Jamaican-born hip-hop pioneer DJ Kool Herc is widely credited as the father of modern rapping for his spoken interjections over records. Rap is also said to have developed from the oral histories of West African griots, talking blues songs, jailhouse toasts (long rhyming poems recounting outlandish deeds and misdeeds), and the dozens (the ritualized word game based on exchanging insults, usually about members of the opponent’s family). Other influences include 1950s rhythm-and-blues deejay Jocko Henderson; poets and spoken-word artists Amiri Baraka, Gil Scott-Heron, and the Last Poets; rapping sections in recordings by soul artist Isaac Hayes and funk legend George Clinton; and the Jamaican style of rhythmized speech known as toasting.
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