The dozens : a history of rap's mama / Elijah Wald.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Wald, Elijah.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

African American wit and humor.

American wit and humor.

Invective--Humor.

Invective.

Dozens (Game).

African Americans--Social life and customs.

African Americans.

Rap (Music).

African Americans--Music.

Genre:

Humor.

Rap (Music)

Physical Description:

xi, 244 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : Oxford University Press, [2012]

Summary:

"At its simplest, the dozens is a comic concatenation of "yo' mama" jokes. At its most complex, it is a form of social interaction that reaches back to African ceremonial rituals. Whether considered vernacular poetry, verbal dueling, a test of street cool, or just a mess of dirty insults, the dozens has been a basic building block of African-American culture. A game which could inspire raucous laughter or escalate to violence, it provided a wellspring of rhymes, attitude, and raw humor that has influenced pop musicians from Jelly Roll Morton to Ice Cube. 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 seminal 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. A forbidden language beneath the surface of American popular culture, the dozens links children's clapping rhymes to low-down juke joints and the most modern street verse to the earliest African American folklore."--Publisher's website.

Contents:

A Trip down Twelfth Street

The Name of the Game

Singing the Dozens

Country Dozens and Dirty Blues

The Literary Dozens

Studying the Street

The Martial Art of Rhyming

Around the World with Your Mother

African Roots

Slipping Across the Color Line

Why Do They (We) Do That?

Rapping, Snapping, and Battling.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780199895403

0199895406

OCLC:

757486018