Questlove is celebrating a momentous occasion as the word “jawn” — from his native Philadelphia — is being recognized as an official word in the dictionary.
The legendary drummer of The Roots took to his Instagram on Wednesday (February 8) with a post celebrating the huge news. Quest shared a video clip from a news broadcast of CBS 3 Philadelphia reporting on the word being added to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary.
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The news anchors highlighted how the city of Philadelphia, the University of Pennsylvania and more celebrated the announcement with their own tweets. For Quest, he stuck to a simple declaration for the entire world.
“Dear World: you are welcome. Of all the jawns in life? THIS one,” Questlove wrote in the caption of his post.
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Merriam-Webster describes “jawn” as a Philadelphia all-purpose noun. The word is mostly heard in the eastern part of Philly, but the entire city and state have adopted it. The word “jawn” being added to the dictionary is just a small part of the success the city of Philadelphia has seen lately.
In the sports world, the Philadelphia Phillies made it to the 2022 World Series, the 76ers traded for All-Star guard James Harden becoming a top three team in the Eastern Conference this season and the Eagles football team are on their way to Super Bowl LVII this weekend to face off against the Kansas City Chiefs.
On the music side of things, some of the city’s best artists have been doing their thing as of late. Lil Uzi Vert has become an even bigger star thanks to his latest hit single “Just Wanna Rock,” which was a force on TikTok and was recently crowned the city’s new anthem by DJ Drama.
Questlove had himself quite the year, winning an Oscar and Grammy Award for his Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) documentary which focuses on the Harlem Cultural Festival. If that wasn’t enough, Quest oversaw the Hip Hop 50 tribute performance at the 65th annual Grammy Awards last Sunday (February 5).
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While the performance drew rave reviews and helped the Grammys earn a three-year viewership high, there were still some fans left wondering why certain artists were left out. Questlove took to Twitter this week to give fans a better understanding of how difficult it was to squeeze multiple generations into a 15-minute performance while also dealing with artists pulling out at the last minute.
“General ?s answered about last night: (some are asking if we are playing erasure games so uh….yeah I don’t play that so—in answering the questions of why wasn’t dada there?) 1. already booked 2. declined our offer straight up 3. or a third option im not gonna get into,” he tweeted.
