Slang dictionary
ear hustler
[ eer huhs-ler ]
What does ear hustler mean?
An ear hustler is slang for a “gossiper” or “eavesdropper,” especially those seeking to leverage whatever information they overhear to their advantage.
Where does ear hustler come from?
Ear hustle appears as early as the 1990s in Black and prison slang. Ear, of course, refers to hearing, and hustle, here, is “to work something to one’s advantage.”
An ear hustler, by extension, is a “gossip” or “eavesdropper.” One early instance appears in the 1996 song “Rapper’s Ball” by E-40: “I keep a briefcase full of game / while y’all be ear-hustlin’.”
Nobody likes an ear hustler, as other hip-hop lyrics make clear, such as Kendrick Lamar’s 2009 “Determined”: “Ear hustle on a n**** that’s constantly braggin’ / Catch him at the light, snatch him out his Jeep wagon.”
Ear hustler implies a person is eavesdropping or spreading rumors to take advantage of private information in some way, usually at the expense of the person being listened in on or gossiped about.
Examples of ear hustler
Who uses ear hustler?
Ear hustler has remained popular in hip-hop lyrics since “Rapper’s Ball.” Layzie Bone dropped it, for instance, in his 2005 song Smokin’ on Information, featuring Jon Little III and the king of smoking himself, Snoop Dogg. The Atlanta-based rapper, Mango Foo, came out with the album Ear Hustling in 2016.
one of my trainers calls me an "ear hustler" bc i'm always eavesdropping & i really want him to put it on my eval bc it shows i'm proactive
— cinntervention (@cinn_sational) March 1, 2017
Ear hustler has spread from lyrics to prose. In 2010, it titled the book Ear Hustlin, which details the main character’s penchant for making a living as an ear hustler and the trouble it eventually gets him into.
Playing off ear hustle as prison slang and podcasts as an audio medium, the podcast titled Ear Hustle launched in 2016 with the mission to tell the stories of those behind bars from the voices of inmates themselves. It seeks to humanize the prisoners and expose problems within the criminal justice system.
TOMORROW
At San Quentin State Prison, the wildly popular podcast, "Ear Hustle," is produced by the inmates themselves and tells the stories of life inside prison, shared by those living it
Ted Koppel reports, in this two-part story for #CBSSundayMorning https://t.co/1qnJtcjvuw pic.twitter.com/T144jJygjl
— CBS Sunday Morning 🌞 (@CBSSunday) June 23, 2018
As noted, ear hustle is the verb form, ear hustler the noun. It often carries a negative connotation, but sometimes it can be more positive, i.e., someone who has the ears out and is ready to act on what they encounter for their success.
Note
This is not meant to be a formal definition of ear hustler like most terms we define on Dictionary.com, but is rather an informal word summary that hopefully touches upon the key aspects of the meaning and usage of ear hustler that will help our users expand their word mastery.