Get Your Ass in the Water and Swim Like Me celebrates the African American oral tradition of toasting, one of the key roots of contemporary rap. Jackson was among the few to appreciate the profane energy and beauty of this rhymed form, collecting such classic toasts as ‘Stackolee, ‘ ‘The Titanic, ‘ ‘Signifying Monkey, ‘ ‘Dance of the Freaks, ‘ and dozens more. This unexpurgated edition offers the raw, vibrant, and still startling imagery of these toasts shaped by decades of oral transmission through the voices of countless rhymers. Just like rap, the toasting tradition enabled previously unheard or stifled topics, including racism, sexual exploitation, economic deprivation, and social oppression, to be expressed in a form that embodied multiple layers of meaning. Jackson helped preserve a rapidly dying art form to ensure that it would be available for many generations to come. In the words of Robin D.G. Kelley, ‘All you Hip Hop heads need to know this book if you want to know your roots.’
İçerik tablosu
Acknowledgments
Introduction to the 2024 Edition
Preface to the 1974 Edition
The Toast World
THE TOASTS
BADMEN, CRIME, AND JAIL
1. Stackolee
2. Stackolee in Hell
3. Brock Hankton
4. Dolomite
5. Jesse James
6. Boothill Mc Coy
7. Herman from the Shark-Tooth Shore
8. My Reflection (The Wanderer’s Trail; All You Tough Guys that Thinks You’re Wise)
9. Feeble Old Man (Feeble Old Man and a Kid Named Dan)
10. Subject to a Fall
11. Derringer Youngblood
12. Satan’s Playground of Hell
13. Eddie Le Doux
14. Limpty Lefty Mc Cree
15. I Was Sittin’ in the Jail to Do a Stretch of Time
16. They Can’t Do That
17. Life of a Junkie
PIMPS, WHORES, AND OTHER LOVERS AND FRIENDS
18. Joe the Grinder and G.I. Joe
19. Hobo Ben
20. Treacherous Breast
21. Three Whores Settin’ Down in Boston
22. Pimping Sam (Wicked Nell; The Pimp)
23. Hustlin’ Dan
24. Ping Pong Joe
25. Don’t Look So Downhearted, Buddy (Don’t Feel So Downhearted, Buddy)
26. Sweet Lovin’ Rose
27. Strange, Strange Things
28. You Told Me a Lie
29. Cocaine Nell
30. L.A. Street
31. The Lame and the Whore
32. Toledo Slim
33. Pretty Pill
34. Dogass Pimp
35. Ain’t It a Bitch?
36. If You See My Little Girl in Denver (Lady Liberty)
37. Corner of Forty-seventh and South Park (Little Old Wicked Nell)
38. Little Girl in the Gambler’s Nest (While Playing Short Coin)
39. Winehead Girl
FREAKS AND SUPERSEX
40. Dance of the Freaks
41. Freaks’ Ball (Twenty-Two-Twenty; Bulldaggers’ Hall)
42. ’Flicted Arm Pete (Pisspot Pete)
43. Casey Jones
44. Cocaine Shorty
45. Herbert Hoover
46. The Voodoo Queen
47. Marie
48. Annabelle Jones
SIGNIFYING AND POOLSHOOTING MONKEY
49. Signifying Monkey
50. Poolshooting Monkey
51. Partytime Monkey
THE
TITANIC TOASTS
52.
Titanic
MISCELLANEOUS NARRATIVES
53. Ups on the Farm
54. I Got a Job Down in Florida for Croft
55. Once I Lived the Life of a Millionaire (Down and Out)
56. Life’s a Funny Old Proposition
57. Hoboes’ Convention
58. Junkies’ Ball
59. Junkies’ Heaven
60. Hophead Willie
61. Willie the Weeper
62. T.B. Bees
63. The Chinz
64. The Fly
65. The Alphabet
66. The Seven Wise Men
67. Get In out of the Rain
68. Drinkin’
69. Convict’s Prayer
70. Pearl Harbor
71. Hitler, You Lied to Me
72. I Used to Be a Cowboy
73. I Woke Up this Morning with a Hard On
74. Ringo
75. Through the Keyhole in the Door
SHORT VERSES AND DRINKING TOASTS
76. My Uncle Sam
77. My Uncle Had a Old Gray Horse
78. Mary Had a Little Lamb
79. Miss Lookingood
80. Bend Your Back
81. The Rooster Crowed
82. The He-Frog
83. Running through the Jungle
84. Swinging through the Trees
85. Pussy
86. A Girl Told Me
87. Cock Is
88. The Ford
89. Forty-Nine Ford
90. Old Cods
91. I Used to Could Diddle All Night Long
92. Well Here’s to the Fool that Writes upon the Shithouse Walls
93. Here’s to the Lady with the Little Red Shoes
94. Well if I Had a Dog that Could Piss this Stuff
95. And Here’s to the Duck that Swim the Pond
96. Well Here’s to the Crane that Flew down the Lane
97. Here’s to You, Mag, You Dirty Hag (Motherfuck a Woman Lay Flat on Her Back)
98. And May Your Life Become Unlivable, Boy
99. Knockin’ down Chairs and Slammin’ Doors
100. Hickory Wood is the Best of Wood
101. When I Begin to Think When I Was a Young Man and in My Prime
102. This Is to the Women of Texas
103. Talk Some Shit, Richard
Bibliography
Index
Index of First Lines
Yazar hakkında
Bruce Jackson is SUNY Distinguished Professor and the James Agee Professor of American Culture at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York. His numerous books include
The Story is True: The Art and Meaning of Telling Stories, Second Edition, Revised and Expanded;
Ways of the Hand: A Photographer’s Memoir; and
Voices from Death Row (with Diane Christian), all published by SUNY Press. He lives in Buffalo, New York.
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