Namwali Serpell

Rap battles do this as well, right?

You're going back and forth.

We just saw a really, I think, clear...

elaboration of signifying in the Kendrick Lamar versus Drake battle that happened over the course of several months and culminated at the Super Bowl where you have people are making fun of each other they're ridiculing each other you're signifying something when you are ironically taking someone to task or giving somebody a rundown of all of their flaws

Yes.

I mean, I think this is one of the theories of why signifying emerged as such an important cultural form that I find really compelling, which is that it's a way of kind of releasing the burden of the oppression or the violence that you're facing.

And it's almost like you're domesticating it, right?

You're bringing it home, right?

It's a way of like training yourself to withstand the much more consequential insults that society is going to throw at you.

But it's a way of doing it that allows for pleasure.

It allows for bonding.

It allows for community.

Morrison offers her own definition of the dozens in an offhand description of how milkman and guitar speak to each other as young black men.

Quote, when in conversation they came to the battleground of difference, their verbal sparring was full of good humor.

Their repartee over the course of the novel is indeed all jabs and feints marked by extremes of humor and violence.

But the threatening tone is really directed toward each other.

You gonna do me in?

My name is Macon, remember?

I'm already dead.

Guitar didn't smile at the familiar joke, but there was enough recognition of it in his face to soften the glare in his eyes.