My current historical reading is a book called The Sumerians: Their History, Culture, and Character, by Samuel Noah Kramer (published 1963 or thereabouts). I’m sure he didn’t realize it at the time, but in his book Mr. Kramer inadvertently proves that the “rap battle” is perhaps one of mankind’s oldest art forms, invented by the Sumerians between 4000 and 4500 years ago. To quote Mr. Kramer:
The last group of Sumerian literary documents to be considered in this chapter is the “wisdom” compositions, consisting of disputations, essays long and short, and collections of precepts and proverbs. The disputation, a high favorite among the Sumerian men of letters, is the prototype and predecessor of the literary genre known as “tenson”, which was popular in Europe in late antiquity and in the Middle Ages. Its major component is a debate, a battle of words, between two opposing protagonists usually personifying a pair of contrasting animals, plants, minerals, occupations, seasons, or even man-made tools and implements. The argument, which goes back and forth several times between the two rivals, consists primarily of “talking up” in most flattering terms one’s own value and importance and of “talking down” those of the opponent. All of this is written in poetic form, however, since the Sumerian men of letters were the direct heirs of the illiterate minstrels of much earlier days, and poetry came to them more naturally than prose. The disputation composition was often rounded out formally with an appropriate mythological introduction which told of the creation of the protagonists and with a fitting ending in which the dispute was settled in favor of one or the other of the rivals by divine decision.
Here are a couple of choice examples:
(quoting Kramer again)
The “Disputation between Enkita and Enkihegel,” which consists of about two hundred and fifty lines, begins with the rather surprising statement, “Fellows, today we don’t work,” and continues with a series of about twenty paragraphs, most of which are from four to five lines in length, replete with insults and taunts hurled by the two protagonists against each other. Here, for example, we find one saying to the other caustically:
Where is he, where is he (this fellow), who compares his pedigree to my pedigree! Neither on the female side nor on the male side can he compare his pedigree to my pedigree. Neither on the master’s side nor on the slave’s side is your pedigree like mine.
To which the other retorts:
Wait now, don’t brag so, you have no future.
which only adds fuel to the fire:
What do you mean I have no future! My future is every bit as good as your future. Both from the point of view of wealth, as well as of pedigree, my future is as good as your future.
Or take this acrimonious paragraph in which the one taunts the other as a most unmusical fellow:
*You have a harp, but know no music,
You who are the “water boy” of (your) colleagues,
Your throat can’t sound a note,
You stutter your Sumerian, can’t make a straight speech
Can’t sing a hymn, can’t open your mouth,
And you are an accomplished fellow!*
So we have here, much like modern rap, we have two opponents trying to outdo each other by bragging about their pedigree, wealth (bling bling!), and musical/rapping skills.
Later in the same chapter, Kramer shares an excerpt from another “rap battle”, titled, “The Disputation between the Two School Graduates”:
… which begins with a highly boastful address by one of the protagonists introduced by the sentence, “Old grad, come, let us debate.” The rival responds accordingly, and the insults fly back and forth to the very end of the composition, which closes with a vituperative blast by one of the antagonists consisting of twenty-eight lines full of vitriolic abuse.
You dolt, numskull, school pest, you illiterate, you Sumerian ignoramus, your hand is terrible; it cannot even hold the stylus properly; it is unfit for writing and cannot take dictation. (And yet you say) you are a scribe like me.
To this the other worthy answers:
What do you mean I am not a scribe like you? When you write a document it makes no sense. When you write a letter it is illegible. You go to divide up an estate, but are unable to divide up the estate. For when you go to survey the field, you can’t hold the measuring line. You can’t hold the nail in your hand; you have no sense. You don’t know how to arbitrate between the contesting parties; you aggravate the struggle between the brothers. You are one of the most incompetent of tablet writers. What are you fit for, can any one say?
To which his rival retorts:
Why, I am competent all around. When I go to divide an estate, I divide the estate. When I go to survey the field, I know how to hold the measuring line. I know how to arbitrate between the contesting parties. I know how to pacify the struggle between the brothers and soothe their feelings. But you are the laziest of scribes, the most careless of men. When you do multiplication, it is full of mistakes … in computing areas you confuse length and width. Squares, triangles, circles, and sectors — you treat them all without understanding as if [missing words from original]. You chatterbox, scoundrel, sneerer, and bully, you (dare say) that you are the “heart” of the student body!
Taking this sentence as a cue, his opponent begins with the query, “What do you mean I am not the ‘heart’ of the student body?” He then continues with a description of his talents as a keeper of accounts and ends with these lines:
Me, I was raised on Sumerian, I am the son of a scribe. But you are a bungler, a windbag. When you try to shape a tablet, you can’t even smooth the clay. When you try to write a line, your hand can’t manage the tablet … You “sophomore”, cover your ears! cover your ears! (Yet) you (claim to know) Sumerian like me!
Interestingly, this second example could almost be construed as the original “nerdcore” rap.