light complexioned woman.

Umakwhapheni versus Side chick

When explaining what a umakwapheni  is, a person, usually a man would make a hand gesture towards his underarms to suggest that it was a mistress who was kept under wraps and that no one knew of.

Again, US culture infiltrated and umakwahpheni was made redundant. The side chick term took over and together with main chick, a term used to describe the official girlfriend or wife were incorporated into local lingo.