What Does Backdoor Mean In Rap? (Explained!)

“Backdoor” in rap refers to things being done in a sly, underhanded, and deceptive way. You are accomplishing something by indirect means, and it may even refer to outright betrayal by one friend of another. It could more generally refer to morally questionable actions, or simply to cutting someone out of a transaction.

Generally, then, backdoor isn’t good when you hear it in rap.

It always means something underhanded and dishonest, something perhaps you might even call dishonorable.

It can have a varied tapestry of meanings depending on the context, but it always refers to something that you wouldn’t want to be caught doing, that anyone would disagree with.

Let’s find out more.

What do rappers mean by “backdoor”?

“Backdoor” in rap can have a variety of subtly different senses, but they all generally relate to the same ultimate meaning.

The simplest way to sum it up is of deception.

It might be that someone has achieved something through certain means that most people would consider to be at best morally dubious and at worst outright evil.

Obviously, though, it isn’t as simple as just doing something bad.

It’s about how you do it, and for what ends.

For the most part, the specific meaning of “backdoor” is that you’ve done something by deceiving others, in order to achieve and further your own personal goals.

The goals themselves don’t even necessarily have to be that bad—it’s more about what you did to get there.

In rap, then, this could relate to a huge variety of things.

Rap “beefs” are a big part of many rap subcultures, and so often this is how the term is used.

It may be that two rappers who were once friends have become enemies because one “backstabbed” the other using backdoor means.

They betrayed them somehow, and in a way that you wouldn’t even wish on your worst enemy.

Of course, it doesn’t always have to be this serious.

It could just be that someone did something in a sly and underhanded way that you disagree with but don’t necessarily find to be world-endingly treacherous.

It’s hard to come up with universal examples of the kind of behavior that is meant since different people will think of different acts in different ways.

Say, for example, someone chose to go behind their friend’s back to gain an advantage for themselves at the friend’s expense.

This would be backdoor behavior, whatever the specific details of the incident were.

Where does this term come from, then?

Where does “backdoor” come from in rap?

It’s not really known where the first usage of this term in this particular context was.

It certainly predates rap, and was adopted into rap at a later date.

It had a very natural home in rap as, again, a lot of rap involves these interpersonal disputes between people who may once have been friends.

Even if they weren’t friends, it may still be that one person feels their actions were sly and deceptive, in a way that is not becoming of a good person.

Obviously, a literal “backdoor” has always been ripe for metaphor.

Entering something via the backdoor can imply secretiveness, deception, and a broader sense of going about something in an indirect, even cowardly way rather than confronting the issue head-on.

So, the metaphor is likely centuries old in some form or another—it has just been adopted in a more specific way by modern rap culture.

When this happened is again not clear, but the term has been used since the earliest days of rap in the 1980s.

What does “backdooring” mean in rap?

“Backdooring” is a rather more specific term when it is used in rap and indeed more generally.

It does retain the same sense of deception and undercutting someone to gain an advantage for yourself but in a much more particular way.

To say someone has “backdoored” you mean that they have cut you out of a transaction in some way.

This could mean virtually anything, though perhaps it is most often used in the sense of a rap collaboration where one partner cut out another to get an advantage for themselves.

This term is widely used in business and other contexts with the same meaning, and again the sense is that you are angry someone deceived you as they did.

What else does “backdoor” mean?

Backdoor can have some other meanings.

Obviously it literally refers to the subsidiary entrance to a building, such as a house’s backdoor to a yard.

By this logic, then, it can also mean a secret entrance to a house or building perhaps used for deceptive purposes or just for reasons of privacy.

This is a great deal more common in the UK than in the U.S., but “backdoor” can also refer to the anus, and particularly to anal sex.

Issues of homophobia are somewhat rampant in certain parts of rap and so this is often used as an insult in that way.

Whatever the case may be, backdoor does not mean something good in rap.

In fact, in virtually any context, unless you are referring to a literal backdoor of a house or building, then it is not a good word to hear.

Even people who engage in acts that the general public might find questionable often still hold themselves to a certain standard, feel that they have a certain code of honor and that some things are beyond the pale no matter what—these things are often “backdoor”.

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