Talking 'Bout Your Mama: The Dozens, Snaps, and the Deep Roots of Rap Book PDF, ePub eBook

Join our eBook service for unlimited books & audiobooks. Get a free 7 day subscription! ↓↓↓↓↓


Book Descriptions:
From Two Live Crew's controversial comedy to Ice Cube's gangsta styling and the battle rhymes of a streetcorner cypher, rap has always drawn on deep traditions of African American poetic word-play, In Talking 'Bout Your Mama, author Elijah Wald explores one of the most potent sources of rap: the viciously funny, outrageously inventive insult game known as "the dozens."

So what is the dozens? At its simplest, it's a comic chain of "yo' mama" jokes. At its most complex, it's an intricate form of social interaction that reaches back to African ceremonial rituals. Wald traces the tradition of African American street rhyming and verbal combat that has ruled urban neighborhoods since the early 1900s. 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 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.

Talking 'Bout Your Mama: The Dozens, Snaps, and the Deep Roots of Rap by Elijah Wald

From reader reviews:

Harriet Blum:

Reading a publication can be one of a lot of action that everyone in the world enjoys. Do you like reading book and so. There are a lot of reasons why people fantastic. First reading a reserve will give you a lot of new information. When you read a e-book you will get new information due to the fact book is one of several ways to share the information or maybe their idea. Second, studying a book will make you actually more imaginative. When you reading a book especially fictional book the author will bring one to imagine the story how the character types do it anything. Third, you may share your knowledge to others. When you read this Talking 'Bout Your Mama: The Dozens, Snaps, and the Deep Roots of Rap, it is possible to tells your family, friends along with soon about yours publication. Your knowledge can inspire others, make them reading a guide.

Mary Parker:

Reading a book tends to be new life style in this era globalization. With reading you can get a lot of information that can give you benefit in your life. Having book everyone in this world can share their idea. Guides can also inspire a lot of people. Plenty of author can inspire their particular reader with their story or maybe their experience. Not only the storyline that share in the guides. But also they write about the data about something that you need case in point. How to get the good score toefl, or how to teach children, there are many kinds of book which exist now. The authors nowadays always try to improve their ability in writing, they also doing some study before they write for their book. One of them is this Talking 'Bout Your Mama: The Dozens, Snaps, and the Deep Roots of Rap.

Jacquelin Vasquez:

The reason why? Because this Talking 'Bout Your Mama: The Dozens, Snaps, and the Deep Roots of Rap is an unordinary book that the inside of the e-book waiting for you to snap that but latter it will distress you with the secret that inside. Reading this book next to it was fantastic author who have write the book in such awesome way makes the content interior easier to understand, entertaining means but still convey the meaning fully. So , it is good for you for not hesitating having this any longer or you going to regret it. This unique book will give you a lot of advantages than the other book have got such as help improving your talent and your critical thinking way. So , still want to postpone having that book? If I were being you I will go to the guide store hurriedly.

Manuel Arndt:

You may spend your free time to study this book this e-book. This Talking 'Bout Your Mama: The Dozens, Snaps, and the Deep Roots of Rap is simple to bring you can read it in the recreation area, in the beach, train along with soon. If you did not possess much space to bring the particular printed book, you can buy the actual e-book. It is make you easier to read it. You can save the particular book in your smart phone. Therefore there are a lot of benefits that you will get when you buy this book.