Hip Hop - a Keeper of History
Hip Hop -A Keeper of History
Recently, I watched “Fight the Power: How Hip-Hop changed the World”, a 4-part documentary produced by Chuck D., member of the legendary rap group Public Enemy. I found the documentary by accident scrolling through television channels. I was captivated. I love music and history. This was an event that used both to remind some and educate many on the social context the genre of Hip-Hop was birthed out of.
Watching and listening to a clip of Grand Master Flash and the Furious Five rapping “The Message”, I tried to remember the first time I heard rap. It was likely on Cincinnati radio station 88.3 on the Lance Rushen show. The Grand Master Flash song I heard was “Adventures of Grand Master Flash on the Wheels of Steel.” In those days, you had to wait to hear a song on the radio to record it on your boom box with a cassette tape to play later to show off; that is what my brother Cory did. That was in the early 80’s when I was in grade school.
Later, my love for hip hop grew. I listened to (and still do) Afrika Bambaataa, X-Clan, Public Enemy, N.W.A., L.L. Cool J., Queen Latifah and Eric B. and Rakim, to name a few. These artists talked about social issues and blackness on top of a tight beat unlike I’ve heard before.
As I watched other episodes of “Fight the Power”, it occurred to me that this genre is securing a place for our truthful history to be heard by listeners of these songs. Below are lyrics from “The Message” painting a picture of life in 1980’s Bronx, New York where black and brown neighborhoods were left to crumble under the weight of poverty, drugs and violence.
Got a bum education, double-digit inflation
Can't take the train to the job, there's a strike at the station
Neon King Kong standin' on my back
Can't stop to turn around, broke my sacroiliac
A mid-range migraine, cancered membrane
Sometimes I think I'm goin' insane
I swear I might hijack a plane!
It's like a jungle sometimes
It makes me wonder how I keep from goin' under.
Public Enemy’s “Night of the Living Baseheads” tells a story of crack addicts roaming the streets and neglecting everything they love after being sold the cheap, powerful drug by one of their own race.
N.W.A.s first album exposed of the harsh reality of policing in L.A. with the harassment of Black men, reminding listeners of American Policing roots in slavery.
Hip Hop is not the only genre that documents success, failures and hopes of a society. Negro Spirituals, music of the 1960’s and songs like U2’s Bloody Sunday that give an account of the 1972 massacre of 14 people during a peaceful protest by the British army in Northern Ireland during The Troubles, also narrate and document historical wrongs and conflicts in time.
As Hip Hop continues to grow into an international culture, the message in the music will continue to share a history with the world, no longer denying the African American race’s truth and place in American history.
