In Talking About Your Mama, Elijah Wald has turned his attention to the deep roots of rap in American culture with a wide-ranging look a street tradition called the dozens, where African American music began. Wald traces the form and its variations throughout more than a century of African American culture and music, from minstrelsy and the blues through to jazz and hip-hop.
CONTENTS
1. A Trip Down Twelfth Street
2. The Name of the Game
3. Singing the Dozens
4. The Blue Dozens
5. The Literary Dozens
6. If You Grin, You're In
7. The Martial Art of Rhyming
8. Around the World with Your Mother
9. African Roots and Branches
10. The Dozens and Race
11. Why Do We (They) Do that?
12. Rapping, Snapping, and Dueling on YouTube