In <em>Talking 'Bout Your Mama</em>, 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. As 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. Edgy, funny, and bizarre, <em>Talking 'Bout Your Mama</em> is a fascinating journey to a tradition at the heart of modern culture.
