Stanley Crouch, you are lunchin'


Davy Crockett-the father of rap?

Stanley Crouch completely ignores the African American oral tradition dating back to slavery, and the interesting history of the oral tradition which includes such limeriks like "Stagolee" (otherwise known as "Stagger Lee", which became a classic rock song by Lloyd Price in the 50's), signifying(which includes the poem "The Signifying Monkey") and the art of the dozens (the tradition of cracking jokes about your mother which dates back to slave days).

He ignores everybody from Robert Johnson and other blues singers,the "Beat Poets" of the 50s, James Brown, Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry, The Coasters, Blowfly, Richard Pryor, The Last Poets, Gil Scott Heron, and Afrika Bambatta, and credits the beginnings of rap to Davy Crokett???????????:

The worst of the early figures in American popular art appeared between 1833 and 1856, in fictional tales growing out of the life of Davy Crockett. Like a gangster rapper, this folklore character had no sense of fairness and fought without any rules other than winning. This Crockett also bragged himself into exhaustion. He opened the way for rappers when, in an 1837 story in "Davy Crockett's Almanac" he said, "I can walk like an ox, run like a fox, swim like an eel, yell like an Indian, fight like a devil, spout like an earthquake, make love like a mad bull, and swallow a n----- without choking if you butter his head and pin his ears back."

So when you next see some gold-toothed Negro strutting with a microphone, cursing, bragging, expressing hatred for women, realize that he is not doing anything black at all. He has fallen for the lowest version of white culture and, like the ignoramus he is, has absolutely no idea about his roots at all. Just like Davy Crockett, he should be wearing a coonskin cap.

Stanley Crouch, you're a dumbass!