Lyrical word choices function as convertible financial assets in a speculative marketplace

Evidence

Word choices within lyrics are converted into fungible assets; multiplied by hundreds of rappers in thousands of songs, the textual marketplace becomes speculative. Opportunities arise within film and television as well. The goal of this section is to begin imagining and interrogating the scale of this cultural stock exchange that merges the formal and the financial. — Andrew deWaard, Derivative Media, 320

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces ‘lyrical speculation’ as the chapter’s core concept — the formal features of lyrics becoming liquidateable financial value.
• XREF: connects to: Financial asset prices oscillate among competing claims to meaning, like word meanings — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 80; Markets generate wealth through disposable metaphors, not coherent narratives — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 136; Finance theory shapes markets through the linguistic infrastructure it provides practitioners — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera: How Financial…, 1128