Right Thurr

Lyrics:

I like the way you do that right there (right there)
Swing your hips when you're walkin', let down your hair (let down your hair)
I like the way you do that right there (right there)
Lick your lips when you're talkin', that make me stare

http://ldc.upenn.edu/myl/thurr.mp3

What's going on here? Does Chingy actually merge ''stare'' and ''stir'' or was it just something he did in that song?

I believe it's a trait found in the St. Louis dialect, although I think Chingy over emphasizes it for effect in the song. Another St. Louis rapper, Nelly, does the same thing in his song Hot in Herrre. Here is pronounced hur/her by him at the beginning of the song, although he goes on the use standard pronunciation for the rest of the song.

It's not just something that rap artists have made up. I've heard it before from actual people in childhood and they were all from the South, although I don't remember if they were from St. Louis or not. Most likely they were, since that is the area many of my relatives originated from.

Can't speak for Chingy, but in North West England these vowel sounds are quite often confused in some accents. E.g hair= hurr, square=squrr, chair=churr etc......so stare rhymes with stir!

In the same respect New Zealanders and some Scots pronounce the sound as eer, so "stairs" are "steers" etc.

Rap songs aren't usually the best things to listen to if you're trying to learn good grammar. I'm not saying that's what you were doing, but in all honesty they're not ... which is probably obvious. In rap songs, various words are changed or emphesized purposely, to either just make the song sound cooler, or to rhyme words with other words they wouldn't normally rhyme with. Eminem is probably the best example of that. He's constantly changing words to make them rhyme with other words that don't sound anything alike.

Rappy Eminem is a chronic mysoginist and homophobe and certainly not a good role model if you are a learner of the English Language. His lyrics are crap.