I Am African American My Last Name Is Scoggins

Who is the most technically skilled rapper of all time?

It's hard to say. But in my opinion, it is out of two rappers. Jay-Z and Eminem. While some people will throw in Nas and a host of others, I say these two. Let's start with EM. While I think he is overrated, his ability to have multiple rhyming words within I rhyming sentence is crazy. That scheme can't be pulled off by many and it be right. His lines just flow, flow and flow. He can also tell good stories like On the song Stan. Also, he hasn't changed his content to stay relevant. That's always a plus because no one likes sell outs and it shows he can still be creative enough to satisfy his fanbase 10+ years in the game. Now, Jay-Z. His ability to have double and tripple entondres in one line is crazy. Google "I don't half step on the cane". Jay never seems out of place on a track. It seems like he can adapt to any song, any artist on any beat. Jay has been consistently in the top rappers in the game for at least the past 15+ years. He has to be doing something right, the man is a billion years old, has a billion albums and you still can't turn the radio on without hearing one of his songs.

Why are so many African-American last names of European descent?

Tony Solange’s answer is not the full reality of the why, not remotely. He has cut a very very little piece of the pie, and shared that as the why. The general gist is people of native African descent, be them in the diaspora or in Africa, who have non native African surnames…. the surnames came about two MAIN ways, the first, most common way was via slavery and colonial administration. The second is not necessarily colonial/slavery related at all…. this is via inter-procreation/intermarriage - which is the tiny piece of pie Tony is sharing. Basically there are of course some Africans who have consensual non African paternity on either the parental level or grandparental and so on.For many/most African Americans, their last names are non African largely due to slavery and colonial administration. Slaves were stripped of their African identity and culture, and replaced/brainwashed with European surnames, the language, the religion etc. They wouldn’t have ever had the opportunity or audacity to formally, outspokenly answer and recognise their african names while in The Americas, therefore as time passed they would have simply forgotten and/or not ever bothered to ever bear their African names again because the system and administration DID NOT ALLOW it.Might there have been Africans who managed to remember their own given African names and were able to pass it down?.. maybe! Some may have also simply wanted so bad to not have the Euro name anymore that they invented a name o their own for themselves.Additionally, the concept of surnames, I feel was/is European originated, or at least it wasn’t native African tradition. Africans of earlier times didn’t seem to have two names, first and last. They may have identified themselves by tribe, or by subgroups or by house… kind of like in the TV show HandMaid’s Tale… “OfGlen” “OfFred” “OfHenry”. These aren’t actually names, but it’s a form of identification and separation.

Why do most African-Americans have English origin surnames?

My name is Ayana FletcherBefore my time it was Wright, Jones, Freeman, Jolliff, Brown, and White.If you trace the family tree for each one of those last names (except Freeman and Jones) you will see a Black woman with a white man. With the surname Jones you will see a Native American woman with a black man and that woman happened to have a European surname. You will also see mixed cousins, uncles, grandparents within that mix.Many of those children took on the last name of their father and many of those slaves took on the names of their master, some took on the names they liked most like “Freeman” which derived from the Irish.Many black People back then didn’t know many African last names nor could they deal with making up their own since their main priority was getting a job. Having an ethnic surname would give our ancestors the same hard time we have now and that is it would hinder us when applying for work and trying to earn a descent living. That is also why back then that instead of having just European surnames they also had European first names like Betty, Debra, Doris, Beatrice, Thelma… and there were even times they took on religious names like Ruth, Malachi, Mary, Johnathan, Joseph…Unlike us, surnames do not age they are the names of our ancestors. Just because black People today prefer biblical names, Islamic names, made up names, and African names does not mean we can change our last name and the evidence of struggle our ancestors faced trying to make it in white America.I think what they did is what many people would of done and many groups of people who were oppressed back then did just that.