Talking 'Bout Your Mama: The Dozens, Snaps, and the Deep Roots of Rap
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.36 (687 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0199394040 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 264 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2017-03-07 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
From schoolyard games and rural work songs to urban novels and nightclub comedy, and pop hits from ragtime to rap, Wald uses the dozens as a lens to provide new insight into over a century of African American culture.A groundbreaking work, Talking 'Bout Your Mama is an essential book for anyone interested in African American cultural studies, history and linguistics, and the origins of rap music.. Whether considered vernacular poetry, aggressive dueling, a test of street cool, or just a mess of dirty insults, the dozens is 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 and Robert Johnson to Tupac Shakur and Jay Z. Wald goes back to 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 in its ultimate evolution into the improvisatory battling of rap. From Two Live Crew's controversial comedy to Ice Cube's gangsta styling and the battle rhymes of a streetcorner cypher, rap has always
The many quotations from dozens exchanges make for colorful reading (Wald himself censors nothing), Wald's prose is consistently entertaining, the pace is brisk without sacrificing detail, and the breadth of sources ensures that every reader will come away with new information." --Sandra Jean Graham, The Bulletin of the Society for American Music. The origins of blues, toasts and dozens, even the sources of the names are all lost in time. "A profanely sacred history lesson that vacillates between monster one-liners and carefully articulated deep thoughts. But after reading Elijah Wald's superbly researched and splendidly written book, no one will have any doubt what this important tradition is and means." --Bruce Jackson, author of "Get Your Ass in the Water and Swim Like Me": African-American Narrative Poetry from the Oral Tradition"Fascinating and groundbreaking all the
Elijah Wald is a musician and writer who has toured on five continents and written thousands of articles for newspapers, magazines, and album notes. His ten published books include Escaping the Delta: Robert Johnson and the Invention of the Blues, How the Beatles Destroyed Rock 'n' Roll: AnAlternative History of American Popular Music, and The Blues: A Very Short Introduction. He has taught blue
MAXIMILLIAN MUHAMMAD said much dap and Props on this book. i been doing the dozens for many moons against turkeys. i told a turkey once that his Mamma was so dumb that she thought IQ was a Ward in the Hospital, she was walking toward the doctor talking about my tummy hurts i need to be checked into the IQ Ward.mama clowin ain't never gonna go outta style. your mamma is so crossed eyed that she saw both t. "You did not talk about your mama enough. Why" according to Lewis D.. You did not talk about your mama enough. Why don't you stick up for yourself and stop crying. You're scared.