Talking 'bout your mama
Subtitle: the dozens, snaps, and the deep roots of rap
By: Elijah Wald
Published: 2014
Language: eng
Number of pages: 244
ISBN-13: 9780199394043
Copyright date: 2102
Subjects: Rap (Music); Social life and customs; Humor; African American wit and humor; Dozens (Game); History and criticism; Invective; Music; African Americans
Other titles: Dozens, snaps, and the deep roots of rap; Talking about your mama; Dozens : a history of rap's mama.
Description: A game which could inspire raucous laughter or escalate to violence, the dozens provided a wellspring of rhymes, attitude, and raw humor that has influenced pop musicians from Jelly Roll Morton and Robert Johnson to Tupac Shakur and Jay Z. Wald explores the depth of the dozens' roots, looking at mother-insulting and verbal combat from Greenland to the sources of the Niger, and shows its breadth of influence in the writings of Richard Wright, Langston Hughes, and Zora Neale Hurston; the comedy of Richard Pryor and George Carlin; the dark humor of the blues; the hip slang and competitive jamming of jazz; and most recently in the improvisatory battling of rap.
Notes: Reprint. Hardcover edition published as: The dozens : a history of rap's mama.

"A half-dozen definitions": p. x-xi.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 227-231) and index.
Table of contents: title: A trip down Twelfth Street; title: The name of the game; title: Singing the dozens; title: Country dozens and dirty blues; title: The literary dozens; title: Studying the street; title: The martial art of rhyming; title: Around the world with your mother; title: African roots; title: Slipping across the color line; title: Why do they (we) do that?; title: Rapping, snapping, and battling.