Rap music is rooted in cultural and verbal traditions from the Caribbean as well as the United States. Mainland traditions that remain visible
in hip-hop
include “jive-talking
” radio personalities of the 1940s and 1950s and oral traditions of storytelling, toasting, and “playing the dozens,
” a competitive and recreational exchange of verbal insults. Jamaican traditions include toasting and mobile disk jockeys. Many of the hip-hop pioneers were Caribbean immigrants, who brought some of the...
