proto-rap

They make much ado over Bob Dylan as a proto-rap pioneer, and taunt Public Enemy for being "unable to locate even one pure black source" (begging Chuck D's own question in "Fear of a Black Planet": "Who is Pure? What is pure?").

Another source of rap, this one closer to home, was George Clinton's funk; we heard a proto-rap at the beginning of “Tear the Roof Off the Sucker (Give Up the Funk).