Rap Music and Oral Literacy

Rap and Verbal Virtuosity

The history of the DJ and the verbal virtuosity of the MC (Master of Ceremonies) can be traced back to a wide variety of oratorical precedents, including West African griots and Jamaican “toasting” dating back to the mid- to late 1800s. Rap music has its roots in the great oral traditions of West Africa and specifically the epic histories of the West African griots, a gendered reference to the learned art of storytelling the history and genealogy of one's family or tribal community.

Because history was not written down, griots were highly respected for and skilled at memorizing, reciting, and interpreting complex histories that dated back centuries in both oral and vocal form. Whereas griots recited or sang long epics that lasted hours, sometimes days, from the oral tradition's inception, griottes (female storytellers) had a strong presence, usually singing or playing music at certain segments of the narrative. The prestigious and coveted role of the griot (besides being a historian and genealogist) varied from diplomat to royal advisor for West African kings, to entertainers, teachers, messengers, praise singers, and interpreters or translators.

Other oral traditions derived from West Africa were talking blues songs; schoolyard and jailhouse toasts (long rhyming poems recounting outlandish deeds and misdeeds); the trading of tall tales; and “the dozens” (a ritualized word game with rhyming and exchanging of insults, usually directed toward members of the opponent's family, such as “Your mama…” jokes). The content of traditional African tales or toasts celebrated notorious mythical males boasting about their triumphs, status, and/or power.

Another oratorical precedent that influenced DJs, MC s, and modern-day rap music originated from Jamaica, in the form of “toasting.” Jamaican toasting is the poetic and rhymed form of storytelling usually told in the first person; it varies from egotistical or boastful toasts, to misogynistic, violent, and/or otherwise demeaning toasts.

U.S. Expressions

Rap music, a contemporary manifestation of a rich tradition of orality, includes the use of words in the drum rhythms from jazz musicians such as Frankie Newton and Louis Prima in the 1930s; the irregular rhythms of the snare and bass drum in bebop beginning in the 1940s; the hipster-jive announcing styles of 1950s rhythm ‘n’ blues deejays such as Géorgie Woods, Jocko Henderson, and Ewart Beckford, better known as “U-Roy”; the inclusion of ritualistic insults or “the dozens” in songs by blues singers like Bo Diddley; and, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the political rhetoric of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X, as well as the Black Power poetry of Amiri Baraka, Gil Scott-Heron, the Last Poets, Sonia Sanchez, and Nikki Giovanni.

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