Its attributes became important ingredients in the development of rap music, especially because word mastery is required for both. He found that it’s usually played by black children in urban neighborhoods and often involves a face-off in the presence of a crowd. In 1939, John Dollard studied the Dozens. In some versions, rhyming is involved, and in all versions improvisation is, too. The game has existed since at the least the early 1920s, when it was referenced in Henry Troy’s song “Don’t Slip Me in the Dozens, Please.” One of his lyrics makes it clear that the game has retained its core attributes to the present day: “Slipping you in the dozen means to talk about your fam’ly folks / And talkin’ ‘bout your parents aren’t jokes.” As the song suggests, the dozens involves a back and forth of verbal sparring between two people, but played for laughs. The Dozens is the game that gave birth to present-day your mom jokes.
