*** Various Artists

GET YOUR ASS IN THE WATER AND SWIM LIKE ME!: NARRATIVE POETRY FROM BLACK ORAL TRADITION

(Rounder)

A Rounder release bearing a parental-advisory sticker? No, Rounder hasn't signed the Wu-Tang Clan. But this collection of African-American narrative poems -- also known as toasts -- isn't as far from contemporary rap as you might think. Recorded mostly in Texas prisons during the '60s, Get Your Ass is an aural companion to Bruce Jackson's 1974 book of the same title, which was a study of the literature and culture surrounding toasts.

Toasts come to life only in their individually stylized recitations. For example, the disc offers two different takes on the popular fable of one-upmanship, "Signifying Monkey," delivered four years and hundreds of miles apart. And they're almost completely different. "Partytime Monkey" and "Poolshooting Monkey" provide further embellishments on the same wily primate. Selections like "Pimpin' Sam" and "Hobo Ben" are as violent, obscene, and misogynist as they are playful and humorous. The bawdy "Titanic" is an extended "dumb whitey" joke charged with racial and sexual politics. And "Stackolee," an age-old outlaw tale, puts the continued popularity of gangsta rap in perspective. Much has changed in the years since the toast evolved into rap, but much has also stayed the same.

-- Roni Sarig