Signifying

In that pretentious, readable, periodically enjoyable, dripping-with-talent-that-makes-you-cry-because-they-were-actually-slightly-younger-than-you-when-they-wrote-it, cringingly-obvious-it-was-written-in-1989-because-of-way-it-talks-about-race book by David Foster Wallace and Mark Costello, Signifying Rappers (and yes, David Foster Wallace wrote the book about rap by David Foster Wallace that the world never asked for) there is a passage in which they refer to a song by Schoolly D called "Signifying Rapper."

The narrative of the song is plainly based on an older folktale about the "signifying monkey" who is threatened by a lion, and who solves this problem by tricking the lion into a fight with an elephant. Costello offers the following suggestion by way of a hypothetical transmission history: "Schoolly D may have encountered in his dad's record collection [...] vocalist Oscar Brown Jr.'s early-'60s scat classic 'Signifying Monkey.'"

Which is pretty darn eagle-eyed, especially since this was before the days of the internet. But since we are in the business on this blog of out-Shandying even such digressive excavations as this, we must observe that Costello's chain of transmission is missing a key link: Rudy Ray Moore's 1971 spoken word piece "Signifying Monkey," written in the form of what our co-authors call the "straight rhyme" that would later come to be standard in rap.

A side-by-side comparison of Schoolly D's lyrics and Moore's reveals that the latter must have been D's main source for the tale. Placing these next to one another like the Synoptic Gospels yields the following: "jungle town" has become "ghetto town," both the monkey and the rapper "got wise and start using his wit," etc. Even the act of fellatio upon subterranean bug life that Costello and Wallace found particularly amusing in Schoolly's lyrics has its origin in Moore. In Moore's version, it is an earthworm and a flea. In Schoolly's, it is a "little maggot."

Purely for your edification. The missing link in the transmission history has been found. If you find this sort of comparison helpful, Schoolly D is to Moore as Luke is to Matthew. And Oscar Brown Jr., I guess, is Mark.