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

by Elijah Wald

Book Overview

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"...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0199895406
• ISBN13: 9780199895403
• Release Date: June 2012
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 1.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 9.4" x 6.4"