Written under his real name of Ellas McDaniel, it was recorded by Bo Diddley in 1958 and released as a single in 1959 on Checker 931.

[2] It arose from a jam session between Diddley and his maracas player Jerome Green, and featured Diddley and Green trading insults in the style of the word game known as The Dozens.

[3] Bo Diddley said of the song: "A lot of the things I did in the Chess studios, we were just goofin' around ...

"[4] Music critic Maury Dean, while rejecting the idea that the track is "the first rap song", says that it is "the first major soul tune to feature a total spoken patter of pal put-downs to a rockin' beat ... .

The incessant beat throbs into the hot American evening nocturne of streetwise savvy.