Editing Rapping (section)

===Roots and origin===
[[File:Memphis jugband.jpg|frame|right|The [[Memphis Jug Band]], an early blues group, whose lyrical content and rhythmic singing predated rapping]]
{{Listen||type=music|header =
   |filename=Joe Hill Louis - Gotta Let You Go.ogg
   |title=Gotta Let You Go
   |description=[[Joe Hill Louis]]'s song "Gotta Let You Go" is an early example of rapping in [[blues]].
}}

Similarities to rapping can be observed in West African chanting folk traditions. Centuries before [[hip-hop music]] existed, the [[griot]]s of West Africans were delivering stories [[rhythm]]ically, over [[drum]]s and sparse instrumentation. Such resemblances have been noted by many modern artists, modern day "griots", [[spoken word]] artists, mainstream news sources, and academics.<ref>{{cite news| url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3622406.stm| title=BBC News: Africa| access-date=December 21, 2005| date=September 2, 2004| first=Lawrence| last=Pollard| archive-date=April 16, 2019| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190416185500/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3622406.stm| url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web| url = http://rap.about.com/mbiopage.htm| title = About.com: Rap| access-date = December 21, 2005| url-status = dead| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20060111091655/http://rap.about.com/mbiopage.htm| archive-date = January 11, 2006| df = mdy-all}}</ref><ref>{{cite web| url = https://www.pbs.org/theblues/classroom/deftradition.html| title = PBS lesson plan on the blues| website = [[PBS]]| access-date = December 21, 2005| archive-date = October 30, 2021| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20211030220803/https://www.pbs.org/theblues/classroom/deftradition.html| url-status = live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web| url = http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/2001/3/01.03.08.x.html#b| title = Yale University Teachers Association| access-date = December 21, 2005| archive-date = May 22, 2012| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20120522030001/http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/2001/3/01.03.08.x.html#b| url-status = live}}</ref> Rap lyrics and music are part of the "Black rhetorical continuum", continuing past traditions of expanding upon them through "creative use of language and rhetorical styles and strategies".<ref>{{Cite journal|first=Baruti N.|last=Kopano|date=December 22, 2002|title=Rap Music as an Extension of the Black Rhetorical Tradition: 'Keepin' It Real'|url=https://www.questia.com/library/journal/1G1-101173271/rap-music-as-an-extension-of-the-black-rhetorical|journal=The Western Journal of Black Studies|language=en|volume=26|issue=4|issn=0197-4327|access-date=May 16, 2017|archive-date=July 4, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190704203951/https://www.questia.com/library/journal/1G1-101173271/rap-music-as-an-extension-of-the-black-rhetorical|url-status=dead}}</ref>

[[Blues]], [[Origins of the blues|rooted]] in the [[work songs]] and [[spiritual (music)|spirituals]] of [[Slavery in the United States|slavery]], was first played by black Americans around the time of the [[Emancipation Proclamation]]. This way of preaching, unique to African-Americans, called the [[Black sermonic tradition]] influenced singers and musicians such as 1940s African-American gospel group [[The Jubalaires]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Dyson |first1=Michael |title=Reflecting Black African-American Cultural Criticism |date=1993 |publisher=University of Minnesota Press |isbn=9781452900810 |page=xxi, 12–16, 33, 275 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=a6VXXCrZ_FkC&q=Black%20preaching |access-date=March 19, 2023 |archive-date=April 14, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230414175747/https://books.google.com/books?id=a6VXXCrZ_FkC&q=Black%20preaching |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Jackson |first1=Joyce |title=Black Preaching Styles: Teaching, Exhorting, and Whooping |url=https://www.louisianafolklife.org/lt/articles_essays/brpreaching.html |website=Louisiana Folklife Program |publisher=Louisiana Division of the Arts, Office of Cultural Development, Dept. of Culture, Recreation & Tourism |access-date=February 16, 2023 |archive-date=February 16, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230216180007/https://www.louisianafolklife.org/lt/articles_essays/brpreaching.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Keegan |title=CALL-AND-RESPONS E An Ancient Linguistic Device Surfaces in Usher's "Love in This Club" |journal=Elements |date=2009 |url=https://ejournals.bc.edu/index.php/elements/article/download/8895/8022/ |access-date=February 16, 2023 |archive-date=February 16, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230216154432/https://ejournals.bc.edu/index.php/elements/article/download/8895/8022/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Jackon |first1=Joyce M. |title=Songs of Spirit and Continuity of Consciousness: African American Gospel Music in Louisiana |url=https://www.louisianafolklife.org/LT/Articles_Essays/songsspirit.html |website=Louisiana Folklife Program |publisher=Louisiana Division of the Arts, Office of Cultural Development, Dept. of Culture, Recreation & Tourism |access-date=February 16, 2023 |archive-date=April 12, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230412043501/https://www.louisianafolklife.org/lt/articles_essays/songsspirit.html |url-status=live }}</ref> The Jubalaire's songs "The Preacher and the Bear" (1941) and "Noah" (1946) are precursors to the genre of rap music. The Jubalaires and other African-American singing groups during the blues, jazz, and gospel era are examples of the origins and development of rap music.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Warner |first1=Jay |title=American singing groups : a history from 1940s to today |date=2006 |publisher=Hal Leonard Corp |isbn=9780634099786 |page=169 |url=https://archive.org/details/americansingingg00warn/page/169/mode/2up?q=jubalaires |access-date=November 9, 2022}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Savant |title=Becoming an Emsee The 7 Principles of Rap |date=2020 |publisher=Diasporic Africa Press |isbn=9781937306694 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2ileEAAAQBAJ&dq=jubalaires+rap&pg=PT38 |access-date=March 19, 2023 |archive-date=April 14, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230414175749/https://books.google.com/books?id=2ileEAAAQBAJ&dq=jubalaires+rap&pg=PT38 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=The Jubalaires 'Noah' | website=[[YouTube]] | date=November 26, 2020 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpUsQq4Kv90 |access-date=November 1, 2022}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=The Jubalaires – The Preacher and The Bear |website=[[YouTube]] |date=February 11, 2022 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLYsCVy4T3E |access-date=November 1, 2022 |archive-date=November 1, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221101174716/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLYsCVy4T3E |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Rosalsky |title=Encyclopedia of Rhythm & Blues and Doo-Wop Vocal Groups |date=2002 |publisher=Scarecrow Press |isbn=9780810845923 |pages=340, 391 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=L4ghJfL5iBIC&dq=jubalaires&pg=PA340}}</ref> Grammy-winning blues musician/historian [[Elijah Wald]] and others have argued that the blues were being rapped as early as the 1920s.<ref name="r12">{{cite web| url = http://www.elijahwald.com/hipblues.html| title = Hip Hop and Blues| access-date = December 21, 2005| archive-date = October 31, 2021| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20211031013331/https://elijahwald.com/hipblues.html| url-status = live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web| url = http://www.yazoorecords.com/2018.htm| title = The Roots of Rap| access-date = December 21, 2005| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20060324181308/http://www.yazoorecords.com/2018.htm| archive-date = March 24, 2006| url-status = dead| df = mdy-all}}</ref> Wald went so far as to call [[hip hop]] "the living blues".<ref name="r12" /> A notable recorded example of rapping in blues was the 1950 song "Gotta Let You Go" by [[Joe Hill Louis]].<ref name="tony" />

[[Jazz]], which developed from the blues and other African-American and European musical traditions and originated around the beginning of the 20th century, has also influenced hip hop and has been cited as a precursor of hip hop. Not just jazz music and lyrics but also [[jazz poetry]]. According to John Sobol, the jazz musician and poet who wrote ''Digitopia Blues'', rap "bears a striking resemblance to the evolution of jazz both stylistically and formally".<ref name="digitopia" /> Boxer [[Muhammad Ali]] anticipated elements of rap, often using [[rhyme scheme]]s and [[spoken word]] poetry, both for when he was [[trash talk]]ing in boxing and as [[political poetry]] for his activism outside of boxing, paving the way for [[The Last Poets]] in 1968, [[Gil Scott-Heron]] in 1970, and the emergence of rap music in the 1970s.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Wiggs |title=THE LAST POETS (1968– ) |url=https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/last-poets-1968/ |website=Black Past |date=September 21, 2008 |access-date=November 4, 2022 |archive-date=November 4, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221104225544/https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/last-poets-1968/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=The Last Poets – When The Revolution Comes |website=[[YouTube]] |date=May 24, 2008 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8M5W_3T2Ye4 |access-date=November 4, 2022 |archive-date=November 4, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221104225541/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8M5W_3T2Ye4 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Pelton |title=RAP/HIP HOP |url=https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/rap-hip-hop/ |website=Black Past |date=June 16, 2007 |access-date=November 4, 2022 |archive-date=November 4, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221104225541/https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/rap-hip-hop/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="ny-ali" /> An editor of the newspaper, [[The Fayetteville Observer]] interviewed Bill Curtis of the disco-funk music group the [[Fatback Band]] in 2020. Curtis noted that when he moved to the Bronx in the 1970s he heard people rapping over scratched records throughout the neighborhoods and radio DJs were rapping before the genre was released on retail recordings. The Fatback Band released the first rap recording, "[[King Tim III (Personality Jock)]]", a few weeks before the [[The Sugarhill Gang|Sugarhill Gang]] in 1979.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Futch |first1=Michael |title=The first rap record didn't come from the Sugarhill Gang. It came from Fayetteville's Bill Curtis and his Fatback Band |url=https://www.fayobserver.com/story/lifestyle/fort-bragg-life/2020/03/07/first-rap-record-didnrsquot-come-from-sugarhill-gang-it-came-from-fayettevillersquos-bill-curtis-and/112372824/ |access-date=November 5, 2022 |publisher=The Fayetteville Observer |date=2020 |archive-date=November 5, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221105003951/https://www.fayobserver.com/story/lifestyle/fort-bragg-life/2020/03/07/first-rap-record-didnrsquot-come-from-sugarhill-gang-it-came-from-fayettevillersquos-bill-curtis-and/112372824/ |url-status=live }}</ref> In another interview Curtis said: "There was rapping in the Bronx and the cats there had been doing it for a while...Fatback certainly didn't invent rap or anything. I was just interested in it and I guess years later we were the first to record it. At the time you could already see cats rapping everywhere in the streets and doing stuff."<ref>{{cite news |title=The Fatback Band: 'Everything was just raw energy' |url=https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/jul/06/the-fatback-band-disco-funk-founder-bill-curtis |access-date=November 5, 2022 |agency=The Guardian |work=The Guardian}}</ref>

With the decline of [[disco]] in the early 1980s rap became a new form of expression. Rap arose from musical experimentation with rhyming, rhythmic speech. Rap was a departure from disco. Sherley Anne Williams refers to the development of rap as "anti-Disco" in style and means of reproduction. The early productions of Rap after Disco sought a more simplified manner of producing the tracks they were to sing over. Williams explains how Rap composers and DJ's opposed the heavily orchestrated and ritzy multi-tracks of Disco for "break beats" which were created from compiling different records from numerous genres and did not require the equipment from professional [[recording studio]]s. Professional studios were not necessary therefore opening the production of rap to the youth who as Williams explains felt "locked out" because of the capital needed to produce Disco records.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Black Popular Culture|last=Wallace|first=Michele|publisher=Bay Press|year=1992|isbn=978-1-56584-459-9|location=Seattle|pages=164–167}}</ref>

More directly related to the African-American community were items like schoolyard chants and taunts, [[clapping games]],<ref>K. D. Gaunt, The games black girls play: learning the ropes from Double-dutch to Hip-hop (New York: New York University Press, 2006)</ref> [[Skipping-rope rhyme|jump-rope rhymes]], some with unwritten folk histories going back hundreds of years across many nationalities. Sometimes these items contain racially offensive lyrics.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.beachnet.com/~jeanettem/chants.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120919082100/http://www.beachnet.com/~jeanettem/chants.html|url-status=dead|title=Beachnet.com|archive-date=September 19, 2012|access-date=February 25, 2021}}</ref>