Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. LXXXV--Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five: The Message

Though it was released thirty-four years ago, the central message (so to speak) of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five 's single "The Message" unfortunately remains as true today as it was in 1982--there are still far too many African-Americans in poverty whose lives are defined and destroyed by said poverty.

It's pretty rare for a band with such a small output (two albums, total, though there are a number of singles as well), to be as influential as Grandmaster Flash.  From Public Enemy to Tupac, from NWA to Eminem, there's not a socially conscious hip hop star who doesn't owe a great deal to the first overtly political rap song ever.  While they're time together was relatively short, Grandmaster Flash (who doesn't appear on any of their recordings--it's all the Furious Five) set a number of firsts:  first emcee rap group, first rap group to refer to the vocalists as emcees, first band to put scratching and turntablism on a recording, first socially conscious rap song (and second rap hit single ever, after Sugarhill Gang's "Rapper's Delight") and the first hip hop act to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  By 1987 they were done, though, and while there have been various incarnations of the band's members through the years, those two albums remain their legacy.

Originally released as a 12" single (believe me, you have to be of a certain age), "The Message" would end up on an album (entitled, appropriately enough, The Message) in much the same way singles did in the early days of rock and roll, i.e., "We have a hit!  Let's see if we can make more money selling it on an album full of otherwise mediocre tunes!"  Written by Duke Bootee and performed by Melle Mel and Bootee, the song is a series of vignettes of life in the city (presumably New York City, Grandmaster Flash's home base)--a woman comes to the city and ends up selling herself to a pimp, a man at his wit's end steals his Mom's TV, a young man who can't resist the lure of gangbangers and their easy money who ends up in prison, all told through the eyes of a protagonist who admits, "Don't push me 'cause I'm close to the edge/I'm tryin' not to lose my head, ha-ha." It would rise to #62 (with a bullet!) on the Billboard Hot 100, which isn't a bad showing for a lesson song in a music form in its infancy

The music (or what passes for it) is most assuredly machine made (and oddly enough, it has a real futuristic sound to it) and really only serves as the background for the forceful vocals.  Equal parts anger, sorrow, and chastisement, Melle Mel and Duke Bootee offer a snapshot of people painted into a corner and in the end offer up no easy answers for their escape.  The guy doesn't get the girl, the hero doesn't rise from the ashes--life in the ghetto is an unending vortex of hopelessness, until you realize that in the anger, in the sorrow, and in the chastisement  lies the hope therein.  And still all these years later, African-Americans are still screaming, crying, and teaching....

Rap sheet:  "Broken glass everywhere/People pissin' on the stairs, you know they just don't care....

Enjoy:

Peace,
emaycee