Drunken medieval Scotsmen invented the rap battle. They called it flyting, and the basic idea was to mock and deride your opponent in the crudest possible fashion ... while rhyming. So, yeah: rap. Only the insults these guys churned out were vile enough to make Eminem shit his entire mansion. Speaking of shit, the first example of that word being used as a personal insult comes from The Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedy. The record of a purported verbal duel in 1503, academics describe it as just over 500 lines of filth. Dunbar and Kennedy (D-Money and K-Hole) exchanged insults like this: Thou callst thee rhetor with thy golden lips. Nay, glowering gaping fool, thou art beguiled. Thou are but gluntoch, with thy giltin hips. (Heres a hint: Gluntoch means dirty knees, and giltin hips means shitty arse. Dunbars claiming that his rhymes hit Kennedy so hard, the other man shit right onto his own knees.) and Loathly and lousy, as lathand as a leek. Since thou with worship would be so fain styled. Hail, sovereign senyeour, thy balls hang through thy breek. (Translation: You think youre king, but your balls are showing.) Academics suspect that Scottish slave holders took their penchant for flyting to the New World, where it merged with existing African musical traditions and laid the groundwork for what would eventually become rap.
Posted on: Sat, 09 Nov 2013 07:24:57 +0000
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