Reading assignment for the Summer - Studious-Catz

VISION AND VOICE
CRITICAL ESSAYS ON THE IMPACT ON BLACK CONSCIOUSNESS ATTRIBUTED
TO THE LYRICS OF CURTIS MAYFIELD, BOB MARLEY, AND TUPAC SHAKUR
A KITABU Publishing Tree-Free Book© by
Joseph R. Gibson
“The Black Artist’s role in America is to aid in the destruction of America as he knows it. His role is to report and reflect
so precisely the nature of the society, that other men will be moved by the exactness of his rendering and, if they are black
men, grow strong through this moving, having seen their own strength, and weakness; and if they are white men, tremble,
curse, and go mad, because they will be drenched with the filth of their evil. The Black Artist must draw out of his soul
the correct image of the world. He must use this image to band his brothers and sisters together in common understanding
of the nature of the world (and the nature of America) and the nature of the human soul.”
-Amiri Baraka, “State/meant”
“When the oppressor sees [or hears] that his slave no longer fears him, it makes the oppressor see what would happen if
he were ever truly free. So he must keep him down.”
-Rubin “Hurricane” Carter
© Joseph R. Gibson, 2001
All rights reserved.
ISBN 978-1-56411-243-9
Second Edition published, printed, and distributed by:
J. Gibson c/o
KITABU Publishing, LLC
[email protected]
KITABU Publishing, LLC
This book is dedicated to my Uncle T-Joe who encouraged me to enjoy hearing Black music. I show my appreciation by
continually learning how to listen.
It is also dedicated to the immortal spiritual presence of our enslaved ancestors and the conscious hope evident within the
revolutionary literature and art of our most profound brethren, in particular, Curtis Mayfield, Bob Marley, and Tupac
Shakur.
Why is this a Tree-Free Book©?
KITABU Publishing makes Tree-Free Books to support the work of Wangari Maathai
and the Green Belt Movement. Dr. Wangari Maathai is an environmental and political
activist. In 2004 she became the first environmentalist as well as the first African woman to
be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for “her contribution to sustainable development,
democracy, and peace.” According to Jone Lewis, “Wangari Maathai founded the Green Belt
movement in Kenya in 1977, which has planted more than [40] million trees to prevent soil
erosion and provide firewood for cooking fires. A 1989 United Nations report noted that only
9 trees were being replanted in Africa for every 100 that were cut down, causing serious
problems with deforestation: soil runoff, water pollution, difficulty finding firewood, lack of animal nutrition, etc. The
program has been carried out primarily by women in the villages of Kenya, who through protecting their environment and
through the paid employment for planting the trees are able to better care for their children and their children’s future.”
Maathai’s life’s mission began while she was doing research in veterinary medicine, tracking down the life cycle of a
tick that was supposedly responsible for weakening cattle in Kenya. She realized that the ticks were not the problem;
rather, it was the clearing of forests which was affecting the health of animals living in the area. Maathai explained in her
autobiography: “When I was in the rural areas outside Nairobi collecting the ticks, I noticed that the rivers would rush
down the hillsides and along paths and roads when it rained, and that they were muddy with silt. This was very different
from when I was growing up. ‘That is soil erosion,’ I remember thinking to myself. ‘We must do something about that.’
I also observed that the cows were so skinny that I could count their ribs. There was little grass or other fodder for them
to eat where they grazed, and during the dry season much of the grass lacked nutrients. The people, too, looked
undernourished and poor and the vegetation in their fields was scanty. The soils in the fields weren’t performing as they
should because their nutrient value had been depleted. It became clear to me that through these observations that Kenya’s
and the whole region’s livestock industry was threatened more by environmental degradation than by the ticks.”
She could not believe the consequences created by cutting down indigenous forests. A witness to soil erosion caused
by treeless environments, she felt compelled to do something to save the earth. Without tree roots to hold the soil in place,
the land erodes. Erosion of banks along streams and rivers then threatens the water supply. Ultimately, the land loses its
fertility as well as its ability to sustain the animal and human population.
Professor Maathai was active in the National Council of Women of Kenya (NCWK) in 1976-87 and was its chairman
from 1981-87. In 1976, she introduced the idea of community-based tree planting. Maathai believed that people needed
to help with environmental issues and should not rely upon the government.
Maathai explained in her autobiography:
“The NCWK held a number of seminars at which we heard from various constituencies, incoming women from the rural
areas. These women…didn’t have enough wood for fuel or fencing, fodder for their livestock, water to cook with or
drink, or enough for themselves or their families to eat. As I sat listening to the women talk about water, energy, and
nutrition, I could see that everything they lacked depended on the environment…It suddenly became clear. Not only was
the livestock industry threatened by a deteriorating environment, but I, my children, my students, my fellow citizens, and
my entire country would pay the price. The connection between the symptoms of environmental degradation and their
causes—deforestation, devegetation, unsustainable agriculture, and soil loss—were self-evident. Something had to be
done. We could not just deal with the manifestations of the problem. We had to get to the root causes of those problems.
Now, it is one thing to understand the issues. It is quite another to do something about them. But I have always been
interested in finding solutions…to think of what can be done rather than worrying about what cannot…It just came to me:
‘Why not plant trees?’ The trees would provide a supply of wood that would enable women to cook nutritious foods.
They would also have wood for fencing and fodder for cattle and goats. The trees would offer shade for humans and
animals, protect watersheds and bind the soil, and, if they were fruit trees, provide food.”
It was that simple, as she explained: “The earth was naked. For me the mission was to try to cover it up with green.”
The first tree planting campaign was called Save the Land Harambee, which is Swahili for “let’s pull together.”
Community members were encouraged to plant trees in public land to form green belts of trees. This campaign was so
successful and the idea spread so fast that the Green Belt Movement (GBM) was born. In 1977 Maathai left her professor
position at the University of Nairobi and founded the Green Belt Movement on World Environment Day by planting 9
trees in her backyard. The Movement grew into a program run by women with the goal of reforesting Africa and
preventing the devastation that deforestation caused. Deforestation, which is the clearing of forests, was occurring at a
rapid rate in Kenya. In contrast, reforestation is the process by which forests are renewed through the planting of seeds or
young trees.
The loss of the forests in Kenya and the rest of Africa is mainly due to the logging industry, burning and clearing for
farmland and grazing pastures, as well as cutting for fuel. Charcoal from wood is the main source of energy for cooking
and heating in much of rural Africa. Local and foreign logging companies continue to cut vast stretches of forest for
lumber, offering no plans for reforestation. Maathai explained that it was the British colonial “traders and administrators
who introduced new methods of exploiting our rich natural resources: logging, clear-cutting native forests, establishing
plantations of imported trees, hunting wildlife, and undertaking expansive commercial agriculture. Hallowed landscapes
lost their sacredness and were exploited as the local people became insensitive to the destruction, accepting it as a sign of
progress.” Even after colonialism, African politicians continue to defend these actions by saying that cutting the forests
provides jobs and income to invest in their economies.
According to Maathai, when “the colonial government had decided to encroach into the forest and establish
commercial planting of non-native trees,” these exotic tree species “eliminated local plants and animals, destroying the
natural ecosystem that helped gather and retain rainwater. When rains fell, much of the water now ran downstream. Over
the subsequent decades, underground water levels decreased markedly and, eventually, rivers and streams either dried up
or were greatly reduced.” As a result, Africa is one of the most water-impoverished regions of the world and the lack of
clean water claims the lives of 4,900 children every day.
The drought, famine, and desertification that have plagued Africa for the past 30 years look set to get worse as a
result of global warming. Forests are an extremely important part of Earth’s biosphere because they produce oxygen and
absorb carbon dioxide, helping maintain the proper ratio of greenhouse gases in the lower atmosphere. If so many of its
trees would not be getting cut down, forests could actually help reduce global warming.
In addition, deforestation was resulting in the encroachment of desert where forests had stood. Kenya, like many
other African nations, was losing its precious fertile soil to desertification, a process by which the loss of plant cover and
soil eventually leads to desert-like conditions. Desertification is primarily the result of overgrazing and the removal of
trees over many years. Thousands of people have died from starvation in regions of Africa where fertile grasslands have
turned into desert.
According to the United Nations in 1989, only 9 trees were replanted in Africa for every 100 trees that were cut
down. Not only did deforestation cause environmental problems such as soil runoff and subsequent water pollution, but
lack of trees near villages meant that villagers had to walk great distances for firewood. Maathai was shocked to find
Kenyan children now suffering from malnutrition due to deforestation: “My community was supposed to be a rich,
coffee-growing area. Instead of eating nutritious, traditional foods, such as beans and corn, people were relying on
refined foods such as white bread, maize flour, and white rice, all of which are high in carbohydrates but relatively low in
vitamins, proteins, and minerals. Cooking these foods consumed less fuel than the foods I had eaten as a child, and this
made them attractive and practical, because available firewood for cooking was limited due to deforestation in the region.
This shortage of firewood [research concluded,] was leading directly to malnutrition as people’s diets had changed in
response.” Village livestock also suffered from not having vegetation to graze on.
Activism, Maathai felt, was most effective when done in groups rather than alone. She credited her success with the
Green Belt Movement to keeping the goal simple. The program provided a ready answer for those who asked, “What can
I do?” Planting trees, in this case, was the simple solution.
Most of the GBM’s funds come from small donations of money from people around the world and from gifts from
groups like the United Nations Development Fund for Women. In 1986 the Green Belt Movement established a Pan
African Green Belt Network that has exposed many leaders of other African countries to its unique approach. had spread
to 30 African countries Some of these individuals have established similar tree planting initiatives in their own countries
using the methods taught to improve their efforts. Countries that have successfully launched such initiatives in Africa
include Tanzania, Uganda, Malawi, Lesotho, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe and others.
According to Maathai, “when people learn about my life and the work of the Green Belt Movement and ask me ‘Why
trees?,’ the truth of the matter is that the question has many answers. The essential one was that I reacted to a set of
problems by focusing on what could be done…We must never lose hope. When any of us feels she has an idea or an
opportunity, she should go ahead and do it. One person can make a difference.”
KITABU Publishing will donate $1 for each Tree-Free Book© sold to Wangari Maathai’s Green Belt Movement.
Characters and Contents
Introduction
1
Curtis Mayfield
“Pusherman”
17
Bob Marley
“Small Axe”
40
Tupac Shakur
“Definition of a Thug N.I.G.G.A.”
61
“It was for this I was born and for this that I came into the world, to give testimony for the truth…”
-John 18:37
“If God wanted me to be quiet he would’ve never showed me what he does.”
-Tupac Shakur
`Sometimes, I think of somethin’ I want to tell ‘em myself, and before I can say it, [he] done got it out, and is
shouting it from the stage! It’s like he says what we all been waitin’ so long to say, and jest couldn’t git out!
He’s like all of us put together—and when you follow a man like that, you follow yourself.1
i cannot move
from your voice.
there is no peace
where i am. the wind
cannot move
hard enough to clear the trash
and far away i hear my screams….
your voice
is inside me; i loaned
my heart in exchange
for your voice.2
This book depicts the socio-philosophic and historic influence and impact of the lyrics of Curtis Mayfield, Bob
Marley, and Tupac Shakur. My most emphasized objective is the critically conscious dissection and elucidation of the
lyrical artistry created by these great men. The critical essays that follow are not exclusively intended to be biographical
sketches nor personal indictments of the represented poets, for such writings are currently available.
As Marley himself has declared: “People want to listen to a message, word from Jah [God]. This could be passed
through me or anybody. I am not a leader. [I’m a] messenger. The words of the songs, not the person, is what attracts
people.” This work supports this declaration by offering a creatively unprecedented achievement of paramount
significance to the further cultural upliftment, mental empowerment, and spiritual liberation of humanity. This volume
adequately and appropriately details the universal essence behind these lyrics of liberation.
The fact is that creative writers can often provide a key that is not to be found, or may be found only with great
difficulty, in the more rebarbative writings of political philosophers or men of affairs. The dreams and visions
of poets, their intuitions and premonitions are expressed in powerful and haunting language, and can make an
indelible effect on the imagination….we shall be concerned here not so much with the influence of poets as with
their insights and their inner conflicts and contradictions.3
Motivated intensely by the vision and voice of these great Black men, I set out to explore and document the supreme
revelations encompassed within the circumference of their verbal influence. An influence based on a profoundly
prophetic vision of reality, truth, knowledge, wisdom, understanding, self, God, and enemy. And perhaps even more so, a
powerfully protagonistic voice which embraced the hopes and ambitions of the Dark masses of anti-oppression,
suppression, genocide, fear, despondency, ignorance, enslavement, poverty, exploitation and pro-liberation, upliftment,
empowerment, rebellion, and revolution.
My result: a compilation of well-researched and purposeful discussions on a collective lyrical legacy incomparable,
invincible, yet, especially to those of us whose very survival and possible summit as a race depends on our overwhelming
reception and conscious acceptance of it, relatively, and perhaps intentionally, invisible. This book is as much a profound
collaboration of lessons than it is anything else—lessons necessary for the possibility of liberation and fulfillment of
prophecy.
In every struggle there are always those who arise to the occasion and dedicate their life’s work to the cause
with a principled commitment of the highest order. No matter what the come down, they are ready to face
anything to bring about the reality they believe in.4
Just as these renaissance men refused to shut their eyes to our Dark reality and therefore promote our own
destruction, neither should we continue to allow their highest contributions to be denied from our fully appreciative
awareness. They shunned any and all attempts to dilute the potential of their vision and voice. They sung because they
were not free and knew it, despite the world’s attempt at deception. And it was with this realization that they endeavored
1
to disillusion us, the unsuspecting masses. It’s time that we honor their liberation struggle by relating its significance to
our own.
There is not need of determining whether art must flee reality or defer to it, but rather what precise dose of
reality the work must take on as ballast to keep from floating up among the clouds or from dragging along the
ground with weighted boots. Each artist solves this problem according to his lights and abilities. The greater an
artist’s revolt against the world’s reality, the greater can be the weight of reality to balance that revolt. But the
weight can never stifle the artist’s solitary exigency. The loftiest work will always be…the work that maintains
an equilibrium between reality and man’s rejection of that reality, each forcing the other upward in a ceaseless
overflowing, characteristic of life itself at its most joyous and heart-rending extremes. Then, every once in a
while, a new world appears, different from the everyday world and yet the same, particular but universal, full of
innocent insecurity—called forth for a few hours by the power and longing of genius. That’s just it and yet
that’s not it; the world is nothing and the world is everything—this is the contradictory and tireless cry of every
true artist, the cry that keeps him on his feet with eyes ever open and that, every once in a while, awakens for all
in this world asleep the fleeting and insistent image of a reality we recognize without ever having known it.
Likewise, the artist can neither turn away from his time nor lose himself in it. If he turns away from it, he
speaks in a void. But, conversely, insofar as he takes his time as his object, he asserts his own existence as
subject and cannot give in to it altogether. In other words, at the very moment when the artist chooses to share
the fate of all, he asserts the individual he is. And he cannot escape from this ambiguity. The artist takes from
history what he can see of it himself or undergo himself, directly or indirectly—the immediate event, in other
words, and men who are alive today, not the relationship of that immediate event to a future that is invisible to
the living artist. Judging contemporary man in the name of a man who does not yet exist is the function of
prophecy. But the artist can value the myths that are offered him only in relation to their repercussion on living
people. The prophet, whether religious or political, can judge absolutely and, as is known, is not chary of doing
so. But the artist cannot. If he judged absolutely, he would arbitrarily divide reality into good and evil and thus
indulge in melodrama. The aim of art, on the contrary, is not to legislate or to reign supreme, but rather to
understand first of all. Sometimes it does reign supreme, as a result of understanding. But no work of genius
has ever been based on hatred and contempt. This is why the artist, at the end of his slow advance, absolves
instead of condemning. Instead of being a judge, he is a justifier. He is the perpetual advocate of the living
creature, because it is alive. He truly argues for love of one’s neighbor and not for that love of the remote
stranger which debases contemporary humanism until it becomes the catechism of the law court. Instead, the
great work eventually confounds all judges. With it the artist simultaneously pays homage to the loftiest figure
of mankind and bows down before the worst of criminals. “There is not,” Wilde wrote in prison, “a single
wretched man in this wretched place along with me who does not stand in symbolic relation to the very secret of
life.” Yes, and that secret of life coincides with the secret of art.5
Reality, along with all its relative references and awesome inferences and, in particular, Black reality, is what makes
the lyrics of Mayfield, Marley, and Shakur so extraordinary and worthy of scholarly evaluation. Boldly interpreting and
recreating reality as they saw it or would like to have seen it, these lyrical geniuses divinely articulated to an entire race
their distinct and common predicament, intentions, and predictions. They induced their own undeniable will on and for
the glory of the Black masses through the rhythmic conveyance of reality-conscious and challenging lyricism.
Come forth
Reach into our hearts
And remove fear
Guide our lives
Make us strong
Place steel in the marrow of our bones
Grant us inner peace
To fulfill our terrible missions6
Personally, I have greatly benefited by the internal growth indisputably attributed to my conscious listening to the
lyrics of Curtis, Bob, and Pac. Thus, it is only right that I record those convenient lessons bestowed upon my self. This
2
has been done by intently focusing on the lyrical influence/impact on the consciousness, both intended and coincidental,
of the masses, incorporating intimate observations, opinions, philosophies, and reactions; with each artist appreciated
individually yet considered in proper socio-historical relativity and complexity.
Most people will be quick to argue in favor of the superficial unconnectedness of these artists, as well as their
musical genres, without or before seeking absolute comprehension of the contiguous and communal power of their vision
and voice. We too often fail to recognize that soul music, “rap[,] and reggae are fingers of the same hand. It is music that
spun from the objective reality of the suffering of the people who developed [and revolutionized] it. It is living tissue, at
its core is the people and the lives they are living.”7
Truth is truth no matter who conveys it. That’s why it’s very possible to hear essentially similar visions from
different voices. Perceptions differ, but if they are based on a firm foundation of consciousness, the resulting declaration
of some profound truth (remember, all stated truth is profound within a society in which deception reigns supreme) must
be comparable. I owe this supreme revelation to a convenient conversation with my father-in-law. Thanks pops.
Accordingly, one of the main obstructers to the liberation of the masses has always been their conditioned habit of
getting caught up in appearance, and it’s a remarkable pity that the ancestral significance of these men continues to be
subdued by the overwhelming commonality of ignorance. Leave all of your prejudices, whether warranted or not, at this
upcoming period. Don’t declare any of these men unworthy of appreciation and study, especially if you are limited in
knowledge of the things they said about our reality and how they creatively, and often, controversially, affirmed truth.
We can’t afford any more self-oppression.
They could never understand
what you set out 2 do
instead they chose 2
ridicule u
when u got weak
they loved the sight
of your dimming
and flickering starlight
How could they understand what was so intricate
2 be loved by so many, so intimate
they wanted 2 c your lifeless corpse
this way u could not alter the course
of ignorance that they have set
2 make my people forget
what they have done for much 2 long
2 just forget and carry on
I had loved u forever because of who u r
and now I mourn our fallen star8
I understood fully that I am taking a chance writing this book, especially including and comparing someone who
appeared as absolutely disrespectful and obscene as Tupac Shakur to a Curtis Mayfield or Bob Marley. Each one of these
brilliantly opportunistic men adopted their messages to the audience and times they were influenced by and influential to.
“If colored people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, their displeasure doesn’t matter either. We build our temples
for tomorrow, strong as we know how, and we stand on top of the mountain, free within ourselves.”9
Or as Tupac Shakur defensively proclaimed, “don’t blame me/I was given this world I didn’t make it;”10 yet, he did
commit his life and lyrics in hopes of changing it. This is how I can justify discussing Tupac in the same conscious breath
as Curtis and Bob.
“In times of revolution, just wars and wars of liberation, I love the angels of destruction and disorder as opposed to
the devils of conservation and law-and-order.”11
Truth is dangerous due to its threatening qualities, and these men made the ultimate mental, spiritual, and physical
sacrifice in order to offer the masses a plethora of truth through verbal rebellion. We all owe it to these men, ourselves,
and truth, as an absolute entity, to study the messages of their message. Leave your ignorance and intolerances behind
and appreciate the varied enlightening embodiments of truth and justice, anything else would be a tremendous disservice
3
to all the educators, writers, entrepreneurs, thinkers, scientists, leaders, and foot-soldiers of and for the service of Black
consciousness.
Black folk expression (here defined to include the visual, linguistic, and culinary arts; folklore, music, and
religion) mirrored the impact which “living black” in a white-dominated land could have on a people. Their
unique cultural expression was by no means racially exclusive in the sense that it was transmitted through the
genes. Nor was it, as the black psychologists revealed, induced solely by poverty and low socioeconomic status.
Black culture was not deficient or deviant or a pathological perversion of mainstream culture. Its special
character originated in the ancestral past. In modern times, the inheritors of these African traditions continued
their attachment to a group culture which emphasized the collective and maintained a preference for oral forms
of expression—traits that had been reinforced by the cultural isolation and proscription of New World slavery
and segregation.12
It’s interesting to note the often unnoticed historical link between these musical griots, as it relates their healing
messages to the miseries of a perpetually oppressed people. Mayfield was reportedly inspired by the songs of our
enslaved ancestors. Marley was inspired by Mayfield, even going so far as to redo several of his recordings. And Shakur
was inspired by both Curtis and Bob, echoing many of their proclamations in his furious verbal deliveries. Evidence of a
lineage of Black prophecy whose lyrics were, in essence, splendid scripture.
He sang of life, serenely sweet,
With, now and then, a deeper note.
From some high peak, nigh yet remote,
He voiced the world’s absorbing beat.
He sang of love when earth was young,
And Love, itself, was in his lays.
But ah, the world, it turned to praise
A jingle in a broken tongue.13
It’s strange to me, especially after years of intense and casual research on the subject(s), that poets, true, real, and
Black poets, of this caliber, are not discussed like nor paid the homage given to the Hughes, McKays, and Dunbars. Why
has such a travesty continued to diminish the spark of rebellion and revolution initiated and emphasized by the poetic
legacies of the one and only Mayfield, Marley, and Shakur? Were their style, sway, message, effect, mastery, thought
process, awareness, symbolism and straight-forward realism any lesser than that of those we honor perpetually and
sometimes in counterproductive periphery? My conscious argument: maybe theirs were greater.
…duration is no object to those who think little or nothing has been done before their time, and who place all
their hopes in discovery…they are at inexpiable war with all establishments. In short, while [most] men of
letters were accused of self-conceit, imprudence, audacity, a passion for novelty, and a boundless impatience,
they also had ascribed to them a vast and dangerous influence.14
While most musicians were and are ignorantly and self-defeatingly satisfied with being the prostituted pawns of an
undisclosed oppressor, these men consciously rebelled a power structure built and maintained by their own presupposed
impotence and inferiority. Ernest J. Gaines was on point when he said that “there will always be men struggling to
change, and there will always be those who are controlled by the past.” Their extraordinarily militant lyrics indicated a
common awareness of the historically real yet usually mistaken global enemy of the liberation of Black folks. Their
poetic observations often, boldly and defiantly, yet sometimes, curiously and metaphorically, indicted the unrelenting Pale
lynchers of Dark souls for their calculated advances toward our own genocide.
The term “militant” when applied to black people in the United States is at once inadequate and redundant;
when applied to black writers it circumscribes them in a way which they themselves reject. Black writers are
“militant” only to white people and to Negroes who think “white,” for merely to say, “I’m black,” in the United
States is an act of resistance; to say out loud, “I’m black and I’m proud” is an act of rebellion; to attempt
4
systematically to move black people to act out of their beauty and their blackness in white America is to foment
revolution. To write black poetry is an act of survival, of regeneration, of love. Black writers do not write for
white people and refuse to be judged by them. They write for black people and they write about their blackness,
and out of their blackness, rejecting anyone and anything that stands in their way of self-knowledge and selfcelebration. They know that to assert blackness in America is to be “militant,” to be dangerous, to be
subversive, to be revolutionary, and they know this in a way that even the Harlem Renaissance did not. The
poet…are especially articulate and especially relevant and speak directly to the people.15
They strove to maintain a certain pride and purpose in the fact that being black is our ultimate reality. With this, they
musically promulgated a rebirth of Blackness, reconceived in self-possessed beauty, power, justice, equality, freedom, and
independence. Fearless yet cautious in their consciousness, competence, and confidence, while most “had no idea of the
dangers which always accompany the most necessary revolutions…so they became much bolder in their noveltries, more
enamoured of general ideas and of systems, more contemptuous of ancient wisdom,”16 their struggle has survived simply
because of their recognition of its inherent revolutionary potential and willingness to disguise and distinguish between
“loud” (overt, physical) and “quiet” (covert, inner) rebellion. Personal and social experiences allowed them to realize and
overcome the recurring ignorance and intolerances that, although giving them the ear and heart of the masses,
“inevitablized” the actual and expressive demise of legions of Black revolutionaries.
My most underlying goal is to force people to view Mayfield’s Roots with the same cultivated appreciation of
Dunbar’s Lyrics of Lowly Life, Marley’s Legend with the same critical admiration of Hughes’ Selected Poems, Shakur’s
Me Against the World with the same conscious horror of Amiri Baraka’s Black Magic. The music of these great men are
invincible documentaries on the suffering and greatness of Black life as well as aesthetically sound masterpieces of
cultural significance. It is a must that we now regard “Redemption Song” with just as much percipient reverence and
evaluative dialogue as we have done “Dream Deferred” for so long.
All were joined in the belief that their common racial heritage gave meaning to black life, providing an
important sense of identity for the children of the diaspora. They also understood that to possess a unique racial
culture was a valuable asset in the group struggle for empowerment. Each individual who desired to cultivate
the black Muse could become a creator of culture in support of liberation.17
Curtis, Bob, and Pac’s songs are the Black historic evolution of the slave songs that once gave conscious hope to a
people bitterly and obviously enslaved and conveyed inspiring messages and realistic means of empowerment, upliftment,
and liberation, whether overtly or cloaked. In a world encompassed by an atmosphere of nihilism and negativity induced
by consistent oppression, their music was truly the alternative by providing the masses with positive propaganda
premeditated on change. Their lyrics collectively were the precautionary measures necessary for the redemption of a
people critically close to genocide.
…in order to speak about all and to all, one has to speak of what all know and of the reality common to us all.
The sea, rains, necessity, desire, the struggle against death—these are the things that unite us all. We resemble
one another in what we see together, in what we suffer together. Dreams change from individual to individual,
but the reality of the world is common to us all. Striving toward realism is therefore legitimate, for it is
basically related to the artistic adventure.18
Today, we, the internally enslaved, perpetually oppressed, and ruthlessly exploited, have been made to shut our ears
and hearts to the kinds of songs of conscious awareness, rebellious truths, and revolutionary possibilities that once saved
and secured our very existence. We have been made to surrender our culture to the tyrants that oppress us in order for
their oppression to be absolute in its effectiveness.
A people without their culture
are a people without meaning.
a people without their culture
are a people without substance.
a people without their culture
are a people without identity, purpose and
5
direction.
a people without their culture
are a dead people.19
How can they continue to glorify our prophets while we unconsciously conspire to suppress their victorious noise
into cultural oblivion with our conditioned quiet?
These white folks have newspapers, magazines, radios, spokesmen to get their ideas across. If they want to tell
the world a lie, they can tell it so well that it becomes the truth; and if I tell them that you’re lying, they’ll tell
the world even if you prove you’re telling the truth. Because it’s the kind of lie they want to hear...20
Curtis, Bob, and Pac were more than Black musicians, or musicians period for that matter, but you’ll never learn this
in “his-story” class. Crucified for their powerful perspectives by the same White media that, when deemed convenient
and non-threatening, hailed them as artistic geniuses, these men disregarded cultural assimilation for cultural sovereignty,
exploration, and innovation. These men’s legacy as poets and prophets suffered irrevocably and nearly suffocated from a
media-maintained incarceration based on misconception and lack of conscious interpretation.
Art for art’s sake, the entertainment of a solitary artist, is indeed the artificial art of a factitious and self-absorbed
society. The logical result of such a theory is the art of little cliques or the purely formal art fed on affectations
and abstractions and ending in the destruction of all reality. In this way a few works charm a few individuals
while many coarse inventions corrupt many others. Finally art takes shape outside of society and cuts itself off
from its living roots. Gradually the artist, even if he is celebrated, is alone or at least is known to his nation only
through the intermediary of the popular press or the radio, which will provide a convenient and simplified idea
of him….The greatest renown today consists in being admired or hated without having been read. Any artist
who goes in for being famous in our society must know that it is not he who will become famous, but someone
else under his name, someone who will eventually escape him and perhaps someday will kill the true artist in
him.21
Mayfield, Marley, and Shakur all were profoundly prolific lyricists, and this committed display of ever-evolving
thought and tremendously heightening awareness is key to understanding their most fundamental significance to the
historic plight of Black folks: the abiding struggle for actual and absolute life. “We are born…twice over; born into
existence, and born into life.”22 Debatably, no other Black artists (, and I use this not to limit their relevance but to
distinguish it in support of an [Molefi Kete] Asantean theory of Afrocentricity which states: “Blackness is more than a
biological fact; indeed, it is more than color; it functions as a commitment to a historical project that places the African
person back on center and, as such, it becomes an escape to sanity.”23) internalized this intrinsic truth more than they, as
evident in the power and promise of their lyrics which reverberated the immortal philosophy once so eloquently captured
by the poetic verse of Gwendolyn Brooks: “This is the urgency: Live!” They endeavored to convince their world that life
was imminent, once they begin to believe in the possibility and respond accordingly and consciously.
We want a black poem. And a
Black World.
Let the world be a Black Poem
And Let All Black People Speak This Poem
Silently
or LOUD24

Mainstream (White) America has been allowed to value or devalue the legacies of too many Black artists, leaders, etc. Most of the
books written about our musicians, for example, are written by the direct descendants of the conspirators against and exploiters of
their impact. Who, for the most part, listens to the music of Bob Marley? White folks. Well, actually, culturally confused or greed
infused White folks. It incenses me that the University of California at Berkeley, whose student population is predominantly White,
had more foresight to establish a Tupac Shakur poetry course than any of our Historically Black Colleges or Universities. The lyrics
of these men were first and foremost meant for the enlightenment, upliftment, and empowerment of the people of the race to which
they belonged.
6
To sum up an appropriate and all-inclusive description of the significance of Curtis Mayfield, Bob Marley, and
Tupac Shakur, I humbly offer that they were all thoughtful and courageous men with an inspirational vision of humanity
reborn in freedom and a critically conscious voice potent enough to promote its impending possibility, if and when
properly heard.
An Oriental wise man always used to ask the divinity in his prayers to be so kind as to spare him from living in
an interesting era. As we are not wise, the divinity has not spared us and we are living in an interesting era. In
any case, our era forces us to take an interest in it. The writers of today know this. If they speak up, they are
criticized and attacked. If they become modest and keep silent, they are vociferously blamed for their silence. 25
Denzel Washington, a dedicated and reflective artist in his own right, recently offered that if “you don’t have the
political view that people in control want to hear, you don’t exist.” Why are these artists so pungent and provocative and
worthy of consciously positive reception? Because they refused to submit to the will of a seemingly omnipotent
oppressive system.
These great men, as subtle yet genuine leaders of their people, paid the price for using their music as a weapon of
truth and empowerment through consciousness for the people. “By the act of being poet, [they were] criticizing the
dominant ideology of the society. As writer[s] in cultural and intellectual alignment to [their] basic human values, [they
were], by definition, in defiance of an oppressive situation.”26 They, as cognizant individuals, deserve to be venerated and
esteemed and their message historically evaluated and continually analyzed, reinterpreted, and discussed for the sake of its
potential for influencing a better Black future (or perhaps a future made anew and greatly improved for the well-being of
all humanity).
As long as black rage continues to be represented as always and only evil and destructive, we lack a vision of
militancy that is necessary for transformative revolutionary action.27
Why do you think the masses, predominantly Black but also White, only know very little, if anything at all, about the
true, inherent, and underlying motivations and motifs of these revolutionary artists? Because knowledge is, and has
always been, conscious, perception-challenging, and change-enforcing power; whereas ignorance is, and always will be,
pacified and complacent, yet certainly untimely and disastrous death.
I think the general white population may very well be under the influence of propaganda to a point where they
do not realize just how inevitable change is, but I think the white leadership…is aware of the inevitability of
change, and I think there is a certain fear which is gnawing at them about which direction this change should
take.28
Why haven’t their lyrics of inspired revolution and conceived rebellion ever manifested unmistakably within the
Black reality? I don’t know exactly, yet I can say with confidence that it’s only due to a vast conspiracy of perpetual
ignorance, oppressive fear, reactive hatred, cultural lies, and self-defeating half-truths aimed at the annihilation of the
possibility of Black power, be it made so by the extermination of Black hope, prosperity, or life. “These are the days for
strong men to courageously expose wrong.”29
These three aspects—the political, the moral, and the aesthetic—are three forms of the total revolutionary
outlook. They will recur, though it will be found that they do not always recur together and in harmony. In
spite of this commitment to change in all spheres, the myth or tradition of revolution itself, its language and
rhetoric, are embedded in romanticism. The appeals to the people, the legendary popular heroism of the
barricades would continue to exert a powerful force of attraction down to our own day. Their aura cannot be
separated from romanticism and in this sense they remain fundamentally conservative.30
Some critics may display the audacity to say that I am looking too deeply and resourcefully into these lyrics, since
after all, they are only words. However, I am convinced that the writers of these words were indeed committed to the
conveyance of consciousness through their lyricism, most of this had to be symbolic, implied, and inferred (thus, some
perceptions and receptions may be different among listener to listener, and, especially, artist to listener) by the listener or
reader. It’s so much knowledge, wisdom, and understanding you can extract from their poetic observations. “I sensed
7
that Negro life was a sprawling land of unconscious suffering, and there were but few Negroes who knew the meaning of
their lives, who could tell their story.”31
These men were truly gifted. Not only did they speak to the masses through their lyrics, but they also allowed the
masses to articulate vicariously through them.
It will be after times of disasters and of great misfortunes, when harried peoples begin to breathe. Then
imaginations, shaken by terrible spectacles, will depict things unknown by those who did not witness them.
Genius is timeless: but the men who carry it within themselves remain benumbed unless extraordinary events
heat up the mass and make them appear. Then feelings pile up in the breast, torment it; and those who have a
voice, anxious to speak, release it and relieve their minds.32
To Curtis, Bob, and Pac, these words, their words, definitely had meaning, and these meanings, whose profundity has
been deliberately suppressed for decades and/or years, whether by superficial perception, sheer ignorance, or systematic
conspiracy, were meant to have an effect on the collective consciousness of the masses. “Our poets are now our
prophets…these poets have come to baptize us in blackness, to affirm our black selfhood.”33 “At least the prophets have
awakened men’s minds to the fact that change can occur.”34
They were not only entertaining musicians, but radical artists, rebellious writers, insightful yet comprehendible social
philosophers, and creative gods in conscious attunement with the omnipotent message of The Most High, their lyrics
being the realistic scripture necessary for the listener/reader to traverse illusion to truth, dehumanization to self-divinity,
lowly death to highest life. “No, an artist can’t say he is merely an artist…We’re all in a war of genocide and only we can
dismantle the genocidal machinery.”35
If, for example, Tupac Shakur was only a rapper I would not have bothered to write a book with him as one-third of
my main objective. What made him special, just as Mayfield and Marley, and the reason why I chose to pursue this
particular theme, was that he rarely produced art exclusively for the sake of producing art.
His work had substance, and that substance was knowledge, knowledge of the truth, self, God, enemy, and reality.
He was a messenger of realistic prophecy, and through his message he inspired, guided, and philosophized absolute
change to the masses in order to instill the conscious desire and hope for creating such urgent change.
It seems to me that the writer must be fully aware of the dramas of his time and that he must take sides every
time he can or knows how to do so. But he must also maintain or resume from time to time a certain distance in
relation to our history. Every work presupposes a content of reality and a creator who shapes the container.
Consequently, the artist, if he must share the misfortune of his time, must also tear himself away in order to
consider that misfortune and give it form. This continual shuttling, this tension that gradually becomes
increasingly dangerous, is the task of the artist of today. Perhaps this means that in a short time there will be no
more artists. And perhaps not. It is a question of time, of strength, of mastery, and also of chance. 36
They all were both educational and entertaining, equally. Seldom did the aesthetic value willfully jeopardize the
cultural or historical value of the lyric’s seditious social commentary. Each told vivid and rousing stories about their
reality, which often encompassed that of us, Black people, as a whole.
…the artists who reject bourgeois society and its formal art, who insist on speaking of reality, and reality alone,
are caught in a painful dilemma. They must be realistic and yet cannot be. They want to make their art
subservient to reality, and reality cannot be described without effecting a choice that makes it subservient to the
originality of an art.37
They were what some may dare call “formally un-educated” philosophers. (I say they were prophetically
indoctrinated to the truths of Black existence due to their near spiritual strangulation by them.) They were our Marx,
Lenin, Camus, and Hegel. They were the reincarnation of DuBois, Fanon, Woodson, and Rogers. Their entire lyrical
strategy stemmed from the fundamental philosophic questions in the pursuit of, in their case, both practical and absolute
wisdom. Some of their one and two liners are classic Black philosophic quotables.
The aim of art, the aim of a life can only be to increase the sum of freedom and responsibility to be found in
every man and in the world. It cannot, under any circumstances, be to reduce or suppress that freedom, even
8
temporarily. There are works of art that tend to make man conform and to convert him to some external rule.
Others tend to subject him to whatever is worst in him, to terror or hatred. Such works are valueless to me. No
great work has ever been based on hatred or contempt. On the contrary, there is not a single true work of art that
has not in the end added to the inner freedom of each person who has known and loved it.38
Many have misunderstood and falsely discredited or glorified my present subjects. This is due to their ignorance of
the supreme truth of Curtis Mayfield, Bob Marley, and Tupac Shakur. Be it due to their deafness (inability to offer
conscious listening and consequential critical analysis) or muteness (unwillingness to define and refine in painful [yes, the
truth is often painful to those whose entire inner peace was premised on the subconscious acceptance of their own selfdefeat and destruction] and previously unprecedented depth), no one, at least to my tested knowledge, has ever stated to
the true and eternal goal of these men: consummate change in the condition of the minds, bodies, and souls of Black folks.
Poetry…is the expression of the secret attraction to a chaos which lies concealed in the very bosom of the
ordered universe, and is perpetually striving after new and marvelous births.39
They were soul musicians who rebelled and became conscious, and due to this consciousness they transcended a
terrible and conspired commonality becoming “soul rebels.”
…many writers took to wearing the Pindaric mantle of seer, or regarded themselves as visionary bards,
prophets, and leaders whose duty it was to guide those who were not gifted with antennae like their own. And
with the decline of established religion, such figures became, as it were, members of a secular clergy.
Especially in countries where repression was hard, writers were to provide not only inspiration but comfort and
consolation. In this respect, they often saw themselves (and were seen by their readers) as Promethean—either
because, like the rebel Titan Prometheus, they suffered agony of soul and even exile, torment, and persecution in
order to bring benefits to mankind; or because, like him, they defied authority and challenged the very injustice
of the universe established and governed by Olympian Zeus.40
These men had a firm grasp on the exigent circumstances that endangeringly impacted our daily existence, both seen
and unseen. They saw the trepidations of Black existence in a world devised to secure White domination at any and all
costs. They saw it and reported it song after song after marvelous song. It was in their almost journalistic approach that
they journeyed into the threatening possibilities of change and forever promised their own dominion in the spirits of their
most mindful listeners.
Evidently, dissatisfaction with society and its abuses was, and remains, the chief ostensible reason for
advocating revolution. An age of [White] privilege, [exploited] labor, [internal] slavery, and disproportionate
punishment could not but arouse indignation in those capable of thought and feeling, and awaken their desire for
change. But what was the primary urge which at first made a complete overthrow seem more attractive than
anything else? Some deeper need than the desire for social change and improvement underlies the passion for
revolution. It is the yearning for salvation both for the individual and for society, through a total transformation
of man and his world.41
Through their music, these astonishing men confronted, changed, and conserved the various perceptional realities of
our world. Accused of hatemongering, race-rioting, authority-denying, and other seemingly negative notions, these
brothers were omnipotently positive. To them “the white man [was] irrelevant to blacks, except as an oppressive force;”42
and their wholly reality-based lyrics left no doubt of this logically accepted truth.
We don’t hate White people; we hate the oppressor. And if the oppressor happens to be white then we hate
him…the only way that we’re going to be free is to wipe out once and for all the oppressive structure of
America.43
Although their tremendous passion for truth, power, understanding, justice, independence, unity, and freedom often
resulted in a blistering flurry of outward frustration and misconstrued activity, these passions, however unbridled, were
solely responsible for their inherent greatness.
9
Every writer tries to give a form to the passions of his time. Yesterday it was love. Today the great passions of
unity and liberty disrupt the world. Yesterday love led to individual death. Today collective passions make us
run the risk of universal destruction. Today, just as yesterday, art wants to save from death a living image of our
passions and our sufferings.44
Proper security denies the enemy the element of surprise. Internalize this thought and you will always be empowered
with the foresight to save lives, no matter what the magnitude (genocide).
Throughout the Black Power years, Afro-American activists—in tune with the anti-institutional tendencies of
their times—brushed aside the obscuring veil of White Power to reveal to the entire nation what most of its
black citizenry already recognized: black people possessed a distinctive group culture which reflected unique
themes, values, and ideals. To such individuals, Black Power became a revolution of culture which utilized all
available forms of folk, literary, and dramatic expression to forward its message of self-actualization. Fully
cognizant of the transforming potential of cultural self-definition, they called upon the “spirit of blackness”
ever-present in their folk heritage to assist them in doing battle with all forms of oppression.45
Mayfield, Marley, and Shakur carried out this logical ideology of self-conservation by employing guerilla-like
musical production tactics to secure our existence by attacking the White power establishment with various impactdisguised lyrical ammunition. They ambushed the self-absorbing sovereignty of the antagonistic forces of oppression,
suppression, deception, and genocide through sparking a rebellious consciousness among the systematically victimized
and perpetually unaware Black masses.
“Instead of according the people’s lethargy an honored place in his esteem, [the poet] turns himself into an awakener
of the people; hence comes a fighting literature, a revolutionary literature, and a national literature.”46 While the Black
leaders of their times were relatively insufficient in their significance in regards to revolutionary improvement of our
situation, they, virtually unsupported and often viciously attacked or blatantly unheard, took it as their soul’s duty to
embark upon a musical journey destined to link the fragmented successes of the historic Black liberation struggle.
A close reading of such works reveals that the authors were not simply crying in their beer or rubbing salt into
an open wound when they spoke of oppression. There was a method to these portrayals of societal madness.
Afro-American writers utilized black suffering as a springboard to greater racial awareness. They were not
about to wallow in self-pity. Instead, they would help their people reconstruct and “reexperience” the terrors of
the past, awakening them to the necessity for unified action in the present. As playwright LeRoi Jones noted,
the black revolutionary theatre was by definition a “theatre of Victims.” It viewed the world through their
tormented eyes so that audiences could understand that “they are the brothers of victims, and that they
themselves are victims if they are blood brothers.” This realization, he said, “will cause their deepest souls to
move, and they will find themselves tensed and clenched, even ready to die, at what the soul has been taught.”
Such a clear-eyed, cathartic approach to the grim legacy of the past stripped history of its fatalism. By
enumerating black misfortunes, the writers transcended them, opening the way for a new appreciation of their
ancestors’ capacity for survival. They focused on cruelty only long enough to make a point: Afro-American
history was a study in adversity.47
Despite the White man’s devil/greed complex which forces him, as a rule, to attempt to use his historically similar
repertoire of “savagery skills” to “kill two or three niggers with one bullet,” we must creatively envision and enforce
means by which to catch that damned bullet between our teeth, Bruce Lee-like, and spit it back at his sadistic Pale ass
with a smirk of proven supreme intelligence. This is actually our mission as a people behind enemy lines. The inspiring
truth within their lyrics strongly suggested that it was not impossible.
Their intentions were fully justified in their knowledge of the fundamental and awesome fact that “revolution alone
can save the earth from hell’s pollution.”48 Both responsible and accountable through their lyrics, they offered hope to a
race commonly accepted as too dehumanized to even understand the essence of hope and subsequently embrace the
instinctive power gained from such an understanding. To inject for increased effect a few lines credited to Claude
McKay:
10
Oh, I must search for wisdom every hour,
Deep in my wrathful bosom sore and raw,
And find in it the superhuman power
To hold me to the letter of your law!
Oh, I must keep my heart inviolate
Against the potent poison of your hate.49
What enabled them to become the threats they became were the truths their lyrics offered the masses. The elitist
oppressors knew that once the masses would hear than listen to the truth, they’d certainly become attracted to the truth and
the possibility of power that underlies its words. Both conceptually and lyrically, their songs imparted the systematically
suppressed desire and hope for redemption, and thus, in spite and fear, were deemed threatening and in many ways
censored from its intended audience. Imagine that. These tyrannical terrorists, whose present sovereignty is secured by
the organized employment of conditioned fear, proclaim the moral authority to decide who positively influences our
destiny.
To display their commitment to the promise contained within their poems, these men, as conscious threats, placed
themselves in maximum physical danger in accordance with the historic leadership requirement necessary for the masses’
acquisition of even the most minute of conscious hope. This is why I praise them by revisiting their unrecognized
contributions not only to Black music, but to the spiritual revitalization of the Black race.
Nowadays, with the system of white supremacy so creatively and covertly sophisticated, it no longer needs to lynch
us physically when it can lynch us mentally, spiritually, legally, economically, and politically, with the same degree of
genocidal consequence. Thus, their lyrics had to be, and were, just as creative and covertly sophisticated in order to
circumvent the ever-progressing potential of this demonic system.
My objective has always been a critique that propounds a cultural theory of society by the very act of criticism.
In other words, to provide a radical assessment of a given reality is to create, among other things, another
reality. Furthermore, any criticism of society is, definitionally, a criticism of the ruling ideology of that society.
I have the insight that comes from being born black in [a White world]….As the critic, I am always seeking to
create a new world, to find an escape, to liberate those who see only a part of reality. 50
Their lyrics empowered us with the vision necessary to assess our self, our reality, and our destiny with some degree
of conscious sanity and balance of truth. In a sadistic world bent on the eventual actualization, they offered the most
powerful protection possible—the protection of the self. When “them crazy baldheads” attempted to negate our soul it
was they, through their evocative verse, who affirmed its innate value. “If you can feel that staying human is worth while,
even when it can’t have any result whatever, you’ve beaten them.”51 Their lyrics, by thoroughly educating us on how to
acquire this feeling, inspired us on to a much-needed victory.
They provided the collective text needed for a consummate change of the Black condition and conditioning. As they
advanced ever closer to the whole truth, their revolutionary messages ascended the commonly accepted observations of
the existence of injustice onto the procurement of the means in which we, Black people as a force immortally united
within the knowledge of the truth, self, God, and enemy, would eliminate its existence.
Revolution is the only realistic and self-fulfilling hope for the hopeless. In agreement with the great lyricist Gil
Scott-Heron, the revolution may not be televised, but I firmly believe that some of its most essential preparatory theme
songs have already been penned by the men of whom this book attempts to establish appropriate appreciation. “Without a
revolutionary theory there is no revolutionary movement.”52 With this, I can confidently agree, but of its current
nonexistence within the Black reality, I would certainly have to deny.
It would be suitable to say that revolutionary theory as the expression of a social truth, surpasses any declaration
of it; that is to say, even if the theory is not known, the revolution can succeed if historical reality is interpreted
correctly and if the forces involved in it are utilized correctly.53
Their words were premeditated weapons in the service of the souls of Black folks. Their mission: the successful
submission of our souls’ suppression and subsequent securing of an empowered existence. These brilliant artist realized
early in their careers that in a logistically improbable rebellion fire could not be effectively used to overcome fire—water
11
would eventually need to be employed. They vowed that their lyrics would function victoriously as this purifying and
liberating water.
Taking the white man’s language, dislocating his syntax, recharging his words with new strength and sometimes
with new meaning before hurling them back in his teeth, while upsetting his self-righteous complacency and
clichés, our poets rehabilitate such terms as Africa and blackness, beauty and peace.54
They were limitless soldiers whose “writin’ was their fightin’.” They fought for the people, whom they saw
struggling severely ever dangling from the edge of survival within this “battlefield of reality.”55 As Pac warned us, “they
win when your soul dies.” “No external force, however great and overwhelming, can at long last destroy a people if it
does not first win the victory of the spirit against them.”56 These artists beautifully upheld their responsibility, as
conscious Black men constructing a powerful consciousness among the people, in its security and salvation for our
ultimate victory.
I want to try to reveal a part of reality that’s most important to you—but I warn you, it’s going to hurt….What I
want to do is done very seldom, and to be honest, it wouldn’t happen now if I hadn’t sustained a series of
impossible frustrations.57
What made these lyricists so outstanding was the conscious aggression evident within the essence of their words.
These artists consciously articulated their rejection of the White man’s greed, arrogance, aggression, fear, ignorance,
intolerance, injustice, and hypocrisy, as the grand oppressor of humanity. Although their lyrical delivery and intensely
differed greatly, the essence of Curtis’ wise sighs, Bob’s anxious wails, and Pac’s perpetual curses are virtually the same.
When you consciously listened to them, you knew they had something to say that may very well change the world. And
even if they made you mad, it was a conscious decision by them, for they knew that as a people, “we must get mad
enough to think.”58
The thing I do, I thought with a smile, was to give them hints that whatever [I] did or said was weighted with
broad and mysterious meanings that lay just beneath the surface.59
With an innate ability to shift effortlessly from advocating “quiet” to “loud” revolution, they maintained the attention
of their audience without seeming monotonously militant nor missionary-like. They uniquely realized Schiller’s
expression of man’s necessity for “a complete revolution in his whole way of feeling [as] required, [that] without which
he would not even find himself on the way to the ideal.” The ideal; now let’s think about just what that means in relation
to Black existence versus Black life. Whereas the former is the universal concurrence, the latter is in fact the ideal, what
these men brilliantly attempted to inspire internally and eternally within the masses of whom they humbly served.
…we must surely call divine any tendency which has as its unending task the realization of that most
characteristic attribute of Godhead, viz., absolute manifestation of potential (the actualization of all that is
possible).60
“When a man starts out to build a world, He must first start with himself.”61 What made Curtis, Bob, and Pac such
extraordinary artists and adroit messengers was their profound degree of conscious attunement with their own inherent
and instinctive self-divinity as a creative being. Whether through religious ideologies (Bob was the quintessential
Rastafarian representative and Curtis was a remarkably insightful and well-versed Christian) or intense self-knowledge
(Pac attentively and inquisitively observed life and people’s reaction to it and incorporated his self and his people in
positive relation to God’s will), they knew and internalized the truth of God.
For me, as long as I’ve been writing songs, I’ve needed answers. So whatever my feelings were they would
come out through my songs….Sometimes I’m not so much making a statement as asking a question.62
From my own comprehension of Colin Wilson’s statement that “if a man could kill all his illusions he’d become a
god,” I would certainly have to deduce that Curtis Mayfield, Bob Marley, and Tupac Shakur were gods because that is
12
exactly what they spent an entire natural life’s worth of labor doing. They achieved disillusionment through rebelliously
conscious reception and acceptance of the knowledge of the truth, self, God (prophecy), reality (conspiracy), and enemy.
Why fades a dream?
An iridescent ray
Flecked in between the tryst
Of night and day.
Why fades a dream?—
Of consciousness the shade
Wrought out by lack of light and made
Upon life’s stream.
Why fades a dream?
That thought may thrive,
So fades the fleshless dream;
Lest men should learn to trust
The things that seem.
So fades a dream,
That living thought may grow
And like a waxing star-beam glow
Upon life’s stream—
So fades a dream.63
Powerfully stimulated by the world as it exists and society as it is constituted, they set out to deny our disguised
nightmare founded on illusioned hypocrisy in order to finally establish our prophesized dream long deferred. Empowered
sufficiently by their revised inalienable freedom of expression, they demanded the manifestation of a new world order
based on its original precepts of truth, justice, and harmony.
As they gradually freed themselves through the elevating discoveries of their lyrical expositions, they were not
content in securing such isolated occurrences of liberation, and found it their duty as Black men to attempt to also set free
everyone around them by channeling their self-emancipation. It is their tremendous generosity that reinforced their
godliness.
America is a dream.
The poet says it was promises.
The people say it is promises—that will come true.
The people do not always say things out loud,
Nor write them down on paper.
The people often hold
Great thoughts in their deepest hearts
And sometimes only blunderingly express them,
Haltingly and stumbling say them,
And faultily put them into practice.
The people do not always understand each other.
But there is, somewhere there,
Always the trying to understand,
And the trying to say,
“You are a man. Together we are building our land.”
…The eyes see there materials for building,
See the difficulties, too, and the obstacles…64
13
There’s a flaw extremely evident within the Black society to an eye trained to find the whole truth and discard
anything that’s not. “The flaw is that [everyone else are] just bein’ more and more led away from what’s core. [They]
can’t even tell what’s real anymore.”65
The lips of the righteous teach many
But fools die for want of wisdom
The rich man’s wealth is in his city
The righteous’ wealth is in His Holy Place66
Today’s music, for the most part, frighteningly lacks the critical social consciousness, that divine insight, repeatedly
displayed by Curtis, Bob, and Tupac. Captured in a commonality of lyrics limited to quick money, over-materialistic
mentalities, ignored ignorance, coveted confusion, sadistic self-hatred, and glorified self-destruction, Black musicians of
the new millennium can unquestionably profit from the recorded rhythmic truths timelessly transmitted by the versatile
verses of this apocalyptic trio.
Of what could art speak, indeed? If it adapts itself to what the majority of our society wants, art will be a
meaningless recreation. If it blindly rejects that society, if the artist makes up his mind to take refuge in his
dream, art will express nothing but a negation. In this way we shall have the production of entertainers or of
formal grammarians, and in both cases this leads to an art cut off from living reality. 67
The cadenced conveyance of self-destructive behavior and thought processes and materialistic, sexual, idealistic, or
toxic escapism comprise the themes which pollute the lyrics of today’s Black music. These are the injudicious lessons of
self-advanced Black genocide White supremacy gradually becomes invincible from and thus support through
exceptionally massive production and promotion.
Lured and quieted by big (yet still exploitive) paychecks, lyricists of today have become numb to the very reality that
threatens to destroy everyone who looks like them. They’re just talking loud and saying nothing. In order to gain this
world they have lost their immortal soul, reflecting the overwhelming self-negation of the masses’ predominant mood and
motif.
You see…he has eyes and ears and a good distended African nose, but he fails to understand the simple facts of
life. Understand. Understand? It’s worse than that. He registers with his sense but short-circuits his brain.
Nothing has meaning. He takes it in but he doesn’t digest it. Already he is—well, bless my soul! Behold! a
walking zombie! Already he’s learned to repress not only his emotions but his humanity. He’s invisible, a
walking personification of the Negative, the most perfect achievement of your dreams, sir! The mechanical
man!68
We must always learn from our rich history. Musically, our history spans from the divine drums of African
antiquity, which purposefully guided the constructions of grand pyramids to conscious-oriented lyricism of the men of
which I have respectfully devoted an entire volume to. We must learn that although we are encompassed in the miseries
of modern peril, we have not always been without promise. In regards to our musicians, too many of our current
musicians wear “the mask that grins and lies,” and “with torn and bleeding hearts [they] smile, and mouth with myriad
subtleties.”69
However, Mayfield, Marley, and Shakur cleverly, courageously, and creatively refused to wear the same mask. They
were too proud, proud to be men, Black, profound, and powerful to accept the oppressive limitations proven irrevocably
disastrous to all whom wear that damning mask.
For the dim regions whence my fathers came
My spirit, bondaged by the body, longs.
Words felt, but never heard, my lips would frame;
My soul would sing forgotten jungle songs.
I would go back to darkness and to peace,
But the great western world holds me in fee,
And I may never hope for full release
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While to its alien gods I bend my knee.
Something in me is lost, forever lost,
Some vital thing has gone out of my heart,
And I must walk the way of life a ghost
Among the sons of earth, a thing apart.
For I was born, far from my native clime,
Under the white man’s menace, out of time.70
They were intensely free spirits, whose vision of absolute liberation and voice which suggested its realistic
possibility awesomely intimidated the White establishment. “For colored people to acquire [consciousness] in this
country makes tyrants quake and tremble in their sandy foundation.”71 Unfortunately, the very things which induce my
documented reverence of these men ensured their crucifixion by the Pale, blood-stained hands (what, you thought that was
ink?) of media propaganda perpetuated throughout their relatively short periods of influence.
Into the furnace let me go alone;
Stay you without in terror of the heat,
I will go naked in—for thus ‘tis sweet—
Into the weird depths of the hottest zone.
I will not quiver in the frailest bone,
You will not note a flicker of defeat;
My heart shall tremble not its fate to meet,
My mouth give utterance to any moan.
The yawning oven spits forth fiery spears;
Red aspish tongues shout wordlessly my name.
Desire destroys, consumes my mortal fears,
Transforming me into a shape of flame.
I will come out, back to your world of tears,
A stronger soul within a finer frame.72
The discussion of death amongst these men can be both controversial and prophetic. Although firmly aware that
“societies often have killed people who have helped to change those societies,”73 Mayfield, Marley, and Shakur all died
after having exposed several meaningful truths that were key to ridding us of the racial oppression that dominates our
existence.
Mayfield, ironically the first to establish his presence musically as well as the first to allow its diminish, lived until
December 26, 1999 although limited spiritually and later physically. His lyrical intensity, which reached its apex during
the Black Power/Consciousness Movement within Black America, conveniently lessened shortly thereafter.
“I liberate you, they told me, but why do they pursue me?”74
Marley’s most overtly rebellious lyrics came near his death—coincidence or consciousness of conspiracy. To quote
the legend himself: “I was born with a price on my head, I am a sufferer and I will fight those pirates who have captured
my freedom.”
Shakur’s death, I believe, had more to do with our Pale conspirator’s failed attempt at sparking an East vs. West
tribal war between Black people in America, even though Pac faced continual assaults, character, legal, and physical in
nature, throughout his twenty-five years on this earth. “To create today is to create dangerously,”75 no one personified this
more than this outlaw immortal.
The man whose height his fear improved he
arranged to fear no further. The raw
intoxicated time was time for better birth or
a final death….
Roaring no rapt arise-ye to the dead, he
leaned across tomorrow. People said that
he was holding clean globes in his hands.76
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White power has always feared and hated the possibility of Black power, as well as the communicators of this
possibility. “Every time I plant a seed/They say kill them before they grow.”77 Not only has the government been found
guilty of monitoring as well as harassing these musicians, but it is likely that they may have also played a huge role in
their untimely deaths. Bob being shot previous to a politically charged, Black masses-unifying concert and later getting a
“sudden cancer” that eventually stole his life is just one example of lethal conspiratorial conspicuousness.
Amazingly, both Bob and Pac distinctively foretold of their imminent demise, as did Malcolm X and Martin Luther
King, Jr. Could this be attributed to their extraordinary level of conscious attunement with The Most High? Or is this the
mortal price of fulfilling the immortal duty as divine messengers given to them by Him?
“Martyrs are needed to create incidents. Incidents are needed to create revolutions. Revolutions are needed to create
progress.”78
Throughout our history of captivity, those revolu-tionaries and rebels who sought our deliverance all suffered what
seemed to be an untimely demise. But could this be that The Most High was commissioning them for the sole purpose of
our soul liberation, and any more of them was not in His omnipotent plan.
Nevertheless, it is time for their most profound legacy to be consciously recognized and deliberately appreciated.
How long shall they kill our prophets, while we stand aside blinded to their significance? It is time for such a work that
you now possess. This is a volume of critical essays on the vision and voice of my, or rather, our, spiritual grandfather,
father, and brother. I’ve been commissioned by destiny to confer the thought behind their brilliant poetic contributions. I
hope my elucidations don’t disappoint those whose memory they are meant to pay interminable homage to.
Because I had loved so deeply,
Because I had loved so long,
God in His great compassion
Gave me the gift of song.79
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CURTIS MAYFIELD
“PUSHERMAN”
The Negro musician is a reflection of the Negro people as a social phenomenon. His purpose ought to be to
liberate America aesthetically and socially from its inhumanity. The inhumanity of the white American to the
black American, as well as the inhumanity of white American to the white American, is not basic to America
and can be exorcised. I think the Negro people through the force of their struggles are the only hope of saving
America, the political or cultural America.80
Maybe the words that I say is just another way to pray…81
Marked by the tireless struggles and history-altering achievements of the Civil Rights Movement of the early to mid1960's, on to the more revolutionary and militant mentality born from the later Black Power/Black Pride Movement, the
1960's proved to be one of, if not the, most influential and memorable decades in American history in the lives of African
Americans. This decade saw a seemingly endless flow of blood and brutality in the struggle for freedom, justice, and
equality for all.
Yet through all their pain and suffering, African Americans always shared a commonality which they could depend
on to inspire, through its poetic verses, love, hope, and encouragement—music.
From the emergence of our self-evident plight onto its veiled intensification, music has been the foundation of the
Black liberation struggle. Encompassing the intense spectrum of Black existence with all of its timeless trials and intrepid
tribulations, Black music has been the cultural respirator with which we have all maintained conscious hope despite
systematic suffocation from the oppressive intentions of White supremacy. It relayed through rhyme, rhythm, and reason
the harsh yet necessary demands history challenges all of us to if we are to be the masters and not the victims of our
reality. Yes, music is that powerful when used purposefully.
The most prominent form of Black music at this time was a new, more aggressive and spiritual style of rhythm and
blues (also known as R&B) called “soul music.” According to Kenneth Estell in African America, “since it paralleled the
1960s civil rights and black power movements, soul [music] embodied a sense of racial pride and independence.”82 This,
in fact, was the essence of its power, its decisive intertwining with our history as a humanized race.
Soul was the folk equivalent of the black aesthetic. It was perceived as being the essence of the separate black
culture. If there was beauty and emotion in blackness, soul made it so. If there was a black American
mystique, soul provided much of its aura of sly confidence and assumed superiority. Soul was sass—a type of
primal spiritual energy and passionate joy available only to members of the exclusive racial confraternity. It
was a “tribal thing,” the emotional medium of a subculture. To possess a full complement of soul was to have
attained effective black consciousness. Since every Negro was a potential black person, this experience was
available to all Afro-Americans, but try as they might, most whites were incapable of reaching the same state of
awareness.83
Consciousness forces me to realize the key to the survival of Black people in a global reality of White sovereignty.
The key is to keep your essence, your precious and powerful Black soul. By not assimilating into the chaos of conspiracy,
soul musicians were able to do one thing few if anyone else could seem to actually accomplish: secure the soul of the
Black masses by shrewdly ensuring them of its worth through their rhythm-encapsulated sermons.
Soul music was claimed as the aesthetic property of blacks. In both structure and conceptualization it was said
to be part of an African musicological continuum. As an indigenous expression of the collective AfricanAmerican experience, it served as a repository of racial consciousness. Transcending the medium of
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entertainment, soul music provided a ritual in song with which blacks could identify and through which they
could convey important in-group symbols. Music was power and considered to be supremely relevant to ‘the
protracted struggle of black people for liberation.’ To some, it was ‘the poetry of the black revolution.’ If the
group was to be liberated, the authenticity of this cultural form had to be preserved at all costs.84
Arguably, the musician who most embodied soul music and preserved its social influence was the incomparable
Curtis Mayfield. As stated in the October 28, 1993 edition of Rolling Stone Magazine, "more than Marvin Gaye, more
than Stevie Wonder, maybe even more than James Brown, Curtis Mayfield captured the total black experience in America
during the ‘60s.”85
This man unflinchingly attempted to elevate an entire race upon the angelic wings of every verse contained within his
impressive soundtrack of Black reality. In a valid quest for victory, Mayfield anticipated that his lyrics would retrieve
something from our overwhelming sense of both calamity and estrangement. And while most of us born after his years of
predominance have no sufficient suspicion of just how great this man was nor how discerning his influence on the likes of
the more popularized Bob Marley and Tupac Shakur.
“Take my soul, baby/ Life unfolds from my soul/ and it’s all afire.”86
Richie Unterberger affirmed: “Mayfield was among the first—if not the very first—to speak openly about African
American pride and community struggle in his compositions.”87 His “message” songs dominated the Black airwaves with
unprecedented and powerful lyrics of Black consciousness, while paranoid mainstream radio programmers would not dare
support them. As the lead vocalist for the Impressions, Mayfield had established a reputation as a thoughtful lyricist on
the difficulties and necessary utility of race and reality consciousness in America, and later in his career as a solo artist, he
continued to teach and reach with even stronger lessons on life.
Soul music is indeed powerful, but it “ain’t nice. It’s ‘survival motion set to music.’ And what is survival motion?
If you’re black, you don’t have to ask.” But if you don’t know, for some logical or illogical reason, “soul, then, is all of
the unconscious energy of the Black Experience. It is primal spiritual energy.”88 It is the rhythmic relayer of the historic
and perpetual realness of our reality; and Curtis Mayfield was its most capable curator to date.
The ‘painless preaching’ of a well-known activist/musician could result in transformed lives. After their pulse
had been quickened and their consciousness raised by the soul artist’s empowering message, attentive listeners
would be moved to question received wisdom. No longer would they believe themselves incapable of creativity
or of greatness. Now, they too could become ‘somebody.’ As Curtis Mayfield of the Impressions noted in
lending his support to this militant musicological endeavor: ‘If you’re going to come away from a party singing
the lyrics of a song, it is better that you sing of self-pride like ‘We’re a Winner’ instead of ‘Do The Boo-ga-loo!’
The beauty of soul music was that it educated as well as entertained.89
With such thought-provoking, spirit-filled songs as “I’m So Proud,” “People Get Ready,” “We’re a Winner,”
“Choice of Color,” “(Don’t Worry) If There’s a Hell Down Below, We’re All Gonna Go,” “Move On Up,” and “Mighty
Mighty (Spade and Whitey),” Mayfield's music remains one of the most valuable documentary commentaries of this
momentous era. Historians don’t necessarily write books; at least not the most creative ones. By offering a perspective
both uniquely innovative and boundlessly informative, this man left a lyrical legacy desperately in need of further
examination.
“Lord what we gonna do/ If everything I say is true/ This ain’t no way it ought to be/ If only all the mass could
see.”90
What composed the Black American reality during the 1960’s and early 1970’s? It’s imperative for the sake of
accurate artistic association and accountability that we first place our reality in proper historical perspective before
attempting to probe Mayfield’s poetic observation of it. Using statistics from the Documentary History of the Modern
Civil Rights Movement, the following hardships proved to be a perpetual burden for large numbers of African Americans:
 By 1970, eighty percent of the total Black population in America was located in concentrated urban centers,
many within the dispiriting class-constituted and confining walls of the “ghetto.”
 The average life expectancy of African Americans between 1960 and 1975 remained between 63 and 65 years
of age, as opposed to 72 and 74 years of age for European Americans.
 Blacks experienced a ten percent higher infant mortality rate than that of Whites.
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 The mean income difference between White men and Black men in 1969 was 23,000 to 14,000, respectively,
and between White women and Black women in the same year was 10,000 to 8,000, also respectively. At this
time the percentage of Black households led by Black women was sixty percent of the total.
 The Black unemployment rate in 1969 was four percent higher than Whites
 The median Black education was only at the 10th grade level, and the percentage of Whites graduating high
school was much higher.91
Compounded by the increasing drugs and drug-related afflictions during the late 1960’s, life did not look very
promising for the Black community in America. These discouraging realities not only affected the mentality of the
masses but that of the musicians whose music they listened to and believed in.
The black man is subjected to two forces in this country. He is first of all oppressed by an external world
through institutionalized machinery and through laws that restrict him from doing certain things, through heavy
work conditions, through poor pay, through difficult living conditions, through poor education, these are all
external to him. Secondly, and this we regard as the most important, the black man in himself has developed a
certain state of alienation, he rejects himself precisely because he attaches the meaning white to all that is good,
in other words he equates good with white….[He] begin[s] to feel that there is something incomplete in [his]
humanity, and that completeness goes with whiteness.92
“Can I call this living/ Letting the ivory take me out of my mind/ With such heavy burdens/ It’s hard for one to think
sometimes/ I’m so down with depression/ Ain’t no use in me killing myself.”93 In a time of such encompassing misery,
reactionary suicide was commonplace among the Black masses. Limited to existence, White supremacy suppressed the
communal Black spirit so much that it indistinctly obliterated its desire for becoming true and living. By shackling the
Black mind through fear, ignorance, and illusion, it disabled our ability to consciously pursue any necessary selfpreservation as a whole. Convinced of eternal inferiority, Black folks even began to refuse the Christian mythology of
dying in hopes of succumbing to a better life in Heaven. Totally awesome was the power achieved by our oppressors
once they obtained dominion over our self.
“With your values gone/ In this world there’s hardly nothing left.”94 With values being related to morality, which is
defined as the ability to distinguish and act appropriately upon right and wrong, good and evil, Mayfield forewarned of
our eventual demise as a people once we begin to lose this ability permanently. “In this [White man’s] world,” the only
true and living Hell as labeled by so many of our most aware Black thinkers, where “nothing [is] left” submits to the
belief of the impending absence of conscious hope among the people so historically afflicted, the “people darker than
blue.”
the caged blackmanthere is no hell that can keep himno oppression that can surrender him
no pain that can kill the spirit of himif his body is ripped off/ the spirit of blackness
shall continue to/
ride & right-oN95
Through his lyrics, Mayfield influenced the minds of Black, as well as White America, and his goal was always the
continual evolution of consciousness. He “meant to revolutionize history.”96
As long as the mind is enslaved the body can never be free. Psychological freedom, a firm sense of self-esteem,
is the most powerful weapon against the long night of physical slavery. No Lincolnian Emancipation
Proclamation or Kennedyan or Johnsonian civil rights bill can totally bring this kind of freedom. The Negro
will only be truly free when he reaches down to the inner depths of his own being and signs with the pen and ink
of assertive selfhood his own emancipation proclamation. With a spirit straining toward true self-esteem, the
Negro must boldly throw off the manacles of self-abnegation and say to himself and the world: “I am somebody.
I am a person. I am a man with dignity and honor. I have a rich and noble history, however painful and
exploited that history has been. I am black and comely.” This self-affirmation is the black man’s need made
compelling by the white man’s crimes against him. This is positive and necessary power for black people.97
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As Curtis declared, displaying a prophetic awareness of his purpose as a lyricist, “I always understood that every
song I write isn’t meant for me.” He definitely was a voice for and of the people, with an uncompromising vision of
promise, power, and possibility. His songs offered truth, and “truth, brought to light, forces conviction, and a state of
conviction inspires action.”98
According to Monroe Anderson of Ebony magazine, “what distinguishe[d] the progressive rhythm and blues of a
Curtis Mayfield from most [was] the underlying depth of thought used to transform the simple occurrences of black life
into a poetry for the people….Curtis [was] not so much a performer as he [was] a poet who [was] singing his words.”99 It
is Mayfield’s distinct lyrical poetry that earned him the reputation of “black music’s most unflagging Civil Rights
activist.”100
Pardon me brother as you stand in your glory
I know you won’t mind if I tell the whole story
Get yourself together, learn to know your sign
Shall we commit our genocide before we check out our mind
I know we’ve all got problems that’s why I’m here to say
Keep peace with me and I with you
Let me love in my own way101
This research analyzes Mayfield’s most conscious-oriented lyrics in an effort to better understand his influence on
the rise of Black consciousness during the 1960’s and early 1970’s. Although many have referred to Mayfield as a
musical pioneer in the area of increasing social awareness through his music, little in depth research has been done of the
power of his lyrical content. By offering a socio-political interpretation of his lyrics, especially their subtexts, as they
relate to various aspects of Black life during this era, this study offers more substantive proof of Mayfield’s irrefutable
contribution to and continual influence on the immortal souls of Black folks.
As for Curtis’ singing voice—one of the most influential, recognizable instruments in the music world—it is a
tool of confounding but viscerally resonant paradoxes. There’s an aching, crystalline purity at its core, but it
houses tones of profound weariness. The voice soars so sweetly yet is weighed down by a sadness and wisdom
that are effortlessly conveyed through moans and sighs. Innocence and deep emotional insight are conveyed in
the same breath, the former being a quality that is willfully and determinedly sheltered, nurtured, and guarded in
the face of countless assaults. It’s a voice that conjures both a baby’s smooth-gummed smile and an elder’s
toothless visage.
Curtis’ literary voice, found in the curves of his lyrics, is part classic soothsayer, part street-corner sage.
There’s compassion in the words, which means that no matter how simple or involved they are, they speak
straight to the heart. Mayfield’s tales are of the ordinary man struggling to do right, staring down his obstacles.
There’s no bitterness, though there’s often tension. There’s never even the suggestion of defeat, though there’s
frequently sadness and between-the-lines admissions of heavy prices paid.102
These are the complexities that I pray my work will adequately convey through the text which follows…
Much of Mayfield’s music can be classified as persuasion songs, or songs of protest. His songs were consciously
confrontational, challenging the institutionalized oppression that shackled our collective mind, body, and spirit out of hate,
fear, and envy of its historic capacity. According to R. Serge Denisoff, author of Sing a Song of Social Significance, “a
propaganda song…may be conceived of as a song designed to communicate social, political, economic, ideological
concepts, or a total ideology, to the listener.”103 The following six primary functions, or goals, of persuasion songs can be
found in a large selection of Mayfield’s most explicitly conscious work:
1. The song attempts to solicit and arouse outside support and sympathy for a social or political
movement.
2. The song reinforces the value structure of individuals who are active supporters of the social
movement or ideology.
3. The song creates and promotes cohesion, solidarity, and high morale in an organization or movement
supporting its worldview.
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4. The song is an attempt to recruit individuals for a specific social movement.
5. The song invokes solutions to real or imagined social phenomena in terms of action to achieve a
desired goal.
6. The song points to some problem or discontent in the society, usually in emotional terms.104
Mayfield’s lyrics of racial advancement and social revolution can be appropriately related to the poetry of the Harlem
Renaissance period labeled as the “new Negro poetry.” Especially influenced as a child by the writings of Paul Laurence
Dunbar, Mayfield revisited the spirit of Dunbar and other Black writers of the Renaissance who deemed it their ultimate
responsibility as both artists and Black people to improve Black life through their words. This philosophy of Black
artistic accountability was eloquently expressed by Charles S. Johnson in “Jazz Poetry and Blues." He elaborated:
The new racial poetry of the Negro is the expression of something more than experimentation in a new
technique. It marks the birth of a new racial consciousness and self conception. It is a first frank acceptance of
race, and the recognition of difference without the usual implications of disparity. It lacks apology, the
wearying appeals to pity, and the conscious philosophy of defense. In being itself it reveals its greatest
charm.105
Johnson also added that such poetry offered "the curious story of disillusionment without a saving philosophy and yet
without defeat." It is distinguished by "stark, full human passions [which] crowd themselves into an noncomplex
expression, so simple in their power that they startle."106 Curtis Mayfield can be securely placed in this genre once
proposed into the proper historical perspective.
Recall how suddenly the Negro spirituals revealed themselves; suppressed for generations under the stereotypes
of Wesleyan hymn harmony, secretive, half-ashamed, until the courage of being natural brought them out—and
behold, there was folk-music. Similarly the mind of the Negro seems suddenly to have slipped from under the
tyranny of social intimidations and to be shaking off the psychology of imitation and implied inferiority. By
shedding the old chrysalis of the Negro problem we are achieving something like a spiritual emancipation. Until
recently, lacking self-understanding, we have been almost as much of a problem to ourselves as we still are to
others. But the decade that found us with a problem has left us with only a task. The multitude perhaps feels as
yet only a stranger belief and a new vague urge, but the thinking few know that in the reaction the vital inner
group of prejudice has been broken.107
Mayfield embraced the essence of Alain Locke’s dissertation of the New Negro by employing it within his lyrics.
Much of what Locke described over forty years before Mayfield’s prominence had not so much become obsolete as it was
in need of revision in order to fit the modern intricacies of our urgent situation. This Mayfield took to be his personal and
historical task, seemingly submitting to Locke’s own revelation.
With this renewed self-respect and self-dependence, the life of the Negro community is bound to enter a new
dynamic phase, the buoyancy from within compensating for whatever pressure there may be of conditions from
without. The migrant masses, shifting from countryside to city, hurdle several generations of experience at a
leap, but more important, the same thing happens spiritually in the life-attitudes and self-expression of the
Young Negro, in his poetry, his art, his education and his new outlook, with the additional advantage, of course,
of the poise and greater certainty of knowing what it is all about. From this comes the promise and warrant of a
new leadership.108
It is unquestionably certain that while Curtis’s lyrics confidently and competently contemplated upon the “content of
man’s character, and how near—or far—it was from a godly path,”109 they also provided a principle by which to
standardize the positive potential of humanity. His lyrics offered a realistic spiritual experience neither completely
religious nor secular, intended not to unconsciously influence but rather to impact through the elevation of awareness.
Maybe the words I say is just another way to pray
I don’t know
Don’t think that I’m any saint cause
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I can’t do nothin’ for you
I only asked of you just as I got to do myself
Look into your inner self only you know how to be free.110
Where most of the leaders of the day requested total ideological and moral compliance by the masses as the only
feasible solution to their plight, Mayfield clearly stated that his intentions were not so lofty. He simply wanted to
empower the people with the knowledge necessary to fight their own battle for total liberation, to lead themselves by
knowing their self. In the end, he felt, and I agree, that this remains the most potent and realistic weapon in our collective
arsenal—the power of consciousness.
The depth of night, the light for sight
Sort of sets the moral standards of soul
Gives you the strength to pay the price of life
And rewards you with a bit of fulfillment111
Oh the aesthetic purity and brilliance of the lyrics of Curtis Mayfield! This is Black power with all of its infinite
possibilities! “The depth of night,” the oppressive forces of ignorance, versus “the light of sight,” the enlightening
prowess of knowledge of truth, self, God, reality, and enemy. It is the victor of this internal Armageddon that proves to be
the ultimate determinant of one’s destiny, offering the honor of higher life or the damnation of enslaved existence.
All points bulletin alert courtesy of Curtis: “The world I see before me is tryin’ to make me a slave.” This is
knowledge of truth, reality, and enemy; please, make the most of it.
Preacher man preacher man
Trying to do the best he can
Oh but the text he preaches
Seems obsolete
And we suffer still over the land
We just cannot find a way112
Mayfield honestly questioned the realistic potential of Black people’s historic absolute reliance on religion. A devout
Christian himself, he refused to limit his vision because of his beliefs, a common obstruction to Black liberation. He saw,
and rhythmically articulated, reality as reality, not some mythical manifestation.
In his smooth yet magnificent voice, Mayfield began asserting his musical messages professionally in 1958 as lead
singer and songwriter for the Hall of Fame R&B group the Impressions, but it was not until the 1960's that his lyrics
would develop its true social consciousness. In 1964, the Impressions gained nation-wide recognition as a force not only
musically but also politically with the release of songs like “I’m So Proud," “Keep On Pushing," and “Amen." According
to Jon Spencer, editor of Sacred Music of the Secular City, “politically speaking, they were musical priests whose vital
dispensations gently prodded the awakening of a natal Afro-America emerging from social, political, and economic
slumber.”113
So many changes going in and out of my life
How can anyone survive
When everybody’s been made a sacrifice
Look all around and see yourself
So weak and so vulnerable
So you’re trying to be strong
But your money ain’t too long
And it’s so terrible
Don’t you know if you want a good life
Best look into yourself
Cause the world is cold and everybody’s bold
And there’s no one else114
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Curtis’s lyrics are so deep, so perceptive, so intense, so consciously elegant. To me, it’s amazing that he has never
really been given his just due. “How can anyone survive/when everybody’s been made a sacrifice?” This is exceptionally
truthful and courageously inquisitive. Not only does he forcefully state this question but also desperately implies an
apparently nonexistent response.
The masses have been made the helpless casualties of a globally oppressive system of elitist domination. With most
of the world’s wealth and capital centralized within the possession of the Pale few, the masses, off whose demise the
devilish few profit and survive, are perpetually unable to establish some effective means of self-defense, thus continually
falling prey to this colossally concealed conspiracy.
Although the system is devised to advance our absolute dependence on our oppressors by promoting false realities of
Black inferiority and White superiority, we must consciously rebel its propaganda of self-defeat and destruction by
grasping and submitting to our own highest potential. Why would those who have profitably mastered your self for
centuries ever provide for its freedom?
We must use our minds to counter every attack on our lives. If our enemy’s plan is to shoot us all, then we must
devise a way to make ourselves bulletproof. If their intention is to pacify and suppress our desire for necessary rebellion,
then we must provide avenues of resistance that allow for our total liberation and independence from their influence and
sustenance. This is the underlying goal of the Black aesthetic—to find creative solutions to our appalling predicament.
“A lot of scars that kind of scare you to remember scufflin’ times/in seeing people trying to put you down/for
goodness sakes/people trying to take what you know you’ve found.”115 Don’t surrender your newfound knowledge of self
to the pacifying promise of potential paychecks, for it was this knowledge that was the truest freedom, not the money. It
was the militant embracing of our natural essence, our historical self, that threatened the preservation of our suppressive
actuality. No matter how much people denied, and still do deny it, the tangible mission of the Civil Rights Movement was
slightly more reparation rather than revolution-seeking. Consequently, the true victors, the capitalistic elite, were able to
maintain dominance long after the Movement’s final flicker by altering the illusions which allowed for our shared
exploitation and neo-enslavement.
People running from their worries
While the judge and his juries
Dictate the law that’s party flaw
Cat calling, love balling, fussing and cussing
To billing now is killing
For peace no one is willing
Kind of make you get that feeling
Everybody smoke
Use the pill and the dope
Educated fools
From uneducated schools
Pimping people is the rule
Polluted water in the pool
And Nixon talking about don’t worry116
We are oppressed because of it is more convenient and profitable for our oppressors than for them to truly liberate us.
We remain oppressed because we have been made to believe that such a condition is more convenient than one of
freedom, and thus a holistically biased system, with certain deliberately tainted sub-systems (i.e. educational, legal,
economic, religious, health) has been emplaced on society to ensure our perpetual ignorance, confusion, and
susceptibility.
People of African descent in the United States can only be understood when both the African cultural and
Western hemispheric political realities are taken into account together. For example, for nearly four hundred
years, the slave trade, colonization, segregation, and racism—highly sophisticated systematic strategies of
oppression—have been the massive political and economic forces operating on African people. These forces
have affected the culture, the socialization processes, and the very consciousness of African people.117
23
Mayfield expressed that self-reliance and concern was necessary for self-preservation, yet, because our mentality
displayed a reverse logic in regards to this natural principle, there must be a reason for this. He concluded that someone
had to initiate this self-destructive thought process due to the fact that it was fundamentally unnatural, thus more likely
conspiratorial than prophetic. And whenever there’s a conspiracy, there must be a conspirator, and it was his calculated
assumption that the creator could have well been the concealer. The goal then was to bring both the conspiracy and
conspirator into the apocalyptic light of justice, even if this meant reversing the entire sway of perception.
“Truth is not the whole question/What is the answer you hide/The system needs us but it’s trying to mislead us/They
know this money don’t feed us.”118
Mayfield was apparently inspired by the emergence of the Civil Rights Movement, and the Black leaders and masses
in the Movement became genuinely as inspired by Mayfield’s lyrics, so much so, that Martin Luther King, Jr. and Jesse
Jackson adopted “Keep On Pushing” as the unofficial theme song for the Movement.119 Mayfield’s “inspirational lyrics”
which “reflected a strong black consciousness while preaching the tenets of hard work, persistence, and faith as the key to
achieving equality”120 were just what the Movement needed to rekindle its dwindling flame.
By providing irrevocable truths to the masses via his songs, Mayfield simultaneously supplied them with a proactive
purpose and realistic optimism necessary for internal survival from the perils of Hellish external conditions.
As Mary Ellison expressed in Lyrical Protest, “American singers have long used music as a medium seeking equality
and peace as interlocking aims. Curtis Mayfield has always been one of the most clear-sighted and cogently articulate of
Black spokesmen.”121 Yet his music disclosed the perplexity and paradox of the era. He echoed Locke’s forewarning that
“the American mind must reckon with a fundamentally changed Negro.” A New Blackness brightened by the collective
light of conscious understanding of their evolving socio-political reality.
In his essay “Keep on Pushing: The Impressions,” William C. Turner, Jr. explained:
We were supposed to be patriotic Americans, but we could not deny the outrage brought on by our awareness of
the injustices the nation had heaped upon Africans, Native Americans, and people of color throughout the Third
World. We were supposed to ‘pledge allegiance to the flag’ and to a republic that claimed to be ‘one nation
under God with liberty and justice for all,” but little discernment was required to see that the nation was united
only among those who identified with its destiny and who were among the group that prospered. It was equally
questionable whether the nation lived under God; and if it did live under God, it seemed that God was a racist
and a tyrant. Liberty and justice were reserved for white male Anglo-Saxons and those who identified with their
program.122
Songs such as “Keep On Pushing,” “Get Up and Move,” “We’re A Winner,” “We’re Moving On Up,” and “Move
On Up,” with their uplifting lyrics and uncompromising themes, seem to have all played a unique and very significant role
in the Black masses’ acceptance of and faith in the Civil Rights Movement. After all, while not everyone could easily
understand the political lingo of the day, even the most politically ignorant of minds comprehended and believed
Mayfield’s fiery and inspiring falsetto messages of America’s social, economic, and political metamorphosis.
I’ve got to keep on pushing
I can’t stop now
Move up a little higher
Some way some how
God gave me my strength
And it don’t make sense
Not to keep on pushing123
“Keep On Pushing” was exactly what Black America needed to hear. A song of honesty, inspiration, hope, and
purpose, it deserved to become the unofficial theme song of the Civil Rights Movement. Spreading a theme of
perseverance spoken by the legendary Black abolitionist Frederick Douglass over a century before, Mayfield reminded the
people that “without struggle there can be no progress.” Or more importantly, reinforcing a reminder offered to us by Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr., that “structure s of evil do not crumble by passive waiting. If history teaches anything, it is that
evil is recalcitrant and determined, and never voluntarily relinquishes its hold short of an almost fanatical resistance.”
24
He revisited the underlying realities of a revolutionary movement; realizing fully, along with all the implications and
ramifications, that “when you start dealing with real change, you are talking about interfering with those who are in
possession of something.”124
The only progress we have made is as consumers. We still don’t manufacture anything, we still don’t legislate
for ourselves. Our politics are still controlled by white people, our economy is still controlled by white people,
therefore we have no real say about our future.125
Mayfield encouraged the procurement of absolute independence by the Black masses which, in turn, compelled total
liberation for the masses. He realized that, despite the popularity of a premature, and perhaps, actually false, victorious
mindset by the Movement promulgators, that anything short of absolute independence, which also required the collective
internalization of knowledge of and confidence in self, presently and ultimately denied any true success by the Movement.
A strange kind of freedom, this. A man is free to hover in the gutter of the ghetto with others whose conditions
parallel his own. A man is free to dream of power, of pride, of accomplishment, of wealth, but free never to
taste of them. This is freedom at its most macabre. It is the freedom of the chained.126
Mayfield, in his infinite wisdom, also realized that if we didn’t continue to consciously fight for our delayed total
emancipation that it would never be obtained. Fortunately, even if and when we lacked knowledge of and confidence in
self, Mayfield had sufficient foresight to supplement our shortcomings through song. He strongly suggested that it just
wasn’t natural for Black people to surrender, at least not consciously, not with an ancestral lineage directly linked to the
omnipotent positive energy of the original creators of world civilization. He knew that initially the Black liberation
struggle must be an internal one, for the very power that promoted White supremacy existed through the suppression of
Black initiative.
“Get Up and Move” stressed self-determination and reliance as the only way to persevere during the trying period of
delicate progression:
Whenever you have a little problem
And misery’s paying its dues,
You can’t get ahead laying in the bed,
Get up and put on your shoes,
Get up and move.127
Rhetorical complaining without revolutionary action proved to be good only for continual oppression, and Black
America should have learned this painful lesson after centuries of discontented acceptance. Generation after generation
had provided its share of Black orators while falling severely short on its recommended allowance of Black doers.
According to Turner, when Mayfield commanded the Black nation to “get up and move:”
We moved! We took charge of our social life rather than reiterate simple requests for recognition that seemed
incomprehensible to those in a position to make a difference. We moved to organize our own societies and
alliances. We moved by disrupting the establishment’s normal procedures and by raising new issues. We
moved to the office and home of the university president to make our demands heard. We moved and presidents
were fired, deans were replaced, black faculty were hired, programs in Afro-American studies were introduced,
Swahili was taught, and black cultural centers were established….”Get Up and Move” was the Impressions’
instruction, and get up and move is what we did!128
African Americans fought courageously, most risking and some selflessly surrendering their lives, in the struggle for
equality. The Black leaders of the Movement encouraged the Black masses to have pride in their self and confidence in
the feasibility of progress. Again, Mayfield proved reliable to express this very sentiment in song:
We’re a winner
And never let anybody say
Boy you can’t make it
25
Cause a feeble mind is in your way
No more tears do we cry
And we have finally dried our eyes
And we’re moving on up
Lord have mercy
We’re moving on up
We’re living proof
And all’s alert
That we’re too from
The good black dirt
And we’re a winner
Everybody knows it too
We just keep on pushing
Like your leaders tell you to129
My complaint with this message is its apparent shortsightedness in the lack of any radical pursuit for justice,
freedom, and independence, probably due to the Movement’s limiting influence of Mayfield’s imminent manifestation
into a rebellious and revolutionary lyricist. Infamously denoted of the Civil Rights Movement as a whole was its chronic
reluctance, or conceivably, its cowardice and/or conspired constraint, in demanding consummate change rather than
moderate pacification and delayed liquidation.
Black people will never gain full equality in this country. Even those Herculean efforts we hail as successful
will produce no more than temporary “peaks of progress,” short-lived victories that slide into irrelevance as
racial patterns adapt in ways that maintain white dominance. This is a hard-to-accept fact that all history
verifies.130
They woefully failed to envision, or perhaps somehow feared the eventual actualization of, Floyd McKissick’s later
conclusion that “as mighty and as powerful as is America, it could not withstand the total onslaught of the people.” In
actuality, Black America provided more of a disservice to all of humanity by not seeking its unconditional liberation
through the dedicated employment of any and all means necessary. Mayfield, I believe, saw this, yet couldn’t adequately
focus the attention and intention of the Movement’s diverse leadership.
In the almost world-shattering “We’re Moving On Up,” Mayfield and his Impressions impressed upon the people’s
spirit a sense of invincibility, fearlessness, and urgency:
We don’t mind leaving here
To show the world we have no fear
Just keep on pushing
Like our leaders tell us to.
Alas that blessed day has come
And I don’t care where you come from.131
Fear was a primary maintainer of White supremacy, mostly due to its debilitating effects on the psyche and
confidence of those in whom it has been systematically imposed. However, it being so supreme our victory over fear
would prove ultimately to be that much sweeter. As Huey P. Newton brilliantly added to this sentiment, “the only way
that [the Black man] can maintain his dignity is to be unafraid and attempt to outmaneuver his oppressor.”
Curtis’ verses tenaciously announced that the very “secret of life is to know no fear.”132 And the most feasible means
of accomplishing this was to eradicate any and all self-ignorance. Mayfield also was extremely aware of the other internal
consequence of fear, and that was the inevitable hatred of the self, something we could no longer afford to succumb to if
we were to be triumphant in securing our liberation.
26
Evident within the last phrase of this stanza is an interesting declaration of viable—and necessary—unity among not
only Black Americans, but White Americans as well, a theme that would become more prevalent in his later releases. But
most prominent was Curtis’s bold acknowledgement of the truth that once the oppressed have conquered the fear of death
no oppressor can ever reclaim any power over you, since death was the absolute alternative to freedom. This death was
not only literal but emblematic, supporting the conscious accusation that “life without knowledge of self is death
disguised” and challenging an established assassin of Black folks: ignorance.
The socio-historical significance and impact of the message contained within “We’re Moving On Up” was brilliantly
expressed by Turner:
‘We don’t mind leaving here to show the world we have no fear’ became words that often had to be proved
literally. ‘Leaving here’ meant establishing alternative academies for the purpose of receiving a more inclusive
education. It meant feeding the mind with the ‘suppressed knowledge’ that had been withheld through the
control intellectual guilds held over their respective disciplines, and disclosing the social and political agenda
concealed in the ‘objective content’ of knowledge….It could mean being arrested, tried, convicted, and sent to
jail. Indeed, it could mean being at odds with parents and family, that is, being denied their understanding and
support. Ultimately, it could mean being forced into situations that demanded self-defense, being shot, or even
killed. These possibilities were inherent in ‘ moving on up.’133
“Move On Up” was a song of inspiration, rebuilding any broken confidence within the will of the people after
months of relentless brutality at the hands of White power. Mayfield saw that physical rebellion resulted in more
regression and counter progression than actual progression, and warned us of the need to shift our focus from conquering
“Whitey” to first conquering our self.
He who makes the gunpowder wins the battle. With Black people already the victims of an obvious and absolute
logistical disadvantage, physical Black rebellion would not solve anything but the White establishment’s dilemma of how
to advance the mass eradication of an increasingly obsolete labor force (Black people) without fear of the backlash of
global morality. “Don’t be too intense,” he wisely declared, “keep your common sense.”134
Just move on up
And keep on wishing
Remember your dream is your only scheme
So keep on pushing
Take nothing less
But the supreme best
Do not obey rumors people say
You can pass the test
Just move on up
To a greater day
With just a little faith
If you put your mind to it
You can surely do it135
Oh how would this confidence be ever tested throughout the rest of this complex period. Even though there were
many historical advancements, Mayfield, realizing that White supremacy still possessed a death-grip on the minds and
souls of Black people, constantly reminded the people not to become complacent for there was much more internal
progress to be made.
Pardon me brother
I know we’ve come a long way
Let us not be so satisfied
For tomorrow can be
An even brighter day136
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“In ‘Beautiful Brother of Mine,’ Mayfield has no doubt that time spent on self-education and consciousness raising in
the ghettos has resulted in a unity of aim and determination that will push all opposition out and successfully lead to the
attainment of freedom and equality:”137 He was a street corner philosopher with an innate ability to retranslate Hegel’s
most discussed philosophic theory of self-preservation through the conscious desire for self-divinity. He was a street
corner soldier of Allah (God) who internalized and conveyed Elijah Muhammad’s most profound wisdom probably
without ever realizing its relation: “To be equal today, we have to have equal knowledge and superior knowledge of self
and kind. And we must use that superior wisdom to bring a better life than the life that destroyed our life.”138 Mayfield
was all these things and remarkably more, yet we would have never realized this without listening to his lyrics.
Beautiful brother of mine
Whatever may be your birth sign
We are not of the same seed
Although we are both the same breed
Together we’re truly Black power
Learning to Trust by the hour139
This stanza expresses the need and growing tendency towards unity, trust, pride, and awareness within the Black
community as the key to obtaining eventual empowerment. Literally and specifically, it calls out for Black men—as
brothers—to atone for their shortcomings and band together for the common cause of collective and complete upliftment.
This theme was especially prevalent during the Black Power Movement of the late 1960’s, but also was central in the
Million Man March of 1995. Its timelessness could be attributed to the perpetual distrust and disunity among Blacks in
America.
As a whole, African Americans have never truly unified under any one collective cause. Although there has been
numerous individual Black movements and organizational efforts, never have there been the “united Black front” that is
so desperately needed to eradicate the many socio-economic ills that has plagued our community for centuries.
Another interpretation of this stanza could be one of the longing for unity among all races, as brothers under the
commonality of humankind, as divided sons of the same universal mother of civilization. It could be quite possible that
Mayfield was offering a plea for unity and trust to all people living within these United States of America, in hopes that
we can all achieve peace, prosperity, and happiness. The “Black power” referred to in his lyrics may not be limited to
Black people at all, but more so symbolic of the culmination of power amongst all people. This sought after Black power
could achieve its true color when people of all colors combine to make one solid Blackness. Solidity. Unity. “All power
to the people!”
Yet, how often have these fundamental beliefs fallen prey to mass deception, fear, ignorance, and complacency.
Why didn’t we listen to Mayfield’s lyrics then? Probably due to the same reasons we don’t listen to them now.
No she couldn’t call me “Jesus.”
“I wasn’t white enough,” she said.
And then she named me, “Kung Fu.”
Don’t have to explain it. No, Kung Fu.
Don’t know how you’ll take it. Yeah, Kung Fu.
I’m just tryin’ to make it. Now, Kung Fu.140
If we would have listened, we would not be in the woeful predicament that we ourselves have maintained through
our illusioned reluctance for change.
Child I’m a fool for you
I ain’t too proud of that
But when it comes to love and pride
Pride is something that I seem to lack
Our relation’s in danger
And you act like a stranger
But this time I’m not blind
28
Cause I ain’t got the time
Made a mess of me
Which wasn’t supposed to be
We was supposed to change
It couldn’t be arranged.141
With “child” personifying the post-Civil Rights Movement Black America, Mayfield continued his efforts at
promoting sincere and consummate change despite relatively poor response from the Black masses. I firmly believe
Curtis may have been grossly misunderstood and therefore under-appreciated as a musical messenger.
“I won’t say that we’re loosing/It’s just of mutual choosing/Cause what is yours I find/It’s just yours and not
mine.”142 It was painfully evident that we, a race trapped in a vague paradox of communal uncertainty, vulnerability, and
rage, lacked the conscious desire for mutual construction essential for the development of our own inherent positive
potentiality.
“Your love was false/Ignored advice/And blew your life.”143 If we just would have listened to Curtis then. We
seemingly heard him, for he enjoyed notable commercial success, yet we obviously failed to listen. It is my hope that
now is not too late.
At last the mass agree
As to how we want to be
With love, respect, and pride
Success will be on our side
At last we are now on the right case
Inspiring the young of our race
Pushing all opposition out
Success is now without a doubt144
Some would argue that we must have listened to Mayfield’s lyrics, with the emergent Black Power Movement
encompassing the mood of Black America as realistic evidence. Black Power threatened to overthrow the conspiracies
which dictated and dominated our lives. Black people were united in pride, promise, and purpose and this conceived our
power. This was exactly true of a deliberately brief but awesomely profound moment in our history in this racially
oppressive land. But I implore you, as did Mayfield through his lyrics, to look deeper, to transcend deception and
perception so you can comprehend truth and reality. We had indeed made progress, but who still owned the world (as
well as the people of it)?
“Three centuries ago/ Few people would know/ That we the strong black/ Would survive the attack/ After the paying
finally/ We set out to be free/ Now what have we got?”145
Mayfield’s later request for indivisible harmony among humanity can be seen more explicitly within the lyrics of
other songs such as “Mighty Mighty (Spade and Whitey),” “We People Who Are Darker Than Blue,” and “Choice of
Colors.” His petition may have been prompted by the efforts of the many leaders within the Civil Rights Movement who
also sought such cooperation and union among all of America’s citizens under the banner of “equal rights for all.”
Mayfield’s lyrics transformed their ideological goals into inspirational subtleties processed, consciously and
subconsciously, within the minds of America’s masses.
And mighty, mighty spade and whitey
Your black power and white powers
Is gonna be a crumbling tower
And we who stand divided
So god damn undecided
Give this some thought
In stupidness we’ve all been caught146
Would our separate journeys for color-defined power eventually lead to our collective demise as a multicolored
world? As Mayfield stated in “People Get Ready,” “there is no room for the hopeless sinner who would hurt all mankind
29
just to save his own.”147 Could all the tragedy induced by racial ignorance, intolerance, fear, and hatred have been
prevented if Blacks and Whites would have somehow came together as Americans? Did our enslaved birth in this strange
land at the hands of the white man forever hinder any possibility for an eventual embrace of brotherhood regardless of
color? Does America and its elitist powers even desire a change toward racial harmony, or does it prefer and benefit from
our violent dissociation? Regardless of what answers may ultimately prove to be, Mayfield’s ingenious lyrics explored
the many possibilities of life, whether the masses had already realized them or not.
If you had a choice of colors,
Which would you choose my brothers?
If there was no day or night,
which would you prefer to be right?
People must prove to the people
a better day is coming for you and me.
With just a little more education,
and love for our nation,
we’d have a better society.148
In “We People Who Are Darker Than Blue,” Mayfield’s lyrics again express images which could easily be viewed
metaphorically in relation to unity, either Black and Black or Black and White:
We people who are darker than blue
This ain’t not time for segregatin’
I’m talking about brown and yellow too
High yellow gal can’t you tell
You’re just the surface of our dark deep well
If your mind could really see
You’d know your color same as me149
One elucidation of Mayfield’s message is one promoting a re-acceptance of one’s Blackness even after “making it”
economically and socially in America’s class-dominated society. It is often believed that seeking assimilation into
mainstream culture will induce one’s opportunity to succeed in the majority’s society. However, in order to accomplish
this, the eradication of one’s Blackness is also viewed as a necessity. Implied declarations which include, “don’t forget
where you came from,” “we’re still all in this together,” and “you’ll always be Black no matter how much money and
fame you receive!” echo compellingly throughout the song. Be yourself. Know yourself. Love yourself. A different
interpretation can be one of the realization of our sameness as human beings and the pointlessness of maintaining our
racial prejudice towards one another.
“I like to move from one topic to another—give you food for thought, but blend it in with something else, like
love.”150 Mayfield was in love with all people, but especially Black people. His lyrics courted the consciousness of the
Black masses like that of a scholarly pimp. Through vocalizing his love for his people, he affirmed his own love and
knowledge of, and confidence in, his self. Curtis’s love songs were symbolic of an intense inner struggle for the overt
manifestation of conscious Black hope.
Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word
“love” here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace—not in the infantile
American sense of being made happy but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.151
Mayfield loved sincerely and powerfully. His love seemed to be a necessity for survival, as if it replaced the
traditional requirement of food or clothing or shelter. But perhaps the greatest characteristic of his love was in its
unconditionality.
“Through loving you I seem to feel a spirit/Deep inside of me/Preciously guiding me…/Spirit and Holy Ghost in
me/Help me to keep this love I need/She is so much like your touch divine.”152
30
Steeped within a continuum of Black thought, love, and life, Mayfield’s poetry, like no other of his time, creatively
summoned the self-divinity deep within the suppressed masses. He poetically battled the falsehoods of Black inferiority
and self-worthlessness with love as his sword and truth as his compass. He envisioned a race of gods when most were
content to be the “White man’s dogs.”
The rebel’s weapon is the proof of his humanity….it is precisely at the moment he realizes his humanity that he
begins to sharpen the weapons with which he will secure victory.153
Mayfield consciously despised hate, and spoke openly on the self-oppressive and destructive tendencies of hatred:
“And I never loved nobody/Who’s been mean to me/Never did/ I’ve got a heart full of stone/A heart full of stone/And I
hate the misery.”154 Curtis Mayfield tried earnestly to allot affection through his art when all the world seemed to be
armored by abhorrence. He knew that once we begin to hate White people more than we loved ourselves it would
inevitably advance our own ruin.
“And then you had to come along/Destroying me more.”155 The White race, in all its common racist hatred and fear
of Black respectability, dared Mayfield to encourage the masses to subdue an understandable hatred and widespread fear
of reprisal with an ascending love of possibility.
Every time we kiss it’s such a pleasant taste
That’s why I know this feeling good and strong
Trying hours we seem to get along
I want to testify you mean so much to me
Let me rectify I mean it honestly
Life is strange believe me it is true
We don’t always mean the things we sometimes do
Look at me, look at you
You know we’re so in love156
Curtis, during his most socially attuned period, frequently personified Black America as his lover, whether she be
potential, current, or past.
This love affair is bigger than we two
Lose our faith and it will swallow you
Loving you is what I’ll always feel
Never ever doin’ things against our will
Natural things never require any kind of test
Bein’ you and I bein’ me
You don’t worry ‘bout the rest…
Curtis invited the Black masses to wholeheartedly trust his lyrics, for it was a righteous and realistic instructional
program for collective self-improvement because it most of all taught us how to embrace our natural essence and use it for
our liberation.
This girl I met this morning
She lives around the corner
She really turned me on
In such short time it wasn’t long
I know I’ve got to see her
Cause my heart and soul is in her
Can’t wait another day
She’s got to see this thing my way
So I’m asking you girl
Try and understand
I’m an unusual man, and child
31
I’ve just got to let you know
That I love you so
What are we gonna’ do
It seems my life depends on you157
This “girl” was a Black America proudly enduring the growing pains of a gradually reawakening of consciousness.
With actual emancipation now evidently imminent, Curtis endeavored to seize the time and empower the people. It was
as if his own life depended on the heartbeat of the masses, and by their daily rhythmic episodes he paced the trappings of
his lyrical espionage against racial oppression. But despite all of Mayfield’s timely wisdom and creative delivery, we
simply refused to listen…
Wherever you might be
Keep yourself all right
Every heart I suppose
Has got to step out late at night
As much as I used to do
Keep your love life true
Keep your love life true
You don’t love me
In a world already filled with misery
I have no intentions
To let my spirit cop out on me
Live on through the years
Keep some pride on my face
Discard of the disgrace
I guess I’ve got to find me
A better place
So I’m not accusing you
Do what you think you ought to do
First it’s one thing and then another
So you don’t love me158
There is no doubt that Curtis Mayfield, even as strong as he indisputably was when faced with the antagonistic
intentions of White America, was crushed by Black America’s conscious rejection of his message. For he knew, maybe
even more than most of our political leaders, that now was the time of infinite possibility for a race so long subjected to a
hatred and fear that had made true life impossible for those who dreamed of it every day of their wretched existence.
A people ignorant of self, or mis-educated with false knowledge about self does not see the significance, nor
understand the importance of this struggle, and the righteousness of striving in the cause of nothing less than
self-determination.159
He also realized that the White power establishment was deliberately defending itself by systematically stripping the
voice of Black consciousness of its potentiality for power, while simultaneously quelling the rebellious masses through
various schemes of pacification and misperception and eradicating the influence of our most revolutionary leaders through
prophet assassination.
Black Consciousness seeks to channel the pent-up forces of the angry black masses to meaningful and
directional opposition…But the type of black man we have today has lost his manhood. Reduced to an obliging
shell, he looks with awe at the white power structure and accepts what he regards as the “inevitable
position.”…The black man has become a shadow, completely defeated, drowning in his own misery, a slave and
ox bearing the yoke of oppression with sheepish timidity.160
32
“Most of your life/Can be outta sight/Withdraw from the darkness/And look to the light/For everyone’s free/At least
that’s the way it’s/Supposed to be.”161 Curtis told us to “withdraw from the darkness,” which meant to eliminate the
shackles of ignorance and embrace the knowledge of our natural and historical self. In his acknowledgement of our
mental and spiritual enslavement, he vowed to continually pursue our inalienable rights.
“Many think that we have blown it/But they, too, will soon admit/That there’s still a lot of love among us/And there’s
still a lot of faith, warmth, and trust/When we keep on keeping on.”162 Although the Dark world was slowly abandoning
the truth of Mayfield’s lyrics, as well as the conscious hope of the boldly reinvigorating Black Power/Consciousness
Movement, Mayfield continued to love, for he knew that this love would eventually yield change. “The challenge of this
age is to resist and conquer in each of our own beings the racist brainwashing that is still active in our minds.”163
“Remember this…/In our world surroundings/Its leaps and bounds/Ups and downs/Is reality.”164 Any and everything
significant and revolutionary must be based on a historically and presently accurate foundation of reality. “Consciousness
is the first step toward control of a situation.”165 His lyrics proved time and time again to fulfill this ultimate requirement.
To quote Mayfield’s own perspective of this particular song,
If ever you could gather up a bunch of kids, sit them down and sing just one song, this is it. You would not be
there as an entertainer. You would be instilling a message in our young. Within the song is life’s story—the
hopefulness…the sweetness—and the bottom line to keep on keeping on.
Curtis demanded absolute accountability of a people whose previous and continuous enslavement and exploitation
was maintained by the overwhelming presence of the very opposite. “We have to deal with our own self-destruction/we
cannot live on the surface of our earth any longer.”166 “Our world,” few other Black musicians or writers or priests or
politicians or anyone else for that matter told the people, their people, that this world was their world, only once they
consciously desired to reclaim possession. And this possession was not one based on tyranny and greed nor deception and
death, but on knowledge of truth, self, God, and enemy.
Progressive struggle to end white supremacy recognizes the political importance of accountability and does not
embrace the rhetoric of victimhood even as it vigilantly calls attention to actual victimization.167
“We have truly become a vast wasteland”168 of dehumanized spirits who existed for the sole purpose of conspired
soul purchase. These are the many painful yet promising truths that Curtis Mayfield told us through his songs; however,
our collective ears had been covered by a power whose paranoia would and could not allow us to listen. But now, having
right and exact knowledge of this conspiracy of silence, we should no longer mute the messenger nor his message by our
sustained ignorance.
The dam against which Negro discontent is focused is white power….White guns, white judges, white armies,
white tanks, white bombs, white symbols: this is the element into which the Negro is flung and to which he must
make a creative response or die.169
Mayfield was one of the few musicians positively determined to address the Black social and economic predicament,
especially concerning the increasing problem of drugs as a means of toxic escapism from the very reality that we must
confront clearly, consciously, and collectively in order to change it consummately, in an effort at getting it permanently
resolved.
Drugs became the tool of choice, not to mention the most obviously lethal and covertly counter-consequential, by the
thieves of humanity to reestablish the mass suppression of revolutionary potential that would secure their perpetual
dominance. By feeding the masses’ lower self and simultaneously starving out their relation with their higher self,
drugs ultimately prevented the redeeming qualities of Black retribution in spite of the drastic rise in Black consciousness.
Here’s something kind of funny
How the man take your money
He’s shrewd as he can be
In such a way you’ll never see
It’s a terrible thing inside
When your natural high has died
33
The weaker turn to dope
And put all aside their hopes170
Curtis Mayfield’s anti-drug themes became one of the staunchest tools of propaganda aimed at addressing,
understanding, and eradicating Black America’s rising drug problem.
Everybody misused him
Ripped him up and abused him
Another junkie plan
Pushing dope for the man
A terrible blow
But that’s how it go
A Freddie’s on the corner now
If you want to be a junkie wow
Remember Freddie’s dead
We’re all build up with progress
But sometimes I must confess
We can deal with rockets and dreams
But reality—what does it mean?
Ain’t nothing said
Cause Freddie’s dead
If you don’t try you’re gonna die
Why can’t we brothers protect one another
No one’s serious and it makes me furious
Don’t be misled just think of Fred171
These lyrics (from "Freddie's Dead") are the story of an emerging Black America that superseded the various
movements for advancement during the era. This was the post-Malcolm X and Black Pride Movement Black America,
the post-Martin Luther King, Jr. and Civil Rights Movement Black America, the post-Black Panther Party for SelfDefense and Black Power Movement Black America. This new Black America was uncompromising, but frighteningly
uncertain. Poverty, ignorance, fear, and degradation constituted a societal sickness destined to annihilate the Black
masses. Drugs were unrivaled as the criminalistic and oppressive conveyors of the destruction which daunted the lives
and collective spirit of America’s Black masses. “It appear[ed] that my worst fears [had] been realized: we ha[d] made
progress in everything yet nothing ha[d] changed.”172
The dark ghettoes are social, political, educational and—above all—economic colonies. Their inhabitants are
subject peoples, victims of the greed, cruelty, insensitivity, guilt, and fear of their masters.173
It was not uncommon during the early 1970’s to witness an abundance of drugs, drug pushers, drug fiends, pimps,
and prostitutes confined to Black communities across this country. Floods of drugs in the community ravished all hope for
advancement given birth in the mind of the African American by the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and other
subsequent policies that promised, but failed to supply, “equal opportunity and protection under the law.”
Large numbers of Black men fell victim to despair and sought illegal means of achieving their own equal
opportunity. The drug-pushing, sex-crazed, White power-fearing, and excessively violent (toward self) “dope man”
became the supreme stereotypical African American male during the early 1970’s. This image not only dominated the
reality of Black America, simultaneously preempting any influx of positive Black role models, but also made its way to
our fantasies and entertainment sources—primarily the movie theater.
Arguably, the most successful and recognized such movie was Superfly. Superfly was about a Black man caught up
in the world of drugs, both as a seller and user, but realized the destruction it was causing him and swore to quit the “dope
game.” This and numerous other “blaxploitation” movies flooded and manipulated the collective consciousness of Black
America, as well as encouraged the envy and fear of White America. What was Mayfield’s contribution—the
tremendously successful and surprisingly (to those who really did not follow Mayfield previously) anti-drug and violence
34
Superfly soundtrack (1972). The title track, “Superfly,” proved to be one of the most controversial, yet extremely accurate
and socially aware, songs of the era:
Hard to understand
But a hell of a man
This cat of the slum
Had a mind wasn’t dumb
But a weakness was shown
Cause his hustle was wrong
His mind was his own
But the man lived alone
The games he plays he plays for keeps
Hustling times in ghetto streets
Taking all that he can take
Gambling with the odds of fate
Trying to get over
The aim of his role
Was to move a lot of blow
Ask him his dream what does it mean
He wouldn’t know
Can’t be like the rest
Is the most he’ll confess
But the time’s running out
And there’s not happiness174
Mayfield used personification again to communicate the prevailing themes which plagued the Black masses. He
understood and announced the truth about how selfish greed perpetuates a self-destructive thought process. He relayed
how causal confusion of reality, through a corrupted, inaccurate, or restricted perception of truth, self, God, and enemy.
He discussed how Black men, in particular, who turned to drugs and crime as an absolute alternative inevitably faced a
disastrous and prearranged incarceration rate and/or permanent addiction. Lastly, he proclaimed how their failure to
realize that their short-term victories were vital to their ultimate defeat.
Mayfield, in almost as many ways as it would be attempted, envisioned and echoed a warning regarding White
supremacy’s deliberate assassination of the very conception of Black manhood by Nathan Hare in 1982: “In a white
dominated society (or situation within a sphere of white domination), it is the Black male who poses the primary threat to
the white male patriarchy, who in the white man’s mind can take his place in the male dominion. Thus, when the
sledgehammer of racial suppression begins to beat down harder and faster upon a subordinate Black race, it will tend to
fall at an unequal rate upon the heads of Black males.” Mayfield, himself, would later reissue his admonition with the
simple line: “the hunt is on/and brother, you’re the prey.”175
Poverty plagued the Black community at an ever-increasing rate during the period, in part as a consequential
detriment of our rising drug epidemic. Throughout the numerous Black ghettos of America, large numbers of African
Americans lived at or below the poverty level, and with no hope in sight, despair quickly took over the minds of
America’s “ghetto children.” Mayfield, however, convinced of the underlying presence of hope in any situation,
cautioned us through his lyrics of the inaccuracy of our conditioned acceptance. He knew that this kind of pious fatalism
was just a learned excuse for allowing things to stay the way there were.
No working day no weekly pay
Can’t even feed my cat
For broken folk no anecdote
While others get so fat
35
Think I’ll call my Lord tonight
And ask him how He see
This good old world to be
And if I read my Bible right
In search for better time
Don’t want to do no crime
The times are kind of slow
A better day’s gotta show176
However, Curtis Mayfield once again came to our rescue and urged the Black masses to “do for self” by striving for
economic efficiency and empowerment through unity and strategic action before our oppressors decided to starve us to
death due to our unfortunate yet inevitable obsolescence as an exploitable labor force.
I met a friend of mine the other day
He said he couldn’t stay
Because the world was going to end
At the end of May
Well, May done passed
And everybody still sittin’ here on their ass
With some talk, they’re now waiting of the
Judgment Day
But why wait, why don’t you look around
Haven’t you found that the judgment day
Is already in play for the Black
And now come time for the Ophay
I got an Indian friend who says he’s
Some kin to another Indian
He says he’s filled with hate because his tribe
They waited too late to protest the past
Instead they just sat there on their ass
Signing on the dotted line
When they didn’t have Indian lawyers at that time
We’re over 20 million strong
And it wouldn’t take long
To save the ghetto children
If we’d just get off our ass
$10 a man yearly think awhile
20 million times 10 yearly would surely then
Set our brothers free
What congregation with better relations
Would demand more respect from society177
But there remained a constant, but covert, threat to our survival and impediment to us achieving economic security—
the United States federal government. As the years passed, the political promises made during the Civil Rights Movement
seemed illusory. “Equal opportunity will not suffice to make progress as black Americans start from a position of gross
disadvantage.”178
…under the Constitution and Government of the United States, the colored people are nothing, and can be
nothing but an alien, disfranchised and degraded class….to attempt, as some do, to prove that there is no support
given to Slavery in the Constitution and essential structure of the American Government, is to argue against
palpable facts; and that while it may suit white men who do not feel the iron heel, to please themselves with
36
such theories, it ill becomes the man of color whose daily experiences refutes the absurdity to indulge in any
such idle fantasies….to persist in supporting a Government which holds and exercises the power, as distinctly
set forth by a tribunal from which there is no appeal, to trample a class under foot an inferior and degraded race,
is on the part of the colored man at once the height of folly and the depth of pusillanimity…..no allegiance is
due from any man, or any class of men, to a Government founded and administered in iniquity, and that the only
duty the colored man owes to a Constitution under which he is declared to be an inferior and degraded being,
having no rights which white men are bound to respect, is to denounce and repudiate it, and to do what he can
by all proper means to bring it into contempt.179
The Black masses began to embrace a paradoxical relationship with the government. A militant Black America
urged for the absolute distrust and total separation from this obviously systematically racist, oppressive, and exploitative
government. She began to despise the contract of compromise and cooperation, while simultaneously becoming
successfully seduced by the flames of rebellion that would eventually threaten her own safety and sanity.
Dirty laundry in the country
Can’t trust Uncle Sam
Broken link future sinking
And no one gives a damn
I learned to count but I found out
There is no balanced scale
People know I think they know
For some it’s living hell180
Yet, a more dependent Black America was too afraid to embrace this revolutionary theme of self-reliance and
struggled between needing and hating the government for providing them with the perpetual economic “crutch” which
prohibited them from ever walking on their own.
Stay away from me Mister Welfare
He keep saying I’m a lazy woman
Don’t love my children
And I’m mentally unfit
I must divorce him
Cut all my ties with him
Cause his ways
They make me sick
It’s a hard sacrifice and I testify
Not having me a loving man
Society gave me no choice
Tried to silence my voice
Pushing me on the welfare
And I’m so tired, so tired
Of trying to prove my equal rights
Tho’ I’ve made some mistakes
For goodness sakes
Why should he help mess up my life
Holding me back using your tact
To make me live against my will
If that’s how it go child I don’t know
I can’t conceive my life’s for real181
37
For who ultimately controlled the Black community? It was White America, the same White America whose only
revealed sentiments toward this “ghetto populous” was that of racist hatred, fear, and bigotry. Black America began to
realize that in order for them to really progress, they would have to rely totally on themselves, but economic vulnerability
continued to provide an unconquerable hurdle. Gradually and painfully, certain Black people began to finally understand
the initiating ideology of their perpetual plight: “The way to justify the existence of slavery in a democracy is by making
the slave dependent, incapable of existing by himself in freedom.”182
One room shack
On the alley back
Controlled I’m told
From across the track
Where is the mayor
Who make all things fair
He lives outside
This polluted air
I gotta jones
Running through my bones
I’m sorry son
But all your money’s gone183
Always a reliable and ever-present pillar of strength and sensibility, Mayfield’s lyrics continued to motivate the
masses to rely on themselves and have confidence that one day soon things would change. “Sometimes I think before our
life is gone/we’ll see the kingdom come.”184
People thinking they’ve been took
Just finding out they overlooked
They never found the missing link
Forgot they had a mind to think
Why don’t you…
CHECK OUT YOUR MIND185
The possibility of self-divinity is the people’s greatest source of conscious and consummate hope. And this can be
realized and actualized through thought. No problem can eternally withstand the conscious assault of continual thought.
All good psychologists realize that if you can set a man thinking you are likely to produce, through him, results
that never would have been possible otherwise. The object I have in view is to get the Negro to accomplish
much for himself out of his own thoughtfulness. To arouse that thoughtfulness, he must be shocked or
otherwise he must be driven to see the unusual that is operating against him.186
Mayfield’s work added to the evolution of a culture of honest hope. He insisted that we look at the real conditions of
existence—the actual predicament—in order to create methods capable of changing it in our favor. Mayfield empowered
the people through the disillusioning themes of his lyrics while counseling them on the possibility of their self-salvation or
demise: “we shall commit our genocide before we check out our mind.”
The major enemy of black survival in America has been and is neither oppression nor exploitation but rather the
nihilistic threat—that is, loss of hope and absence of meaning. For as long as hope remains and meaning is
preserved, the possibility of overcoming oppression stays alive.187
“Throughout his career, Mayfield’s willingness to give voice to the truth—and the simultaneously dignified and
funky ways in which he’s musically cast forthright sentiments—have made him one of the great soul icons of the age.”188
As stated by Don Cornelius, renowned producer and long time host of the Black music television show Soul Train, “to
38
this very day, many of Curtis Mayfield’s lyrical messages and ideas, some of which were recorded more than two decades
ago, continue to endure as among the most profound ever advanced through music in America.” And according to
Mayfield, that was his goal all along: “that’s the whole point of my gift and anyone who has a gift of communicating.
The importance is that what you might say is not just for today but also for tomorrow. Hold the past in respect, because
that will usually tell you what tomorrow may be.”189
Mayfield’s soulful songs “exulted in the strength of a united black America” and “were full of hope and
determination.”190 His wonderfully witty yet penetrating insights into the problems which plagued America as a whole,
inspired an entire generation to “get up and move” against injustice and reminded them that no matter how hard the
struggle became, to “keep on pushing.”
To be free—to walk the good earth as equal citizens, to live without fear, to enjoy the fruits of our toil, to give
our children every opportunity in life—that dream which we have held so long in our hearts is today the destiny
we hold in our hands.191
And now we, as the millennial promise of actualized Black power, must embrace and echo his mighty words, thus
refusing to submit any longer to our beautiful dreams so long deferred. The essential concluding factor behind Mayfield’s
lyrical legacy is that he did not expect exculpation in his time. His songs are dominated by a distinct air of resignation,
almost religious in nature, that soul redemption would certainly come in time, perhaps, in part, even by his own
undeniable influence. And now we, despite the impact of an era in which our dreams are continually crushed by the
realities of our lives, must find a way to fulfill Curtis Mayfield’s expectations of us, thus truly immortalizing his words as
prophecy.
I been scarred and battered.
My hopes the wind done scattered.
Snow has friz me,
Sun has baked me,
Looks like between ‘em they done
Tried to make me
Stop laughin’, stop lovin’, stop livin’—
But I don’t care!
I’m still here!192
39
BOB MARLEY
“SMALL AXE”
Out of the teeming poverty of Kingston, Robert Nesta Marley has made a critical mark on the world as the
Blackman continues to struggle for his rightful place in the sun. Marley had two goals: to expose the world to
his religion (Rastafarianism), and the deliverance of revolutionary freedom to the Afrikan people on this
planet….Many tried to reduce Marley to a mere musician, he was more then that. He was the wail of the
oppressed, the genuine living force of Black Power….Moving from house to house, bedding down under the
stars with a rock for his pillow, he was ever moving toward his goal of singing our song in the crosswinds. The
currents that would carry the message around the globe drifting through Afrikan ears, while landing on the
oppressor’s fears….His songs will always be sung as long as truth is alive, his dedication to his people will be
admired and emulated by generations that will follow….The bottom heavy sound of the king of Reggae destroys
our enemies in a hail of poetic observations graphed from real life. It is the music of struggle, redemption and
pride. It challenges abusive authority, our brainwashing as it awakens our powers of observation to the people
pain caused by the enemy. One of the greatest writers of all time, he is/was, was/is.193
Some people waiting for the message that you bring/They listening to every word that you’ll sing.194
On a global island of Black resistance, the turbulent waters of White supremacy threaten to subdue the conscious will
of the masses to stay afloat. Based in a philosophy of truth, justice, and righteousness, it is the messengers of the people
who provide the life-sustaining lessons of actual vitality. Heed their mighty messages, my people. Enforce their
rebellious intentions through your revolutionary effort.
We have to harass the people who have us under their feet. A large river starts with a little stream. This is not a
new work; it is the liberation movement of Africans abroad. We will have to fight here with all our means….No
rebel army in the world can defeat us. The white man’s age is coming to an end; all we have to do is to move.
We are starting back but we have to reorganize. Each man among us must take on some responsibility. We are
not many but this is a nucleus. We must get back on the street with agitation. We cannot sit down now; we
must begin.195
What, then, is the role of the Black artist in the conveyance of this necessary implication of conscious aggression
against the probable perpetuation of our oppressive reality? Is it one with specific regulation and limiting precedence? Or
is it completely bound to the authenticity of the artist’s originality and potentiality? It is my earnest aspiration that the
latter of these options is more accurate and realistically possible.
It is also my observance that the artist is the pioneer of the spirit of the people in which the represent and/or serve. It
is they who ultimately, consciously or not, preserve or degrade the cultural significance of the masses under whose culture
they attribute their own influence and allegiance. It is they who must affirm or negate the self-interpretation of the masses
to who they are responsible for and accountable to. It is their contributions to the collective Black aesthetic that will
either secure or make vulnerable the continual existence of creative possibility; which is invaluable to a people so
imposed by an atmosphere of fear, ignorance, hatred, and degradation.
Art, when appreciated in relation to the value of the people towards who it dominates or owes its legacy, possesses a
power of liberating man from the abnormal abnormalities which cloud his vision and often ruin his potential for a higher,
more divine perspective of life. It is vital then, if this is true, and for now we must intelligently agree that it is, that the
artist must never fail to integrate their art with the reality in which they attribute the substance of their craft (and/or the
wisdom behind their words).
40
The way they love, hate, construct, and destruct must all find a secured place within the totality of their artistic
accountability to the overall enrichment of life. Without it, their visions are deceived and deceiving and their voice is
suppressed and suppressing. The motif of their art should not be limited to the intense and truthful portrayal of
oppression; it should also make creative provisions for the eradication of oppression. Art must lead the people to some
state of being previously either unimagined or unattained. It must have both a certain madness meant to promote
cognizant defiance against any further dehumanization of the masses and method by which it plans to circumscribe the
sadism of our imprisoned planet.
To me poetry is the inner voice of God speaking. When I write poetry it is the appeal of God through my heart.
Poetry to me is attunement with the divine. In poetry, I intend to carry a message to the people; not only to the
oppressed, but to all people. It is another way of giving verbal expression as a warning against the evils of man
as God shows me. I see poetry as a language which all emancipated minds can understand; it is a universal
language. I write a realistic form of poetry. I speak of the condition of the people: Inequity of justice, religious
masks, and things like that. I write to reveal the oppression of man to man by man.196
“One good thing about music, when it hits you feel no pain”197—so goes the life story of one of the most articulate
and profound and conscious messengers of the Black liberation struggle: Bob Marley. In an inspired attempt to awaken
the comprehensive consciousness of the slumbering masses, Marley, “hit” them through his music, and his prophetic blow
would prove omnipotent against the conspiratorial bullet of White supremacy.
“Music you’re, music you’re the key/Talk to who, please to talk to me/Bring the voice of Rastaman/Communicating
to everyone.”198 Marley realized that his indispensable observations and pungent philosophies would reach much more
Black folks by utilizing the rhythmic subtleties of music because our mis-education hindered our collective desire to read
the fundamental truths which displayed the essence of our existence. He dedicated nearly everyday of his relatively short
life to creating and conveying awareness-intensifying music destined to destroy our foreign desire for self-destruction and
defeat. “The power of philosophy floats through my head/Light like a feather/Heavy as led.”
Music is the “soul” of Blacks. Through music they express their joys, pains, and sufferings. It is mostly
through the medium of music that they project a spell or incantation on the objects of oppression. The powerful
often kills, even though in the wrong. The powerless sings.199
Although music may be the soul of Blacks, it is the lyrics which lace the expressively emancipating spirit of the
music that serve as the collective mind of Black people. Proclaiming everything from all-out revolution against the
oppressor to “one love” for all of humanity, the poetic offerings of Bob Marley offered a new standard by which to
measure the possibility and purpose of language.
Bob Marley and his Wailers “were musically different, and visually different. Their presentation was hardly the
European approach to rock ‘n’ roll. Instead what came off them was the warmth of sunshine and friendliness, and they
had lyrics that had an unbelievable meaning. Bob believed in every word he sang. All the lyrics were very specifically
from his life. Back then, people didn’t necessarily understand this, how everything related to a particular time and
moment.”200
I agree with Phil Cooper’s remarks about Bob Marley and the Wailers, but with one addition: Bob Marley and the
Wailers were needed. During the 1970’s, whether in Jamaica or the United States or Mother Africa, Black folks were in
desperate demand of realistic, motivational, and thematic music, and Marley supplied. He elevated the entire
consciousness of a people through his own conscious attunement with the truths behind our reality. “What has been hid
from the wise and the polluted is how me feel.”201
Bob was awesomely skilled in the art of writing lyrics that could carry clear ideas to the people. “Every song
somehow fit together…it was like he was telling a story, chapter by chapter.”202 He taught us the simple truths because he
knew that simplicity both laid and threatened the foundation of the complexities which confine our potential to the
shackles of oppression. He was indeed courageous, but he was also confident and competent. Although subjected to a
world based on the global acceptance of deception, Marley’s life’s philosophy supported his lyrical endeavors as he
supplemented our own confidence, trust, and love through his songs of freedom: “The truth is an offence/But not a sin.”203
This could be the first trumpet
Might as well be the last
41
Many more will have to suffer
Many more will have to die
Don’t ask me why
Things are not the way they used to be
I won’t tell you no lie
One and all have to face reality now
Tho’ I’ve tried to find the answer
To all the questions they ask
Tho’ I know it’s impossible
To go living through the past
Don’t tell no lie
There’s a natural mystic blowing through the air
Can’t keep them down
If you listen carefully now you will hear204
Marley was assertive in his vision of race prophecy and his role within it. He knew that the masses of Black people
were being globally oppressed, and that his message could have a positively destructive effect on the shackles that
perpetually stripped us of our ability to be fully human. Reality, the underlying focus of all Marley’s lyrics, as distorted
as reality has been deliberately made to appear, was quite simple at its core: a basic battle between a systematically
suppressed good and a technologically and deceptionally advanced evil.
He desperately intertwined the plight of the peoples trapped in the historical conspiracy of the Black Diaspora.
Conveniently comparable in both cause and effect, history and destiny, Black America and Jamaica, the home of Marley,
shared equal concern within his inspiring verses—but, for the most part, Blacks in America failed to obtain the
opportunity, for whatever reason, to internalize Bob’s lyrics. Inspired heavily by the works of such great Black
philosophic orators and writers such as Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X, and Angela Davis, the mindful wail of this
Rastafarian bard achieved true universality, spanning the globe boldly in search of the minds and souls of Black folks.
Marley repeatedly expressed the actual fact that Black people throughout this planet exist within the parameters of a
White power structure bent on total oppression and domination, including certain implications that any true power to
determine ultimately their destiny, both individual and collective, would never be appropriated to people of color. He
knew that this was our greatest predicament as a people, and that once we solve this, which could only be done through
consciousness of the totality and potentiality of it, we would have solved all of the situations that seduce our continual
spiritual surrender and suffocation.
Remember there is no Negro from Negroland, neither Jamaicans from Africa. We have seen planned systems of
partial genocide enacted time and again. You cannot kill a problem; it beggars your solution. The seeming
fanaticism of the Rastafarians in regards to black and white in all aspects, stems from the knowledge of the past
that we were the shackled slaves of the Estates, and even unto this day it remains a fact that the historians of
tomorrow will record us the Blacks, notwithstanding category, as the slaves of the present day. It is only a
matter of time boosted by extreme pressures of the Europeans and his derivatives, that all black peoples,
especially the under-privileged ones, will realize that possessed with the spirit of black emancipation, all the
sons of Africa, notwithstanding shades, are one. In Jamaica we see a planned system of propaganda based on
isolation of the Rastafarians, not only from society, but even among those blacks who have not yet emerged
from the obscurity of themselves. The Rastafarian does not naturally hate any member of mankind, but
determinedly detested systems which will not allow the true brotherhood of men to blossom forth in its full
richness. We are not bent on the destruction of the figure of God, which is man, but of confederacies bent on
wickedness and suppression of the poor.205
Ask Marley of his identity, and he would certainly say, “I’m a rebel, soul rebel….Said I’m a living man/And I’ve got
work to do.”206 Ask Marley of his vision for self, and he would surely proclaim, “Up a cane river to wash my dread/Upon
a rock I rest my head/There I vision through the seas of oppression/Don’t make my life a prison.”207 Ask Marley of the
difficulty of his purpose, and he would probably sigh while he resonate, “Well it’s not easy, it’s not easy/Speak the truth,
come on speak/It ever cause it what it will.”208 Ask Marley of his desire for our destiny, “please make it a session, not
42
another version”209—or in other words, he sought our consummate liberation rather than the pacified continuation of our
oppressed state.
He dared us to view reality in its totality, particularly that especially evil side that endangers all that is and could be
good. “He who hide the wrong he did/Surely did the wrong thing still.”210 He informed us of our task, now as always, to
confront the apparent forms of reality until the truths that motivate ultimate fact reveals its insight by transcending the
chaotic paradox of perception and deception.
Marley has inspired, awakened and aroused the innate rebel spirit that has long been dormant in too many of us,
and incited it to fight for survival. His songs point the way out of this involuntary exile and towards a place
where we will be allowed simply to live.211
Bob Marley was essential and exceptional, as well as erotic and exciting. His style, both musically and personally,
was definitively rebellious and revolutionary. “I don’t come down on you really with blood and fire, earthquake and
lightning, but you must know she, that within me all of that exists too.”212
His lyrics were courageous, confident, precise, and frank, amply equipped the knowledge of truth, self, God, and
enemy necessary to coerce change of our conspired condition and conditioning. “If you are the big tree/We are the small
axe/Sharpened to cut you down/Ready to cut you down.”213 He embraced his prophetic purpose consciously and
wholeheartedly, enthralling in the essence of divinity bestowed throughout his compelling lyrical delivery. “Where there
is no wood/I say the fire goes out/So we’ll have to cut you down/Without a doubt.”214
Thematic of the overall mood of a displaced generation, his music encompassed the immortal suffering of the souls
of Black folks globally. “Wake up and turn I loose/For the rain is falling.”215 Spreading his empowering verses in hopes
of engulfing the miseries of his people as if his words had somehow become the ubiquitous wings of an angel with the
ability to shelter us from all the troubles of this cruel world. “I feel so high, I even touch the sky/Above the falling
rain/To feel so good in my neighborhood/So here I come again.”216 His conscious awareness offered hope over the misery
too many had become abnormally accustomed to. Bob, also, tried to revolutionize history.
“As a social activist, his lyrics leave an indelible mark on our past, present, and future struggles to embrace a
harmonious existence within the brotherhood and sisterhood of man on his earth.”217 This “Rasta Prophet” provided the
masses an inspirational alternative to a dominantly uninspiring world, through Black conscious-oriented lyricism
grounded in Rastafarian thought based on the following principles:
1. unanimity and a common racial heritage
2. a god as seen through Black men’s eyes dis-carding the questionable or mythical dogma of a European Jesus
crucified
3. the aim from the beginning has been likened to the prodigal son, whom, after many vicissitudes, realized the
place for his recovery was his home, hence our demand for an African Repatriation
4. one destiny exemplified by the obliteration of tribalism, thereby fostering unity in its entirety218
Bob Marley, first and foremost, sought to eradicate ignorance within the masses so that they had the ability to face
reality as reality and deal with it intelligently and independently. “If a man does not have knowledge of himself and his
position in society and the world, then he has little chance to relate to anything else.”219 He knew that if this would be
accomplished initially and absolutely, any significantly positive change could and would follow. Marley took it as his
mission to open the eyes of the blind, mend the ears of the deaf, and, as mentioned previously, revitalize the
consciousness of the made dumb.
It had for long been coming to the conscious thought within his soul: Serve Rastafari! Understand how you
have to hear it and see it and feel it to come free. How you have to let it pilot you and open your eyes and see
within your life how you want to live.220
Marley’s profound “Rastaman vibrations” sought to shake the chains which surround this woeful planet presently
trapped in premeditated sadism, in an effort to break those chains thereby emancipating the people. Never intentionally
violent or evil, his lyrics honorably attempted to undermine a system that advanced the exploitation, enslavement,
oppression, and eventual extermination of non-White people, subsequently transforming society into something beneficial
to the divine evolution of all instead of the greed, fear, and hatred of the few.
43
Bob consciously observed, contemplated, and commented on these miseries that plagued us historically:
Ev’ry time I hear the crack of the whip
My blood runs cold
I remember on the slave ship
How they brutalized our very souls
Today they say that we are free
Only to be chained in poverty
Good god, I think it’s all illiteracy
It’s only a machine that make money221
Marley knew that remembrance and analytic dissection of our original enslavement, with all of its perpetual
ramifications, both within society and the Black self, was key to our recognition of our neo-enslavement and that this
recognition would prove invaluable to the eventual procurement of our ultimate liberation. “We must remember because
if once the world forgets evil, evil is reborn.”222
For those who are unaware of the intricacies which underlie the definite existence of Black neo-enslavement, I offer a
simple explanation. Neo-enslavement, like its noted predecessor, relies on the continued ignorance of the masses to
institutionalize a perpetual supply of cheap and controllable labor, always self-defeating and destructive in thought due to
fear of cognizance of their reality and subsequent consciously unified rebellion and retribution towards the system that
produced it and forever loyal to those whose betrayal of them overwhelms the rationale of any sane and humane
individual.
What in reality what was slavery, beyond the obvious death dealing mechanism of exploitation…what was it?
Beyond the economic tools of savages, weapons of extraction, massacre of the masses, what was it? In texture,
it was the rawest nightmare, a never ending journey into the depths of a living hell, a psychological systematic
genocide machine that was designed to take everything from the victim. Honor, dignity, pride, esteem, cultural
connection, ancestor continuity, nationalism, ideology, humanism, family, sexuality, parenthood, independence,
creativity, religion, mental equilibrium, and control over your own fate, all gone. Reduced to beasts of burden
and also[:] toys for the insane, totally controlled, beaten into an artificial inferiority, sexually abused, and sold
the lies of racism through Biblical blasts based in backward distortions, all of this produced a stolen reality. 223
While most will argue that the masses are free, even those of color, simple due to the relative lack of any superficial,
or concrete, evidence, Bob knew of the inaccuracies of such conclusions. “No chains around my feet but I’m not free, I
know I am bound here in captivity.” He had an incomparable perspective on the fact that the slave master had been
effectively replaced by a system of self-enslavement much more despicable, diabolical, and dangerous than the strongest
of physical chains. He would issue through his lyrics thoughts in regards to the immeasurable damage to the Black
psyche attributed to our original enslavement and its modern continuance years prior to scientific study by some of our
most worthy psychologists and scholars of the self.
The slavery that captures the mind and incarcerates the motivation, perception, aspiration, and identity in a web of
anti-self images, generating a personal and collective self-destruction, is more cruel than the shackles on the
wrists and ankles. The slavery that feeds on the psychology, invading the soul of man, destroying his loyalties to
himself and establishing allegiance to forces which destroy him, is an even worse form of capture. The influences
that permit an illusion of freedom, liberation, and self-determination, while tenaciously holding one’s mind in
subjugation, is the folly of only the sadistic.224
His poetic expressions remarkably revised the efforts of those with sight of the injustices that were evident within the
Black reality whose lyrical legacies preconceived his own. Marley knew he belonged only to the True and Almighty
Master of history, and committed to informing the rest of His creations of the same.
Oh when I think of my long-suffering race,
For weary centuries, despised, oppressed
Enslaved and lynched, denied a human place
44
In the great life line of the Christian West;
And in the Black Land disinherited,
Robbed in the ancient country of its birth,
My hearts grows sick with hate, becomes as lead,
For this my race that has no home on earth.
Then from the dark depth of my soul I cry
To the avenging angel to consume
The white man’s world of wonders utterly:
Let it be swallowed up in earth’s vast womb,
Or upward roll as sacrificial smoke
To liberate my people from its yoke!225
Bob knew that the oppressor’s objective included the masses’ forgetting and forgiving of our original enslavement,
thus making our neo-enslavement invincible to any individual revolt. “Long time we no have no nice time/Do you-do
you-do ya think about that.”226 He impressed upon the cognizance of the people the consummate importance and sobering
effect of remembrance of our original enslavement in regards to providing attentive strength to resist their present plans of
pacification until liquidation.
However painful, our original enslavement exists as a fact of our history, and Bob Marley realized that the more we
forgot or remained ignorance to our history, the more we became a negligible factor in the destiny of the world, and thus
increasingly vulnerable to being exterminated. As he sang with awesome concern, “we are the living sacrifice.” The
greatest remaining question is just how many million more Black souls will be murdered to subdue our physical actuality
in synthetic ignorance and wretchedness in order to support the unworthy rule of White supremacy?
Bless my eyes this morning
Jah sun is on the rise once again
The way earthly things are going
Anything can happen
You see men sailing on their ego trips
Blast off on their spaceships
Million miles from reality
No care for you, no care for me
So much trouble in the world now227
Marley, as the divine messenger of Jah (God), warned his people of the climate of caution now frighteningly
applicable to their daily being. He warned them of the evils that certain men had been, were, and were planning on
afflicting on the world. “Ego trips” of false authority and plundered authority based on stolen legacies. He rebuked those
“devils” for their cruelty towards those they deemed expendable or even unnecessary in their lustful quest for absolute
wealth and supreme power. “So much trouble in the world,” yet we, the most troubled, react in manners that would
strongly suggest peace, justice, and harmony. Marley knew that we lacked something, something tremendously important
to our self-liberation. That something was fundamentally linked to our self-knowledge and discernment of reality.
The African is conditioned, by the cultural and social institutions of centuries, to a freedom of which Europe has
little conception, and it is not in his nature to accept serfdom forever. He realizes that he must fight unceasingly
for his own complete emancipation; for without this he is doomed to remain the prey of rival imperialisms,
which in every successive year will drive their fangs more deeply into his vitality and strength.228
“So you think you have found the solution/But it’s just another illusion.”229 Bob Marley was unusually cognizant of
the true meaning of progress and its relative absence throughout the current centuries of Black history. He was terrifically
enlightened with the socio-economic trends of history and its materialistic influences in a degree of proficiency that would
have astonished Karl Marx himself. He disclosed the fact that no significant Black progress, based on the independent
procurement of wealth and power, has ever been nor will ever be allowed to manifest due to the current power structure’s
45
inevitable vulnerability and institutionalized paranoia of it. As he later declared, “it would take a revolution to find a
solution,” and nothing short of it.
Ever since the global establishment of White power, Black power has gradually become less and less of a factor and
possibility, regardless of what pacifiers have been offered to the masses in order to propose otherwise. For example, our
original enslavement, based on the demand for cheap labor necessary in the founding of White economic dominance, has
evolved in relation to the subsequent requirements of continual maximum profitability for White power. The historical
actualities of this truth can be found in the bogus allegations of the emancipation proclamation onto the modern-day
deferred assurances of affirmative action.
“It’s the system we’re against—it’s not a black and white thing.”230 Bob understood the ramifications of the people
turning to hatred of another people instead of the deliberate destruction of the capitalistic system that would otherwise
benefit from this reaction. He also astutely grasped and upheld through song our significance and value as human beings,
as well as the emancipating magnitude of mass realization and internalization of this self-knowledge. “Not only was I not
born to be a slave; I was not born to hope to become the equal of the slave master.”231
“They say the blood runs/And it runs thru our lineage/And our hearts, heart of hearts divine/John sey them comin’
with the truth/From an ancient time.”232
Grossly and systematically malnutritioned, weakened severely by
institutionalized ignorance, the masses lacked the blessed fruit of the tree of knowledge, thus unable to see the truth and
its opposing forces of good and evil. Marley saw this and supplemented our foreign diet with songs of substance. Attune
to the divine and ancient wisdom of truth, justice, harmony, and righteousness, he balanced the scales of destiny by
arming the people with conscious hope made possible explicitly through knowledge of the truth, self, God, and enemy.
“It is not me saying these things, it’s God…if God hadn’t given me a song to sing, I wouldn’t have a song to sing.”
God Almighty created each and every one of us for a place in the world, and for the least of us to think that we
were created only to be what we are and not what we can make ourselves, is to impute an improper motive to
the Creator for creating us. God Almighty created us all to be free. That the Negro race became a race of slaves
was not the fault of God Almighty, the Divine Master, it was the fault of the race. Sloth, neglect, indifference
caused us to be slaves. Confidence, conviction, action will cause us to be free men to-day.233
The oppressor will never allow us to embrace the above truth for it will deny him the ability to dominant the people,
and thus enslave the planet, because it is in fact and essence, the ultimate truth. Bob Marley’s greatest attribute was his
ability to convey this time and time again. His elaborate collection of capricious lyrics effortlessly yet efficiently echoed
Frantz Fanon’s warning in Black Skin White Masks regarding the devilish intentions of the White elite: “The white man
wants the world; he wants it for himself alone. He finds himself predestined master of this world. He enslaves it. An
acquisitive relation is established between the world and him.” We just weren’t allowed to acutely and accurately
consider to these lyrics—yet.
You running and you running
But you can’t run away from yourself…
You must have done
Something wrong
Something wrong
Why you can’t find the
Place where you belong…
Well, well, well, you running away,
Running away, no, no, no,
I’m not running away, don’t say that
Don’t say that, cause I’m not running away
I’ve got to protect my life,
And I don’t want to live with no strife
It is better to live on the house top
Than to live in a house full of confusion
So, I made my decision and I left you
Now you coming to tell me
That I’m running away
46
But it’s not true
I am not running away234
It’s ironic that the very people who confused Bob’s overwhelmingly constructive love and courage with the
constraining negation of hatred and hypocrisy also instructed the masses to follow their ungodly flow of wholesale death,
atrocious denial, and blatant destruction. Bob stood for “God’s side,” undeniably and sincerely. He knew that “Babylon
no wan’ peace, Babylon wan’ power,” and unless we took the time and developed the consciousness necessary to consider
the consequences of such a distorted internal motivation, we would eternally be intertwined with damnation and defeat.
He shined his creative light of conscious insight despite the apparent omnipotence and omnipresence of the storm clouds
of misery and oppression. The gods of Babylon were ghastly afraid of Marley, thus they sought to discredit and disguise
his immortal message.
We refuse to be
What you wanted us to be
We are what we are
That’s the way it’s going to be
If you don’t know
You can’t educate I
For no equal opportunity
Talking about my freedom
People freedom and liberty
Yeah, we’ve been trodding on
The winepress much too long
Rebel, rebel
We’ve been trodding on the
Winepress much too long, rebel
Babylon System is the vampire
Sucking the children day by day
Me say the Babylon System is the vampire
Sucking the blood of the sufferers
Building church and university
Deceiving the people continually
Me say them graduating thieves and murderers
Look out now
Sucking the blood of the sufferers
Tell the children the truth…235
Trapped in a virtual reality of little practical virtue, the masses have been enslaved and exploited by a system
maintained by the distorted desires of the misunderstood and contradicting self. We’ve been enslaved for so long we’ve
lost sight of the necessity of freedom. We’ve collectively and damn near completely given up on the very possibility for a
fulfilled life; as if Black and life held some conflicting paradoxical relationship too established to overcome. Out of our
extreme lack of consciousness our inability to rebel effectively manifests itself historically within our woeful reality.
“Building church and university/Deceiving the people continually/Me say them graduating thieves and murderers.”
People conditioned to perpetuate the evils of the system in place of the obvious intrusion and influence of the system’s
true conspirators and only actual benefactors. How are a people ultimately destroyed? With their own vengeful yet
misguided hands.
This morning I woke up in a curfew
Oh god, I was a prisoner too
Could not recognize the faces standin’ over me
47
They were all dressed in uniforms of brutality…
Give me the food and let me grow
Let the roots man take a blow
All them drugs gonna’ make you slow now
It’s not the music of the ghetto236
Although most couldn’t even fathom the logical conclusions of a system based on Black oppression and suppression,
Bob cherished his distinct role as forewarner. His lyrical swords clashed with the oppressor’s daggers of deceptions,
invoking revolutionary thought from the global indications brought forth from the impressively produced sparks.
Marley predicted, or rather, prophesized, the possibilities now commonly attributed to the absolute and overt
establishment of the New World Order conspiracy. Destined to a 1984-inspired reality, humanity will benefit greatly
from hearing and heeding the awesome warning brilliantly contained within the initial stanza of “Burnin’ and Lootin’.”
With “curfew” suggesting the onslaught of obvious oppression and “prisoner” implying the indiscriminate incarceration
of the masses, Marley viewed a global people conforming and zombie-like with no self-possessed meaning, no
cognizance of their historical or cultural self, no worldly and coherent purpose—no aspiration and thus no prospect for
freedom.
“Them drugs” of illusions, ignorance, dependence, disunity, and fear are “gonna make you slow,” or vulnerable, in
the timeless race for continued existence. Marley visualized the imminent genocide of the masses based on their own
reactions toward the system’s constant assaults on their mental and spiritual welfare.
If people are truly educated, they will find a way out of their oppression….The purpose of proper education is to
prepare the student to be a responsible handler of power. Any other type of education is a waste of time….If the
education is proper, then the education must ultimately improve one’s understanding of what power is and how
power manifests itself and how one has to have power in order to be a total human being. Once he understands
this, he can make an assessment of other things. When you are under the power of others, where other people
determine your destiny, your actions are those of a slave. To be a slave is not the fact of being poor. A lot of
people are poor and they are not slaves. To be a slave is not to be able to determine your own destiny. It is not
to be able to make the correct choices for your own life, where you have been in your life and where you still
have to go. That is what power is all about. By this definition, then, most of the world, including some White
people, are slaves.237
“Build your penitentiary, we build your schools/Brainwash education to make us the fools/Hate is your reward for
our love/Telling us of your God above.”238 Betrayed by conspiracy, Black people in particular have fallen prey to an
intense internal victimization purposely maintained in order to perpetuate our worldwide exploitation. Educational
structures grounded in the oppression of innate potentiality and religious doctrines based on a suppressive mythological
ideology steeped in illogical superstition, violent deception, and mass confusion actuality enslave the people. Dominance
is your reward for our blind faith and blunted vision, along with the historic delay of consummate retribution through the
muting of our redemption songs.
“I don’t have education, I have inspiration—if I was educated then I’d be a damned fool.” Those were the thoughts
of Bob Marley in regards to the internal conditioning of Black folks. He was both personally and socially offended by the
systems emplaced to freeze the masses in static degradation. He knew that our mental conditioning was conceived to
purposely distort our inner image of self in order to decisively persuade us to despise and destroy self. “I don’t care for no
more brain washing/It isn’t good for my soul.”239
“I mean it, when I analyze the stench/To me, it makes a lot of sense.”240 The eradication of this enemy-imposed
mental and spiritual stagnation was essential to our ultimate ability to consciously decipher the deceptions that
considerably conceal the truths behind our reality. But more importantly, it had to be eliminated in order to invigorate our
suppressed and true superiority as a people. Think about it. Why are our oppressors really oppressing us? It can’t be
wholly for profit since no one, not even the, or a, devil, can be that damn shallow. It had to be something they were so
terrified of us discovering independent of their diluting influence that forced them to create all of the means in which they
oppress and suppress us. I, like several before me, including Bob, and not to be racist or vengeful but rather factual and
historically accurate, believe it to be the natural verity of Black superiority.
48
They say the sun shines for all
But in some people world it never shines at all
They say love is a stream that will find its course
Some people think life is a dream
So they making matters worse241
Reality dictates the necessity of self-preservation at any and all feasible costs, yet in order to comprehend and
facilitate this natural demand one must first be dealing in reality. Fantasy, although usually initiated by deception,
ultimately may be more fatal than its premeditated predecessor because those who just refuse to see the bullet can’t dodge
it whereas those who see something and just can’t determine what exactly it is will have enough good sense and initiative
to at least sway from its current in an attempt to uncover its total identity. Black people, as a whole, were becoming more
and more subjected to the demented thought process of the former, thus defeating themselves by failing to realize that
someone, who had already determined the necessity of their defeat, manipulated their intentions and reactions through
mental domination. Marley saw the irrefutable destruction in our misguided ways and demanded accountability from both
the oppressor and the oppressed.
So much have been said, so little been done
They still killing, killing the people
And they having, having, having lots of fun
Killing the people, having their fun
They just want to be the leader
In the house of the rising sun242
Marley’s audacious and concise conveyance of the genocidal conspiracy against the masses for the guarantee of
consummate planetary conquest by the elitist few is fulfilled within this short stanza within “Crisis.” “The house of the
rising sun,” however, may be looked at in two ways. One, as the planet itself, thus overtly stating the objective of the
conspirators. Or two, as the person, first individually yet ultimately as a collective, with the ability to rise above the chaos
conceived by conspiracy in order to consciously rebel against the suppression of one’s innate self-dominion.
The state of Black Africa [,as well as that of Black America,] was a state of perpetual fears, fears of being
hunted down and attacked from without, fears of betrayals by unknown followers from within, fears of attacks
by other migrating Blacks who were themselves fleeing from danger, fears of hunger, ever-mounting disease
and of the alarming number of deaths. These fears of all kinds were a disease—all producing an alarming
source of mutual suspicions and distrust. Centuries of this produced the amazing outcome: Blacks became their
own worst enemies and, therefore, increasingly a helpless people.243
To “kill the people” could mean either the physical or mental/spiritual genocide, or even the concurrent occurrence of
the two. Evidence of this could be seen in comparing modern Africa and America and the Black people held captive
within the two. In Africa we have fallen victim more to an obvious, physical massacre, made possible through the
calculated spread of HIV and other biological weapons, sadistically financed tribal wars, and premeditated levels of
poverty so extreme that the masses are conveniently coerced into crimes punished by death or starvation by timorous
acceptance or absolute dependence; whereas in America, although we have suffered immeasurable concrete casualties due
to their cruel desires, it is within the abstract potentialities of our self that we have faced the most damage.
Our race, as a mortal entity, has endured death to the infinite power due to the propaganda that seeks, with much
momentary success, to destroy all of our hopes, ambitions, and confidence in self.
We have, unfortunately, become decisively engaged as a people, yet our warped sense of reality and outrageous lack
of confidence in self has advanced our need to surrender to rather than pursue our enemy. “I shot the sheriff, but I didn’t
shoot no deputy…I shot the sheriff, but I swear it was in self-defense.”244 Marley issued a daring proclamation, stating his
self-fulfilling desire to consciously battle the powers that be in order to secure the possibility of their defeat. In stark
contrast to the normal—yet abnormal—attitude of the people, especially noted by Frantz Fanon as common among any
colonized peoples, who were fighting themselves out of fear or ignorance of the real foe, Marley shot “the sheriff,” not
“no deputy.” He went after the source of the problem, or rather, the true and living root of all worldly evil, rather than his
49
ignorant and conditioned assistant—us. And while the oppressor sought to annihilate us out of his fear of genetic
annihilation and/or our inevitable ability to challenge his avaricious sovereignty, Bob taught us not to fight out of fear or
hate or greed, but for the acquisition of truth, justice, and self-defense.
Some will hate you, pretend they love you now
Then behind you they try to eliminate you
But who Jah bless, no one curse
Thank God, we’re past the worse
Hypocrites and parasites
Will come up and take a bite
And if your night should turn to day
A lot of people would run away
And who the cap fit, let them wear it245
Marley explained lyrically how enemies of self are exposed through knowledge of the truth, and how once exposed,
they will lose all power over those previously blinded. He warned that all must be held accountable for their actions, and
that although evil, whether pure or adopted, often wore the mask that smiled and grinned, that the mask itself was neither
invincible nor completely invisible. “If your night should turn to day,” or rather, if your ignorance was alleviated by the
light of knowledge, you would run away from the madness and misery you before accepted as omnipresent because now
you possessed a sufficient degree of hope in the possibility of significant change. You would no longer surrender your
self-determination and freedom of thought for the despicable reparation of peaceful slaughter by your oppressor. You
would want to be responsible and reliable to self, and most importantly, you would know how to satisfy such a cherished
and humane desire.
Woman hold her head and cry
Cause her son had been
Shot down in the street
And died
From a stray bullet…
Woman hold her head and cry
Cause her son had been
Shot down in the street
And died
Just because of the system246
In this sobering soliloquy, Marley details the pains and frustrations attributed to the systematic assassination of the
collective presence of the Black male, “Johnny,” due to his potential as the most potent threat against the White
patriarchal system of global supremacy, as seen threw the eyes of its impact on the future personified as “Johnny’s
mother.” He said in song what Malcolm before stated on the street corners of America: “[We] live in a society whose
social system is based upon the castration of the Black man, whose political system is based on the castration of the Black
man, and whose economy is based upon the castration of the Black man.”
Death in this song could also be viewed as actual or reactionary, with neither interpretation any less destructive than
the other. The Black male was becoming globally increasingly endangered as White power evolved in its abilities and
techniques of devastation. Marley forewarned us of the factual exhaustibility of the Black male and his susceptibility to
systemic annihilation whether through blatant or concealed means.
“The masses of the people suffer. And this music is for the masses.”247
She loves to party, have a good time
She looks so hearty, feeling fine
She loves to smoke, sometime shifting coke
She’ll be laughing when there ain’t no joke…
50
She loves to model, up in the latest fashion
She’s in the scramble and she moves with passion
She’s getting high, trying to fly the sky
Now she is bluesing when there ain’t no blues
A pimper’s paradise, that’s all she was now…248
If “she” be us, and it is a certain assumption that she was and is, than we be headed for execution without awareness
of our residence on death row. “She loves to party,” rather than constructing a better future we’d rather have fun now,
because it requires less conscious struggle, something we’ve been made to despise no matter how self-defeating such a
warped mentality historically proves to be, and suffer the immortal consequences of our deliberately blurred focus soon
thereafter.
“She looks so hearty,” even those with HIV fail to display obvious symptoms when internally they are slowly dying
from perpetual decay and escalating vulnerability. The masses, conditioned to accepting the usually incomplete
superficialities of life while refusing to view its underlying truisms, perceive themselves as safe although the conscious
few are painfully aware of the reality behind this perception, yet the masses often reject their insight for fear of the truth
and its revolutionary implications.
“She loves to smoke,” easing her necessary pains with the drugs concocted by her historic tormenter in order to quell
her rebellious desire for empowerment, upliftment, and liberation. “She’ll be laughing,” while her people are being
slaughtered by the millions, genocide, an irony of tremendous ramifications. In reality, we were being “pimped” by the
system because of our unconsciousness of reality, thus ensuring its dominance on this planet, our oppressor’s conspired
paradise.
No sun will shine in my day today
The high yellow moon won’t come out to play
Darkness has covered my light
And has changed my day into night
Now where is this love to be found
Won’t somebody tell me
Cause life, sweet life, must be somewhere to be found
Instead of a concrete jungle where the livin’ is hardest…
No chains around my feet, but I’m not free
I know I am bound here in captivity
And I’ve never known happiness
And I’ve never known sweet caress
Still, I be always laughing like a clown
Won’t someone help me?
Cause, sweet life, I’ve, I’ve got to pick
Myself from off the ground
In this here concrete jungle…
I said life must be somewhere to be found
Instead of a concrete jungle, illusion, confusion249
Political prisoners of apathy, poverty, and despondency, Black folks exist within a deliberate web of illusion and
confusion in which we are ruled from without. Marley discussed the subtleties that suppress the light in whose possession
our total liberation can be found. There should be no doubt that Black people face the hardest trials of any people on this
planet. Continually attacked by enemy forces both original and conceived, our destruction seems inevitable unless change
is desired and made possible.
“No chains around my feet, but I’m not free” is a line that everybody Black person must realize if the truth behind it
is to ever be altered. No more jokes, no more lies, no more wasted time, no more self-denial—it’s time to break the
51
mental and spiritual chains that subdue us to existence in this “concrete jungle.” It’s time for Black life. Yet, true life
implies freedom, independence, love, truth, understanding, power, justice, and harmony; things overwhelmingly absent
from the Black community.
The Black children of America’s concrete jungles, as evident by their violent aggressiveness and general disrespect
for life, are stiflingly coward, but they aren’t scared of death, they’re scared of life. As a rule, people mostly fear that
which is unknown to them; ignorance breeds fear. Our children need lessons on life, lessons of survival, lessons whose
dissemination our oppressor’s institutions, to which our dependence and disorganization binds us, have been constructed
by all means to prevent. “If one is continually surviving the worst that life can bring, one eventually ceases to be
controlled by a fear of what life can bring; whatever it brings must be borne.”250
“Them belly full but we hungry/A hungry mob is a angry mob,”251 sung Bob in reference to the masses of Black
people. Especially evident in certain instances of time and location, Black people displayed violent protest towards their
realized oppression. However, White power quickly reacted to the potential behind their obvious discomfort by offering
pitiful suggestions of economic and social stability in lieu of revolutionary progress.
Confused and illusioned, Black people, much to our current chagrin, accepted these tokens thus compounded our
distress by allowing their destruction at a now intensified rate (intensified because we displayed the prophesized
possibility of retribution that White folks have been in perpetual terror of ever since our original enslavement). At least
back in the day we saw our problems along with its rightful parents, now we can’t see the forest of oppression for the
temporary trees of petty progress.
America may be the most poverty-stricken country in the world. Not materially. But intellectually it is
bankrupt. And morally it’s poverty-stricken. But in such a way that it’s not clear to you that you’re poor. It’s
very hard to know you’re poor if you’re eating well.252
So today White folks face a Black race whose collective belly may be full for now, yet many of them are becoming
increasingly aware of the limitations of their “diet” imposed on them by their masters, in whom they have remorsefully
surrendered all of their self-determination. The consciousness of Black people, especially within the youth, is evolving in
its understanding of the historical fact that oppression, persecution, and deliberate degradation has been all too common
elements in the coerced coexistence of Black and White people.
They also are beginning to see all the internal damage imposed upon their existence by White folks looking to exploit
and enslave them, and how these things pose an even greater threat than the external, more obvious forces aimed at their
annihilation. Thus, they are hungry, not in the lustful way of White supremacy but in the natural way of human security
and liberty. They are also angry, angry at all of the lies, hate, and fear that has suppressed their growth as human beings,
yet anger directed through constructive channels can spark the flames of consummate change. “The whites want slaves
and want us for their slaves [forever], but some of them will curse the day they ever saw us. As true as the sun ever shone
in its meridian splendor, my colour will root some of them out of the very face of the earth.”253
So old man river don’t cry for me
I have got a running stream of love you see
So no matter what stages, oh stages
Stages, stages they put us thru we’ll never be blue
No matter what rages, oh rages
Changes, rages they put us thru we’ll never be blue
We’ll be forever yeah!…
Cause only a fool lean up on
Lean upon his own misunderstanding
And what has been hidden from the wise
And the prudent
Been revealed to the babe and the suckling
In everything, in every way I say254
These poetic rays of brilliant faith supported by the continual evolution of consciousness made possible through
pensive struggle brought forth Marley’s most profound desires for a long oppressed people. He simply wanted us to
52
intelligently comprehend and then creatively confront a reality covertly bent on the perpetuation of Black misery. He
encouraged us to look within ourselves and affirm our inherent strength, in hopes that it would overcome the conspiracies
aimed at weakening us into oblivion. He informed us on how these trials and tribulations were ultimately just tests
divinely commissioned to create an even stronger race. “Everything in life got its purpose,” don’t allow them to force you
to lower your expectations or surrender all hope and confidence in self before you realize just what your purpose truly is.
“In a world that forces lifelong insecurity…all together now…we’re the survivors.”255
They don’t want to see unity
Cause all they want us to do is
Keep on fussing and fighting
They don’t want to see us live together
I tell you all they want us to do is
Keep on killing one another256
Marley’s lyrics persuaded a perception of reality possessing a strong desire for the total unity of the oppressed
masses in order to compel the destruction of the system by which they were everlastingly exploited and enslaved. He was
cognizant of the historic fact that such systems have always relied on the disunity, distrust, and tribal warfare of the
people whom they subjugated for its own survival. His lyrics suggested a strong comprehension of a reserve logic vital to
our complete resurrection as a people: if the destruction of Blackness has been systematically undertaken as a prerequisite
for the advancement of White power, than the conscious destruction of White power is a probable requirement for the
rebirth of Blackness in its true and natural state. “In a time of chaos, in a time of trouble, [he was] asking for unity, as
defense against these mad White people who continue to run the world.”257
Regrettably, history also showed us that the more the enslaved discovered new ways and reasons to unite the faster
the enslaver exposed new means by which to keep them divided for continual conquest. Our greatest challenge then, in
this time of perpetual crisis and confusion, is to overcome centuries of tribalism and disunity. Marley explained how our
wretchedness was maintained by our unfortunate condition of disorganization and how our disorganization made us
continually vulnerable to those who sought to profit from our enslavement. He also warned us that due to our
disorganization we are destined to “lose out in the great scramble of life for the survival of the fittest group.”258
See them fighting for power
But they know not the hour
So they bribing with
Their guns, spare-parts, and money
Trying to belittle our integrity
They say what we know
Is just what they teach us
Thru political strategy
They keep us hungry
When you gonna’ get some food
Your brother got to be your enemy
Ambush in the night
All guns aiming at me
Ambush in the night
They opened fire on me259
“So, Africa Unite, Africa Unite/Unite for the benefit of your people/Unite for it’s later than you think.”260 When
Maley spoke of Africa and African people he included the worldwide populace of displaced and estranged Black people,
so when he urged for African unity he definitely meant in a global sense. He even went so far as to suggest, in profound
and prophetic accuracy, that global Black unity, organized for specific, common, and constructive goals, would inevitably
yield global Black empowerment in much the same way that global White unity produced a global White power of
unending proportions despite their minority status as a planetary population and subsequent demonization by a false
perception of White supremacy brought about by this numeric, and thus, physical, inferiority. Marley recognized that
53
only a tremendous overflow of Dark blood fearlessly combined for and committed to the struggle for liberation would
subdue the voracious thirst of Pale supremacy. “As it’s been said already, let it be done…”261
In order to restore Self-Government, we must unite, and in order to unite, we must organize. We must organize
as never before, for organization decides everything…We must organize in order to make an effective demand
for the control of our own affairs, so that we can be in a position to remedy the innumerable economic and social
ills which mar our life…and reduce us to miserable specimens of humanity…We must organize in order to
break down the chains of [neo-enslavement]…No section of the people should be left unorganized….The
strength of the organized masses is invincible.262
There has been a covert war, with overt indications and ramifications, being conducted on the Black masses by their
ancient enemies for what could be judged as almost an entire millennium now. Ever since the vicious plundering of the
unprecedented African institutions of scholarship by the barbaric Europeans during antiquity on to the present miseducation and perpetuation of ignorance inflicting the potential of the Black youth by the White enemies terrified of its
liberation, White versus Black has been a constant irrefutable even by those of minimal awareness.
Victims of a global phenomenon of destruction incurred as a result of White greed, savagery, and paranoia, Black
people are in a battle for which they are ill-prepared (and thus ill-fated) and of which there were never desirous. Yet
peace, despite the misconceptions and misperceptions advanced by a media bought out by the oppressors of a reality they
fear the masses may soon realize, is not coveted by those who claim current leadership of this historic conflict. “A
peaceful coexistence is impossible if the contradictions are too great.”263
Lloyd George and Woodrow Wilson and Clemenceau—
The Big Three: England, America, and France—
Met at Versailles. The Tiger ached to know
About the myth to end war’s dominance.
“One moment, gentlemen,” the Tiger said.
“Do you really want a lasting peace?” And then
Lloyd George assented with his shaggy head
And Woodrow Wilson, nodding, chafed his chin.
“The price of such a peace is great. We must give
Up secret cartels, spheres of power and trade;
Tear down our tariff walls; let lesser breeds live
As equals; scrap the empires we have made.”
The gentlemen protested, “You go too far.”
The Tiger shouted, “You don’t mean peace, but war!”264
Marley lyrically declared, with remarkable clarity and certainty, that we exist in a reality based on the rancorous
rebellion of divine law, of whose underlying objectives and techniques we must become fully cognizant of in order to
successfully challenge.
We live in a world in crisis—a world governed by politics of domination, one in which the belief in a notion of
superior and inferior and its concomitant ideology—that the superior should rule over the inferior—affects the
lives of all people everywhere, whether poor or privileged, literate or illiterate. Systematic dehumanization,
worldwide famine, ecological devastation, industrial contamination, and the possibility of nuclear destruction
are realities which [should] remind us daily that we are in crisis.265
Marley, in agreement to the afore stated accusation, offered a verbal discourse of defiance as brilliant as if he
inherited a Jeffersonian, or rather, a (Kwame) Nkrumahian, ability to declare the proposed independence of a nation
simply entitled “War:”
54
What life has taught me
I would like to share with
Those who want to learn…
Until the philosophy which holds one race
Superior and another inferior
Is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned
Everywhere is war, me say war
That until there are no longer first-class
And second-class citizens of any nation
Until the color of a man’s skin
Is of no more significance than the color of his eyes
Me say war
That until the basic human rights are equally
Guaranteed to all without regards to race
This is war
That until that day
The dream of lasting peace, world citizenship
Rule of international morality
Will remain in but a fleeting illusion
To be pursued, but never attained
Now everywhere is war, war
And until the ignoble and unhappy regimes
That hold our brothers in Angola, in Mozambique
In South Africa in subhuman bondage
Have been toppled, utterly destroyed
Well, everywhere is war, me say war
War in the east, war in the west
War up north, war down south
War, war, rumors of war
And until that day, the African continent
Will not know peace, we Africans will fight
We find it necessary, and we know we shall win
As we are confident in the victory
Of good over evil, good over evil, good over evil…
For all those who have unsuccessfully attempted to categorize this global war in desire of convenience will be upset
once conscious of the fact that it can’t be—it’s too complicated. It’s not singly a race war, holy war, war of economics,
war of power, war of genetic survival, war of possession, war of exploitation, etc., etc. It’s an institutionalized and everattacking conglomerate for the consummate global (maybe even universal) establishment of White supremacy and
consequential absolute dehumanization (until the death of all) of non-White people.
Marley, in his infinite insight, realized this truth and conveyed it through his powerful instruments of verbal
retaliation. He shouted loud and profound so people the world over would hear his brilliant wail: Everywhere is war,
everywhere is war. And do you now what this means? Everything and everyone is under attack everyday—not even
excluding the main culprits, who face an internal paradox of chaotic hypocrisy and unrelenting fear and unwarranted
insecurity…Everywhere, is war!
55
The fact that we still have casualties as a result of this unrelenting attack on our humanness and our lives is far
from a profound insight. With the ongoing economic, educational, psychological, political, and even military
assault on black life, there is no wonder that we have prisoners of war—poor, uninformed, self-destructive, and
confused people. Whatever modern techniques of warfare which might characterize this attack on black men,
the conditions are essentially unchanged for the fallen dead and dying, whether in hubs of slave ships, of
Southern plantations, in police-infected urban ghettoes, on AIDS deathbeds, or on death row in the prisons of
America. Death is death and death has been a constant companion of the black man (and woman) throughout
our encounter with Europeans.266
And as a result of this war and its wonderful magnitude, there are casualties, and potential casualties, of
immeasurable numbers. As a matter of fact, you (yes, you!!), may be a casualty too. This is how frank and upfront
Marley’s lyrics were—but it was necessary in order to overcome centuries of conditioning at the hands of your concealed
enemies. We have been made to block out any exhaustive awareness of the reality of the war being waged against us
because with such awareness comes the possibility of finally transcending our problems and accomplishing absolute
solutions.
“I see ten thousand chariots/And they coming with horses yeah/The riders they cover their face/So you couldn’t make
them out in smoky places.”267 Understand that you exist within the man-made parameters of a perpetual war, taught
Brother Bob, and you can alter your faith (and fate), thus becoming the true master of your soul.
In order to react victoriously and manifest an effective atmosphere of revolution, we must come to appreciate what it
takes to achieve victory—specifically, knowledge of self and enemy—and how to creatively employ that knowledge. We
must become mindful of the drastic, and often vicious, antagonism between both our and their thought process and
perception of reality, in its natural and distorted state, in order to distinguish and liberate them for the actualization of a
destiny free from destruction, whether self-imposed or self-allowed.
We no know how we and them
A go work it out
But someone will have to pay
For the innocent blood
That they shed everyday…268
…the moment people begin rejecting the mystifications on which that nihilism is based, then hope is possible.
The whole question is to know whether or not we shall develop faster than the rocket with a nuclear warhead.
And, unfortunately, the fruits of the spirit are slower to ripen than intercontinental missiles. But, after all, since
atomic war would divest any future of its meaning, it gives us complete freedom of action. We have nothing to
lose except everything. So let’s go ahead. This is the wager of our generation. If we are to fail, it is better, in
any case, to have stood on the side of those who choose life than on the side of those who are destroying.269
What is hope if not for inspired articulation of the probable desire for positive change. This is the distinct offering of
Marley’s music.
Life is one big road with lots of sings
So when you riding thru the ruts
Don’t complicate your mind
Flee from hate, mischief and jealousy
Don’t bury your thoughts
Put your vision to reality…
Wake up and live270
Bob, arguably more than any other artist, even those noted in this book, explained the essence behind the necessity
and culture of conscious struggle among the Black masses in everyday terms. He warned us of the many things placed
56
within our existence to hinder our thought process (which, in his belief, was our most direct access with and means of
actualization of the finite divinity possessed within all spiritual individuals) because free thought eventually liberates one
from oppression.
This is true only because of its ability to induce an optimal vision of reality on the person possessing free thought,
along with a complete understanding of how to conquer that reality for his or her own righteous self-preservation and
hope in its possibility. He knew that our oppressor’s greatest fear was that we would one day become conscious,
confident, and cohesive, and everything he poetically preached supported this happening.
Old pirates yes they rob I
Sold I to the merchant ships
Minutes after they took I
From the bottomless pit
But my hand was made strong
By the hand of The Almighty
We forward in this generation
Triumphantly…
Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery
None but ourselves can free our minds
Have no fear for atomic energy
Cause none of them can stop the time
How long shall they kill our prophets
While we stand aside and look
Some say it’s just a part of it
We’ve got to fulfill the book271
Within the soul of Bob existed a complex communion of awareness and frustration: awareness of the fact that
something radical had to happen if we were to get free and frustration in the overwhelming systematic suppression of such
an awesome occurrence. “So they build their world in great confusion/To force us in the devil’s illusion.”272 His lyrics
were the total testimony of this truth. Yet, although he lived in this perpetual turmoil, he stayed confident and
courageous, and was such an influential spirit and lyricist, he coerced a comparable self-confidence and courage within
his constituents. “Have no fear ca’ man mus’ have hope.” But first free your mind from all that dilutes its potential in the
despicable pursuit of genocide, if that hope is to ever become effective in the overall struggle for total liberation.
Don’t let them fool you
Or even try to school you, oh no
We’ve got a mind of your own
So go to hell if what you’re thinking
Is not right
Love would never leave us alone
In the darkness there must come out to light…
Don’t let them change you
Or even rearrange you, oh no
We’ve got a life to live
They say only, only
Only the fittest of the fittest shall survive
Stay alive273
In the promise of re-humanization, Marley recorded some of the most incendiary thoughts of the history of Black
oppression. He unflinchingly stated truths most dared to even support secretively, during an era that Black consciousness
seemed destined for popular oblivion. That is why I admire Marley maybe more even slightly more than Mayfield and
Shakur. Although both defiant in their own right, Bob Marley had a subdued certainty in his creative role that I personally
57
find hard to compare in equity to any other artist. “Live if you want to live;”274 “I rule my destiny;”275 “I don’t come to
bow/I come to conquer;”276 “Open your eyes and look within/Are you satisfied with the life your living?”277:
announcements that annihilated the dominance of any oppression. The words of Bob Marley reign immortally supreme,
both in alliance and opposition. Labeled the “overture to the Apocalypse,”278 who would dare confront the dramatic
dominance of his message?
Preacher man don’t tell me
Heaven is under the earth
I know you don’t know
What life is really worth
Is not all that glitters is gold
And half the story has never been told…
Most people think
Great God will come from the sky
Take away everything
And make everybody feel high
But if you know what life is worth
You would look for yours on earth…
We’re sick and tired of your ism and skism game
Die and go to heaven in Jesus’ name Lord
We know when we understand
Almighty God is a living man
You can fool some people sometimes
But you can’t fool all the people all the time
So know we see the light
We gonna stand up for our right279
Marley’s lyrics foretold of a Dark world reborn in uncompromising freedom that would retake the reins of selfdominion, at least, liberating the world from the oppressive objections of White supremacy. And the white elitist,
realizing that he had not justly warranted the power he coveted, feared such predictions as well as the predictor. “Men see
their dreams and aspirations/Crumble in front of their face/And all their wicked intentions to destroy/The human race.”280
He feared prophecy, thus further resisting divine law and will for the expedient reinterpretation of divinity.
Now the fire is burning
Out of control panic in the city
Wicked weeping for their gold
Everywhere the fire is burning
Destroying and melting their gold
Destroying and melting their souls281
Marley also forewarned his own people of the error in following the conspiracy authored by their oppressor whether
than the prophecy of The Most High. Realizing that such foolish faith and acceptance would only further our
enslavement, he encouraged conscious rebellion against the influence of those things (i.e. fear, envy, ignorance, and
dependence) that would require our ultimate disobedience. “Whosoever shall diggeth a pit shall bury in it/shall bury in
it.”282
Every man gotta’ right
To decide his own destiny
And in this judgment
There is no partiality
So arm in arms, with arms
58
We will fight this little struggle
Cause that’s the only way
We can overcome our little trouble…
No more internal power struggle
We come together to overcome
The little trouble
Soon we will find out
Who is the real revolutionary
Cause I don’t want my people
To be contrary…
To divide and rule
Could only tear us apart
In everyman chest
There beats a heart
So soon we’ll find out
Who is the real revolutionaries
And I don’t want my people
To be tricked by mercenaries283
Bob was a real revolutionary because he sought a change of the ownership of power between the White supremacist
who greedily sought to own it absolutely and the masses who had, for thousands and thousands of years, humbly shared it
equally and efficiently. He saw how man had been made to surrender his self-authority, thus becoming dehumanized and
reacting on the subordinate level of an animal fully commanded by its master.
Marley, an astute reader of Black history, had a firm understanding of the natural sociological patterns of African
people, and with this he extracted the abnormalities now internally infected within the masses. Primarily influenced by
the teachings of Marcus Garvey, Marley had a profound respect for the natural supremacy and self-divinity within the
essence of Black people. Marley had a pronounced esteem for Haile Selassie I, who, as emperor of Ethiopia and exalted
leader of the Rastafari movement, refused to allow his nation to be colonized and then plundered by the Europeans.
Life and Jah are one in the same. Jah is the gift of existence. I am in some way eternal, I will never be
duplicated. The singularity of every man and woman is Jah’s gift. What we struggle to make of it is our sole
gift to Jah. The process of what that struggle becomes, in time, the Truth.284
He realized that his lyrical genius was bestowed upon him in order to awake the slumbering giant, the Black masses,
into a higher state of consciousness, an extremely Black consciousness, that would allow them to bear witness to the
underlying factors behind the atrocities that affected their daily existence, consequently empowering them with the
aspiration and ability to promptly respond to and resolve those evils. But this was not at all an easy task, but to whose
accomplishment Marley offered his very mortality. “My life means nothing to me. My life is for the people.”
Many a time I sit and wonder why
This race so, so very hard to run
Then I say to my soul take courage
Battle to be won
Like a ship that’s tossed and driven
Battered by the angry sea yeah!
Say the tide of time was raging
Don’t let the fury fall on me, no285
He was keenly aware of how we had been deceived into thinking that our enslavers were the only power able to
liberate us, thus while we spent our vital time and energy begging and pleading we lost the time and energy, and,
eventually, the desire, necessary to liberate ourselves. He understood that if other people’s hands were used to secure our
59
freedom, it would be eternally left up to the will that controlled those hands just how long and to what the degree our
freedom would exist—and that, at least in Marley’s unrestricted opinion, just could neither be justified nor accepted.
However, time and circumstance would display just how effectively imbedded our collective deception and denial were.
“All my good live I’ve been a lonely man/Teaching people who don’t overstan’/And even though I’ve tried my bes’/I still
don’t find no happiness.”286
You can’t show aggression all the while. To make music is a life that I have to live. Sometimes you have to
fight with music. So it’s not just someone who studies and chats, it’s a whole development. Right now is a
more militant time on earth, because it’s Jah Jah time. But me always militant, you know. Me too militant.287
Usually the wiser, Marley had an adept ability to foreshadow the trends of time and truth. During an era where all
hope had been stripped from the people and violence reigned supreme simply because their seemed to be no other
alternative, Bob began to pursue a revolutionary platform of conscious love, pride, understanding, and optimism arguably
more potent than his previous, more militant stance. Revolution could be “a raging hurricane vast and powerful
wrenching and dredging by the roots the rottening husks of the trees of greed,” or it could be a small axe, ready to cut
them down.
He rhythmically incorporated themes of self-initiative, self-reliance, self-knowledge, and self-determination as the
most viable means for Black people to realize the light of their own freedom. He realized that war would not end war,
regardless if it was in the name of righteousness and justice. He knew of the effect actual bullets fueled by hatred and
horror, rather they be aimed at or propelled from, had on our communal soul, and adjusted his own aim in the prospect of
true peace. “We shall never secure emancipation from the tyranny of the white oppressor until we have achieved it in our
own soul.”288
He is not gone man: his work is here. He is alive. Whenever you call his name, you bring him alive. The
reservoir of music he has left behind him is like an encyclopedia: when you need to refer to a certain crisis or
situation, there will always be a Bob Marley song that will relate to it. Bob was a musical prophet.289
“The moon is high over my head, and I give my love instead,” so announced Marley during a rendition of “Jammin’”
at the April 22, 1978 Peace Concert in Kingston. Cognizant of his imminent death, Marley found solace in his courageous
determination to challenge and ultimately change, not necessary his own destiny, as he would succumb to cancer in May
of 1981, but the destiny of his people. And with this submission of endless love, he threatened to overcome the devil and
overwhelm all that he conceived and cherished.
Beat the drums of tragedy for me.
Beat the drums of tragedy and death.
And let the choir sing a stormy song
To drown the rattle of my dying breath.
Beat the drums of tragedy for me,
And let the white violins whir thin and slow,
But blow one blaring trumpet note of sun
To go with me
to the darkness
where I go.290
60
TUPAC SHAKUR
“DEFINITION OF A THUG N.I.G.G.A.291”
Rap music is a vehicle for expressing anger and defining struggle. The lyricists frequently describe themselves
within an oppressed context, and speak to others so bound. Today, there is not a more popular, direct text of
popular African-American liberation than rap music. Often, the graphic nature of the lyrics and stories incite
cries of sensationalism. That rap artists portray a bleak world, or even an offensive one, should come as no
surprise to anyone who has been to Compton, or America's other blighted urban districts. The feeling the music
imparts is a telling reflection of the neighborhood--vulgar, dirty, "obscene," with a sort of underlying funk to it
all--in both the positive and negative senses of the word.292
Through me the way into the grieving city, through me the way into eternal sorrow, through me the way among
the lost people…293
The emergence and explosion of rap music within the Black community has created a "New Negro" cultural
revolution much like that of the Harlem Renaissance and Black Aesthetic Movement. Through the creative forces given
birth by this cultural revolution, many young Blacks are now empowered with the ability to define and articulate the
Black experience, not as traditionally seen and reported by the White media (who more than often only portrays and
promotes the negative aspects of Black life), but by their own vision of and perspective on reality.
Inscrutable His ways are, and immune
to catechism by a mind too strewn
with petty cares to slightly understand
what awful brain compels his awful hand.
Yet do I marvel at this curious thing:
To make a poet black, and bid him sing!294
Independent Black recording companies such as Def Jam, No Limit Records, Suave House, Rap-a-lot, LaFace, and
Death Row, have allowed Black artists the freedom to convey the true realities of their existence on their albums without
the concern of rejection by White executives who fear such truth being told. Why would they fear the truth? One, in
many instances people who favor them (in mentality and skin color) has perpetuated the negativity behind the truth. And
two, if the truth is told to such a massive and impressionable Black audience, specifically our youth, the probability for
rebellion or revolt is raised simply because the once ignorant is no longer unaware of the forces behind their destruction
and should now react appropriately and with an explosive vengeance.
The lyrics of our immeasurable supply of rap musicians currently influence the Black masses, especially the youth,
with unparalleled impact. Inspired by the revolutionary and militant musical and non-musical forces of the late 60's,
Curtis Mayfied, the Last Poets, Malcolm X, the Nation of Islam, Five Percent Nation of Gods and Earths, and Black
Panther Party for Self-Defense, coupled with consciousness of their current realities, these artists provide vivid portraits of
the actualities of Black life, the anger and frustration felt by the Black masses, the injustices and inequalities of an
America that fears and despises Black people, and the possibility and necessity of change (revolution).
So many of our youth are dependent on rap not only as one of the few legal devices to gain economic security, but
also as the only accessible means of expression for the historically unheard American "ghetto child." Rap is the truest
social commentary of the Black masses because of its unbiased approach, which is solely due to the mentality of the
young rap artist. The creativity of our best rap lyricists display the true artistic genius of these new-age Barakas and
Giovannies.
61
These same rappers could be just as prominent and influential as writers, if only they were better prepared and
encouraged to pursue that option. Yet for the most part, Black folks, especially the youth, don't even read so how in this
hell do you expect them to be inspired to write books. Actually, that's the whole problem--we don't expect them to so they
don't believe they can. We degrade them intellectually by accepting the stereotypical viewpoint of our enemy, which is
based on our alleged inferiority and perpetuated by our continual mis-education and enforced ignorance.
Even with the prolific and often profound lyrical insights offered by the conscious Black rapper, the message is often
misconstrued by the conceptual and perceptual limitations impacted on the rapper by his or her own mis-education and
ideological immaturity. For instance, one may have an idea of how their real enemy is, but if they don't truly possess an
indisputable picture of who or what their target should be, they may in fact continue to annihilate their very allies while
their enemy survives and prospers off their eminent destruction.
Due to the mental and spiritual devastation caused by embracing a "ghetto mentality," which most rappers possess
without ever fully understanding it nor having any conceivable power to reject it, even the most conscious lyricist will be
limited in his or her capability to empower the masses. They see the need for revolution, but are restricted in the
understanding of how to achieve it. It's very similar to so-called Black leaders who can shout out million of proactive but
inconsequential (without subsequent action) slogans, but don't possess the knowledge, wisdom, and understanding
essential to the development of programs and organizations needed to carry out the themes of such slogans.
The conscious Black rapper's message is definitely a valuable starting point in the motivation of our people to action
and upliftment, but without complementary increased understanding made possible by the dissemination of information
and knowledge which can, will, and must empower the Black masses, the message is useless.
The Black rapper's limited understanding is prevalent in the several contradictions and evidences of misguidance
found within the themes of their lyrics. And even though it is not entirely the rapper's responsibility to lead the people, it
is key that he or she becomes more responsible with the message that is being portrayed by their artistic contributions.
If we really are saying rap is an art form, then we got to be true to it and be more responsible for our lyrics. If
you see everybody dying because of what you saying, it don’t matter that you didn’t make them die, it just
matters that you didn’t save them.295
If our youth are only being offered limited (short-sided) negativity through rap lyrics, coupled with the environment
of negativity that shackles their hopes and aspirations everyday of their oppressed existence, their perspective of life and
life's possibilities will usually also be negative which, as it builds and intensifies through their various unpromising reallife experiences, leads to self-destruction. For instance, most of my writings are influenced by rap music, but because I
have obtained a significant knowledge base and understanding of reality, I'm not trapped by the predominately negative
emotionalism and sensationalism of the music. I am able to offer positive solutions while still realizing the negativity of
our existence and embracing the societal views of most rap artists as portrayed through their lyrics.
Most rappers embrace a very militant, "hard core" stance, but usually this stance is geared towards being either being
a gangster, drug dealer, or "player" (womanizer). The nonconforming, relentless mentality embraced by most rappers is
misdirected and promotes not revolution or the defeat of their enemies, but rather is turn inward, thus advocating the
destruction of self. For instance, the "eye for an eye" theme found in many rap songs are usually referring to a "Black
(man's) eye for a Black (man's) eye"--self-hatred, fear, and ignorance rear their ugly heads while the true perpetuators of
our demise, who historically have been White men, remain not communicated about nor ever confronted.
Today's rap lyrics also have a dominant theme of acquiring (Black) power "by any means necessary," but the means
are also aimed at our self-destruction. Drug dealing, pandering, and robbery are rhythmically advertised ways to
achieving an exclusively materialistic empowerment, short-term wealth through illegal, violent, and destructive means.
The excuse of not having many other opportunities available to the young Black man in White America attempts to add
sympathy to their continual attempts of communal suicide and will not be tolerated. We must stop begging and blaming
the White man, and start doing for self--"by any [positive] means necessary." Long-term power comes from knowledge
which leads to peace, prosperity, and survival. Short-term wealth leads to incarceration, chaos, and short-term existence.
Many rap artists are urging Black unity, an end to Black-on-Black violence, and collective upliftment and
empowerment, but more are promoting Black vs. Black regionalism, tribalistic self-hatred and violence, and the individual
accumulation of wealth and (false and temporary) power. "Violence has been the inseparable twin of materialism, the
hallmark of its grandeur and misery....Many men cry 'Peace! Peace!' but they refuse to do the things that make for
peace."296 These contradicting messages are flowing through the minds of your youth, confusing and influencing them
into choosing negativity over positivity, self over people, and death over life.
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The materialistic madness and "got to get mine, fuck everybody else" mentality embraced by the majority of Black
rap artists only ensure the perpetuation of capitalistic exploitation for the greater benefit of forces advancing their
annihilation. The Black rapper say they want power, but are continually allowing their careers and themselves to be
controlled by mostly White hands, whose own Pale greed, hatred, and jealousy of their Black property will ensure the
continuation of Dark despair, frustration, and dependence--powerlessness. The problem is we, as a people, don't fully
understand just what power is: "Power, properly understood, is the ability to achieve purpose. It is the strength required
to bring about social, political, or economic changes....power is not only desirable but necessary in order to implement the
demands of...justice."297
Many of our most aware artists are finally realizing the truth behind the "great White lies" which are endangering our
(Black) existence. They are becoming knowledgeable of such topics as the New World Order; the apparent1 truth about
AIDS; the deliberate drugging of the Black community; the conspiracy to imprison the Black man; the deliberate misuse
of religion to confuse and pacify the masses; the systematic oppression of Black people globally in order to accumulate
White wealth and advance White supremacy; the mental enslavement that is destroying us internally as a people; the
impact of police brutality and the subsequent helplessness felt by the Black masses; the biological attack on our Black
future (poisoning of our food and water, pollution of the Black womb), etc. Not only are they becoming knowledgeable,
but they are also spreading their knowledge through music.
Due to their increased consciousness, they are becoming a severe threat to the established (White) powers that be,
and slowly are being attacked and eliminated. For example, Tupac was the quintessential Black revolutionary/rapper who
feared no one because of the firm grasp he had on the truth, but because he knew, accepted, and advanced the truth, posed
a serious threat to the White supremacist reality within the Black community and was killed. They deemed it necessary to
kill him just like they killed Malcolm, Martin, Steve Biko, and all other influential Blacks who refused to be swayed into
surrendering the lives of their people and lived everyday just to ensure our survival. I also believe that they killed
B.I.G.G.I.E. to add fuel to the fire of Black regionalism (East coast vs. West coast), hopes that it would eventually spark a
Black civil war in America that would engulf our very existence, and, perhaps, even more notably, our potential to
eventually become a competent, confident, and cohesive threat. Fortunately, it hasn't happened; yet.
Interestingly, the lives, conflict, imposing unity, and violent deaths of Tupac and the Notorious B.I.G. bare striking
parallels to that of other threatening Black leaders, most recently Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. Perhaps these
rappers were evolving into the revolutionary spirit of Malcolm and Martin, and because of this, as well as their
widespread influence and massive potential for positively impacting their community, were vehemently gunned down into
neo-martyrdom.
On a more intimate level, many rappers are expressing a very sincere need for true love, and are in search for an
escape from empty sex, infatuation, and promiscuity which may threaten their lives and our future. In a reality of bastard
children and a grave disparity in the number of Black mothers as compared to Black wives, only our most conscious
artists are seeking out reasons behind such travesties while challenging our young men to accountability, responsibility,
honesty, and commitment.
Also, the pain felt by decades of absent Black fathers and the pride in the perseverance and dedication of struggling
yet surviving Black mothers are often expressed by rappers through their lyrics. This dichotomy has created an inner
turmoil that now threatens the very sanity and survival of its many young Black victims. The cycle of inexcusable neglect
and unconditional love is on the verge of being broken, but for right now, our rappers and leaders must continue to
explore and challenge it. “Even the work that negates still affirms something and does homage to the wretched and
magnificent life that is ours.”298
Many older Blacks don't understand rap music because they don't understand my peers, who are, unfortunately but
deliberately, a collection of bewildered young Black men who are scared of death yet unknowingly advancing our (Black)
genocide. They're afraid of White power (in the forms of an uncaring and uncompromising government; an
unsympathetic, oppressive, and lethal police force; the seemingly unavoidable reality of eventual imprisonment; and the
inescapable grasp of poverty, doubt, and despair), but are not prepared to achieve Black power.
Our escapisms are all too often overemphasized machoism, alcohol, drugs (especially marijuana), and sex, but our
discouraging realities remain despite of these self-destructive devices purposely placed in our reach by the Pale hand of
1
Prior to the completion of this volume I learned from an invaluable source that AIDS was in fact a non-existent hoax intentionally
diffused throughout the world for the convenient concealment of the systematically lethal infecting, through supposedly beneficial
treatment (specifically, AZT), of the international Dark populace. The AIDS myth also aided in the devilish population control
devices and strategies which deliberately suppress the potential power and promise of a historic Black (global) majority.
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our oppressor. We must empower our minds, bodies, and souls if we are to ever achieve positive, significant, and lasting
change, and our rap artists are instrumental to our massive relaying of this uplifting message of consciousness.
Musing on roses and revolutions,
I saw night close down on the earth like a great dark wing,
and the lighted cities were like tapers in the night,
and I heard the lamentations of a million hearts
regretting life and crying for the grave,
and I saw the Negro lying in the swamp with his face blown off,
and in northern cities with his manhood maligned and felt the writhing of his viscera like that of the hare hunted
down or the bear at bay, and I saw men working and taking no joy in their work
and embracing the hard-eyed whore with joyless excitement and lying with wives and virgins in impotence.
And as I groped in darkness
and felt the pain of millions, gradually,
like day driving night across the continent,
I saw dawn upon them like the sun a vision
of a time when all men walk proudly through the earth
and the bombs and missiles lie at the bottom of the ocean like the bones of dinosaurs buried under the shale of eras,
and men strive with each other not for power or the accumulation of paper but in joy create for others the house, the
poem, the game of athletic beauty.
Then washed in the brightness of this vision,
I saw how in its radiance would grow and be nourished and suddenly burst into terrible and splendid bloom
the blood-red flower of revolution.299
“June 16, 1971/Mama gave birth/to a hell raisin’ heavenly son”300 later named Tupac Shakur. Although “born not to
make it” he did, finding the rhyme and reason required to rise above the “tribulations of a ghetto kid.”301 “Being born
with less/I must confess/Only adds on to the stress;”302 but the genetically militant spirit within Tupac refused to do
anything else but flourish amidst the commonplace trepidations and oppressive accommodations most Black youth
psychologically become enslaved by. Battling daily to secure peace, Pac, a mere mortal with extraordinary capabilities of
expression, but a mere mortal nonetheless, suffered the internal scars normal within those of rebellious consciousness, the
poor but righteous teachers, throughout the wretched history of Black domination by Whites. “Born with less but you’re
still precious.”303
Always defiant and demanding of raw disillusionment, Pac questioned his unique and threatening existence by
addressing its evolution, both finished and upcoming, or rather, conspired and prophesized: “Fuck the world cuz this is
how they made me/Scarred but still breathin’/Believe in me and you could see the victory/A warrior with jewels, can you
picture me?”
Pac was intensely personal, and with this came a brashness, a ruthlessness, a sense of uncompromising
aggressiveness evident within the furious curiosity with which the observed and discussed Black life. His lyrics included
all of the pain and frustration, hope and determination, turmoil and chaos, wisdom and creativity found concealed within
the essence of rap music as an expressive entity, as well as that of today’s Black youth as a communal spirit, in an
unprecedented and still unmatched manner of such harmonious imbalance, as if his words were the winds of some
perpetually climatic hurricane sweeping over the slumbering masses with the only intention of using the sounds stirred
into creation by those winds to awaken them.
Here in this huge, dark, steaming slum, hundreds of thousands of Negroes are herded together like cattle, most
of them with nothing to eat and nothing to do. All the senses and imaginations and sensibilities and emotions
and sorrows and desires and hopes and ideas of a race with vivid feelings and deep emotional reactions are
forced in upon themselves, bound inward by an iron ring of frustration: the prejudice that hems them in with its
four insurmountable walls. In this huge cauldron, inestimable natural gifts, wisdom, love, music, science, poetry
are stamped down and left to boil with the dregs of an elementally corrupted nature, and thousands upon
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thousands of souls are destroyed by vice and misery and degradation, obliterated, wiped out, washed from the
register of the living, dehumanized.304
Tupac Shakur was much, much more than some foul-mouthed rapper with an embarrassing abundance of gold
jewelry and too many tattoos on an already skin-scarce frame; he was a messenger of prophecy nurtured by the vengeful
insight of Black rebellion conceived long before his own conception by the likes of Joseph Cinque, Nat Turner, Frederick
Douglass, W.E.B. DuBois, Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X, H. Rap Brown, Eldridge Cleaver, Steve Biko, Huey P. Newton,
and Louis Farrakhan.
“God let me live for me to do something extremely extraordinary and that’s what I have to do….my whole life is
going to be about saving somebody. I got to represent life.”305
Committing every conscious breathe to the fulfillment of his life’s motto, Pac also encouraged us all to find
something to live for, and if this could not be accomplished, then we best had found something to die for. In relation to
Shakur’s declaration that he’d “been ready to die since [he] was born,”306 it must also be suggested that Pac possessed
some sincere understanding of his purpose ever since the commencement of his own self-consciousness. “A man’s gotta’
do what he can for his family/And pay the price of being hellbound/But I rather see hell later than see hell now.”307 This
is very profound in the fact that this understanding provided him the internal strength essential for overcoming the
external conflicts which challenged both his growth and sanity.
“Now that I’m grown I got my mind on bein’ somethin’/Don’t wanna’ be another statistic, out here doin’
nothin’/Tryin’ to maintain in this dirty game, keep it real/And I will even if it kills me…”308
Later, it would also confirm within Tupac Shakur a fearlessness invincible to the sword and shield of White
supremacy. Shakur’s extreme willingness to die for what he lived for offered his oppressors no power over him, thus,
empowering his lyrics with an equal courage to give life to by shedding light on the fundamental truths behind our reality
systematically suppressed from the masses. “I’d rather die than be a convict.”309
“Got brothers sellin’ out cause they greedy to get paid/But me, I’m comin’ from the soul/And if I don’t go gold, my
story still getting’ told/And that way they can’t stop me.”310 Tupac’s lyrics bestowed upon its conscious receivers an
inspiring freedom from fear made possible by the unraveling of layers of false pretensions and conquering of premeditated
phobias imposed upon us since the evolution of our original enslavement and since maintained ignorance. Pac conveyed a
realness so bluntly rebellious yet incessantly loyal to self that it could be rightfully charged with subliminally reminding
the people of the uselessness of being scared of reprisal by their oppressor when the only thing they could do to further
suppress us was to kill us and that, be it mental, spiritual, or physical, was already an everyday occurrence.
Did you hear about the rose that grew
from a crack in the concrete?
Proving nature’s law is wrong it
learned to walk without having feet.
Funny it seems, but by keeping it’s dreams,
it learned to breathe fresh air.
Long live the rose that grew from concrete
when no one else ever cared.311
So begins the life’s words of Tupac, also to be known as the Dark rose who sparked a spiritual revolution through his
inspirational and confrontational rhetoric. As I mentioned before, what makes Pac’s influence so distinct was its
personalness, its intimacy, its conscious commonality with the everyday realities of Black life engulfed by hatred, fear,
and distrust yet determined to survive and flourish against all odds. “Trapped in this world of sin/born as a ghetto
child/raised in this whirlwind.”312 Within the lyrics of Tupac Shakur is the offering of life after death, the redeeming
qualities of the Black man’s resurrection if you will, and within all of us trapped in this White man’s world is the purest
essence of Tupac Shakur’s lyrics.
I had to seek out the truth and unravel the snarled web of my motivations. I had to find out who I am and what I
want to be, what type of man I should be, and what I could do to become the best of which I was capable. I
understood that what had happened to me had also happened to countless other blacks and it would happen to
many, many more.313
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Everything he wrote described the aspirations, fears, and frustrations we lived. “Funny it seems, but by keeping it’s
dreams, it learned to breathe fresh air” is an encrypted symbolism decoding the fact that there is hope for us, if we just
listen to, internalize, commit, and then grow from the “fresh air” of rebellious consciousness. Oppression feeds off selflimitation born from ignorance: don’t feed its boundlessly deadly greed.
You may place the slave where you please; you may dry up to your utmost the fountains of his feelings, the
springs of his thought; you may yoke him to your labour, as an ox which liveth only to work, and workest only
to live; you may put him under any process which, without destroying his value as a slave, will debase and crush
him as a rational being; you may do this, and the idea that he was born to be free will survive it all. It is applied
to his hope of immortality; it is the ethereal part of his nature, which oppression cannot reach; it is a torch lit up
in his soul by the hand of Deity, and never meant to be extinguished by the hands of man.314
“Just cause you’re in da’ ghetto doesn’t mean you can’t grow.”315 Everything in this damned society is geared
towards stunting the Black child’s evolution into adulthood, but in spite of this the Black child must find within his or her
self, through self-knowledge, the strength to withstand the continual assaults against their achievement of independence
and power. Based on paranoia and hypocrisy, our oppressor has sustained mental and spiritual shackles that continually
bind us to the lower standards and expectations of existence, but ultimately, only self can limit self.
“Back in elementary, I thrived on misery/Left me alone I grew up amongst a dyin’ breed/Inside my mind couldn’t
find a place to rest.”316 It’s as if we are fighting a lie in the name of a half-truth: we don’t know our highest self because
the lower is overwhelmingly advertised in a violent attempt of absolute dominance. With everything built around and for
the advancement of the alleged superiority of the White male, being other than makes life in this Hellish world extremely
oppressive, suppressive, and depressive. “This ghetto life has got me catchin’ up to God quicker.”317 It is these
discouraging and desperate conditions that allow for our self-defusing of the earth-shattering threat we possess within our
innate potential. We are the most potent threat to those who control this society, though double-edged confusion
perpetually prevents the actualization of justice.
i exist in the depths of solitude
pondering my true goal
trying 2 find peace of mind
and still preserve my soul
constantly yearning 2 be accepted
and from all receive respect
never compromising but sometimes risky
and that is my only regret
a young heart with an old soul
how can there be peace
how can i be in the depths of solitude
when there r 2 inside of me
this duo within me causes
the perfect opportunity
2 learn and live twice as fast
as those who accept simplicity318
Every person who has ever declared consciousness, whether publicly or in private, has lived the life of a Tupac
Shakur. Constantly searching between self and reality in a timeless quest for sanity, we request of and for our self the
answers to such realistically philosophical inquiries as where can I go, or what could I do, to “preserve my soul?” To
deny this exciting relation would be treasonous to the righteousness of our ancestors that forever dwells within our
unknown understanding.
“Extreme at times, blinded by my passion and fury.”319 Within every oppressed person there is an internal race
coexisting with a conspired stillness, both maneuvering in its own way to conquer the other. For some, it is the (Huey P.)
Newtonian contradiction of revolutionary and reactionary suicide. Throughout the lyrics of Shakur this balance is
descriptively levied against the onslaught of awareness and the omnipotence of hopelessness.
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It is better to oppose the forces that would drive me to self-murder than to endure them. Although I risk the
likelihood of death, there is at least the possibility, if not the probability, of changing intolerable conditions.
This possibility is important, because much in human existence is based upon hope without any real
understanding of the odds.320
“Goin’ insane, never die, I live eternal, who shall I fear?/Don’t shed a tear for me nigga I ain’t happy here.”321 Pac
died young, and although the media has proclaimed it was at the cost of an assassin’s vengeful bullet, I believe it was the
ultimate decision of self-determined suicide. This could be based on his own observation when questioned on who or
what he was at war with: “Different things at different times. My own heart sometimes. There’s two niggas inside me.
One wants to live in peace, and the other won’t die unless he’s free.”
Somewhere in the middle
Of my mind
Is a nigga
On the tight rope
Screamin’ let ‘em die
Can’t lie
I’m a thug
Drownin’ in my own blood
Lookin’ for the reason
That my momma
Strung out on drugs
Down to die
For everything
I represent322
But we must learn from Shakur’s weakness, if it should even be labeled as such, for if we don’t, we, collectively,
shall be doomed to eternally repeat it. The Almighty has historically provided the masses with guides and models of
divine living. Now, whether they are recognized as such or not is greatly dependent on those in possession of the minds
of the people, and whether or not they are concerned with its development or degradation. Most people have never
considered Tupac Shakur as such a divine inspiration; but in my perception he could be nothing else. And by way of this
godly guidance, we should discover the possibility of our own deliverance. “Life is a traffic jam sincerely/Stretch your
mind, spoon-feed your soul.”323
When the entire world is covertly crazy, it is often those who overtly appear insane that truly possess any significant
amount of sanity. “If you could walk a mile in my shoes you’d be crazy too/with nothing to lose.”324 In Shakur’s case,
you have a man, a troubled man of historic commonality, immensely conscious and thus justifiably nonconforming, who
denied denial and glorified only, or rather, mostly, that which would secure the possibility of his, and due to his natural
role as messenger, our, survival outside the shackles. “What I want to do is form a society in which we can raise
ourselves;…I want to be apart of the generation that builds the groundwork for us to raise each other.” Now, does that
sound like the thoughts of someone who was just a rapper. No, these are the words of someone who sought to
revolutionize history, and thus our study of his words is of utmost value to our ultimate victory.
Today is filled with anger
fueled with hidden hate
scared of being outcast
afraid of common fate
Today is built on tragedies
which no one wants 2 face
nightmares 2 humanities
and morally disgraced
Tonight is filled with rage
violence in the air
children bred with ruthlessness
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because no one at home cares
Tonight I lay my head down
but the pressure never stops
knowing at my sanity
content when I am dropped
But 2morrow I c change
a chance 2 build a new
Built on spirit intent on Heart
and ideals based on truth
and tomorrow I wake with second wind
and strong because of pride
2 know I fought with all my heart
2 keep my dream alive325
“My family didn’t know what to do with me/was I somebody they despise/curious look in they eyes/as if they
wonder if I’m dead or alive.”326 Black people have missed the underlying meaning behind the lyrics of Tupac, thus have
spurned his wisdom as whimsical vulgarity set to a beat. This has thwarted the revolutionary potential of his thug poetry,
forcing the masses to accept media misconceptions of both the man and his lyrical observations. “Simply because you
nervous, let me start off with my conversation/Hoping my information alleviates the hesitation….My conversations are
getting deeper, but first let me ask/Are you afraid of a thug?”327
“Fear always springs from ignorance,” so observed Ralph Waldo Emerson. No one will ever dare claim any direct
correlation of Emerson’s philosophy to the negative perception of Pac’s poetry held by most people, but I must declare its
adopted relevance to my study of Shakur’s lyrical legacy. So, if I am ever to profess any profound insight on Tupac’s
lyrics within this volume, I must first relinquish any ignorance from the reader on the artist’s objectives and intentions for
his writing. This will be accomplished through continual relation of his intimate art to our sociological reality. “I hope
you see the light before it’s ruined.”328
There are things we can’t explain
so we usually tend to ignore
the unpleasant side to the human race
like poverty and war
it’s déjà vu when i cry
when i see you i realize it even more
i know your heart like i know mine
because i’ve seen your soul before
i recognize your tear drops
and the clouds inside your head
i related to your sorrow
and every word you said
the creator to so many things
we never realize what for
now i know why i met you
because i’ve seen your soul before
the space between your heart and your mind
is sometimes called the soul
the personification of your morals
and your emotional control
stronger than the human spirit
the human soul you can’t ignore
faster than your thoughts
because i’ve seen your soul before329
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“Pardon my thug poetry/But suckers is born everyday and fear of man grows on trees.”330 Pac, with his furiously
infectious “ghetto factual” delivery, shed necessary light on the darkness afflicted upon the Black youth. “We probably in
Hell already, our dumb asses not knowin’/Everybody kissin’ ass to go to heaven ain’t goin’/Put my soul on it, I’m fightin’
devil niggaz daily/Plus the media be crucifying brothers severely.”331
By teaching the youth, he hoped to assure their salvation. By instilling truth within them through what he said, he
intended for all the falsehood now engulfing them to be release through their own newfound self-determination. “I try to
effect by kicking facts.”332 He knew the inherent power of deception and ignorance, how it sustained the overall
dominance of our oppressor, and that only truth and knowledge would overcome such a devilish force. “We cannot
continue to live illusions. For us to do so is only a prologue to certain death.”333
They claim that I’m violent, just cause I refuse to be silent
These hypocrites are havin’ fits, cause I’m not buyin’ it
Defyin’ it, envious because I will rebel against
Any oppressor, and this is known as self-defense
I show no mercy, they claim that I’m the lunatic
But when the shit gets thick, I’m the one you go and get
Don’t look confused, the truth is so plain to see
Cause I’m the nigga that you sell-outs are ashamed to be
In every jeep and every car brothers stomp this
I’m Never Ignorant Getting Goals Accomplished
The underground railroad on an uprise
This time the truth’s getting’ told, heard enough lies
I told ‘em fight back, attack on society
If this is violence, then violent’s what I gotta’ be
If you investigate you’ll find out where it’s comin’ from
Look through our history, America’s the violent one
Unlock my brain, break the chains of your misery
This time the payback for evil shit you did to me
They call me militant, racist cause I will resist
You wanna’ censor somethin’, motherfucker censor this
My words are weapons, and I’m steppin’ to the silent
Wakin’ up the masses, but you claim that I’m violent334
“The more you learn, the more resentful you are of this white man. Then you see how he’s tricking your people,
emasculating your men, raping your women and using his power to keep you down.”335 Many people have labeled
Shakur’s lyrics as hate-filled and blatantly violent, even racist, but the truth is the truth, and that is all that he told—love it
or fear it. “I guess cause I’m black boy/I’m supposed to say ‘peace’, sing songs, and get capped on.”336 What Tupac did,
in a way unpopular and uncompromising to the times in which he did it, was look at the historical, psychological, and
sociological patterns of the world, his world, our world, and utilizing his distinctly urban, yet remarkably wise, perception,
wrote about what he saw, sometimes reassuring, other times resurrecting the consciousness of his constituents. “They
won’t be happy till I’m banned/The most dangerous weapon: an educated Black man.”337
The whole world of mankind has been affected by the presence of whites. Freedom is good, justice is good,
equity is good, righteousness is good. Now, the question we have to ask is: Have whites, in general, been good
to the principle of freedom where the darker people are concerned? Answer: No. Have whites, as a body, been
good to the principle of justice where the darker people are concerned? No. If you look at the moral laws laid
down by the prophets of God, have they, as a body, lived up to that? The answer, of course, is no. Well,…what
about you black people? Well, in reality, neither have we, okay? But they, being the leaders, have to bear the
heaviest responsibility because they are the people in power. Now, can that condition of evil and rebellion to
divine law be changed? The answer is yes.338
“They just can’t stand the reign, or the occasional pain/From a man like me, who goes against the grain/Sometimes I
do it in vain, so with a little bass and treble/Hey mister! It’s time for me to explain that I’m the rebel.”339 In order to
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change something, you must observe and analyze it, discuss and confront it, and, lastly, advance feasible means and
methods to alter it, whether they be positive or negative. Pac, for lack of proper and proficient guidance, often defiled and
deified the boundaries between revolutionary progression and counter-progression in an attempt to establish social
redemption for those for which redemption was long overdue. “And now I’m like a major threat/Cause I remind you of
the things you were made to forget.”340
[The Black man’s past in America is] of rape, fire, torture, castration, infanticide, rape; death and humiliation;
fear by day and night, fear as deep as the marrow of the bone; doubt that he was worthy of life, since everyone
around him denied it; sorrow for his women, for his kinfolk, for his children, who need his protection, and
whom he could not protect; rage, hatred and murder, hatred for white men so deep that it often turned against
him and his own, and made all love, all trust, all joy impossible.341
Pac was a strong Black man, who encouraged other Black males to strengthen, or just realize the possibility of, their
manhood through expanded consciousness of their self, their enemies, and the reality in which they existed. “Today
things change, it’s a shame/They blame it on the youth cause the truth looks change.”342 He poetically expounded on the
significance of being Black, especially young and male, in a White man’s world, not to the point of overkill but to its
necessary evolutionary conclusions.
Much of what I say might sound like it’s stirring up trouble, but it’s the truth. Much of what I say might sound
like it’s hate, but it’s truth….The best thing to put the white man to fright is the truth. He can’t take the
truth….If you are afraid to tell the truth, why you don’t deserve freedom.343
The most significant contribution of Tupac was not the incredible number of hit records he made, but in the manner
and effectiveness in which his lyrics hit home. “My word of flame burn niggas inside their brain.”344 Or in other words,
he made a people exclusively taught how not to think, think.
He rapped about what great Black thinkers such as critically acclaimed and academically respected Cornel West
wrote about: “Race is the most explosive issue in American life precisely because it forces us to confront the tragic facts
of poverty and paranoia, despair and distrust.” And who better to actualize issues of racial oppression which those in
academia now only dared to theorize than someone as close to the symptoms of deliberate socio-economic degradation as
Tupac Shakur, Mr. “Thug Life” himself.
I remember Marvin Gaye used to sing to me
He had me feelin’ like Black was da’ thing to be
And suddenly da’ ghetto didn’t seem so tough
And though we had it rough, we always had enough
I huffed and puffed about my curfew and broke the rules
Ran with the local crew, and had a smoke or two
And I realize mama really paid the price
She nearly gave her life, to raise me right
And all I had to give her was my pipe dream
Of how I’d rock the mic, and make it to the big screen
I’m tryin’ to make a dollar out of fifteen cents
It’s hard to be legit and still pay the rent
And in the end it seems I’m headin’ for the pen
I try to find my friends, but they’re blowin’ in the wind
Last night my buddy lost his whole family
It’s gonna’ take the man in me to conquer this insanity
It seems the rain’ll never let up
I try to keep my head up, and still keep from getting’ wet up
You know it’s funny when it rains it pours
They got money for wars, but can’t feed the poor
Say there ain’t no hope for the youth and the truth is
It ain’t no hope for the future
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And then they wonder why we crazy
I blame my mother, for turning my brother into a crack baby
We ain’t meant to survive cause it’s a setup
And even though you’re fed up
Huh, ya’ got to keep your head up345
So what he used a lot of “bad” words to express himself; life, as a conscious Black person, is bad. “Racism is a
human problem and a crime that is absolutely so ghastly that a person who is fighting racism is well within his rights to
fight against it by any means necessary until it is eliminated.”346 So what if his lyrics seemed bitter; “I’m bitter cause I’m
dyin’, so much I haven’t seen.”347 So what if his words apparently attacked society; “I got beef with a sick society that
doesn’t give a shit and they too quick to say goodbye to me.”348
We cannot continue to label Tupac as some crazy nigger unworthy of scholarly consideration just because he didn’t
confine himself the safety net of “proper” communication. We can’t allow diction to deny this poet the proper
comparison with a Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mayfield, or Bob Marley. We live in an overtly vulgar society
encompassed by a covert intensity yet to be massively comprehended; thus, Tupac Shakur was justified in his artistic role
as Thug N.I.G.G.A. “It’s gonna’ take the man in me to conquer this insanity.”
My mission is to be more than just a rap musician
The elevation of today’s generation
If I could make ‘em listen
Prison ain’t what we need
No longer stuck in greed
Time to plan, strategize
My family’s gotta’ eat
Tryin’ to make sumptin’ out of nuttin’
No pleasure in this suffering neighborhood
Would it be good
If they could out all the bustin’
The liquor and the weed to cussin’
Sending love out to my block
The struggle never stops349
“They say my ghetto instrumental/Detrimental to kids/As if they can’t see the misery in which they live.”350 Shakur
was right in saying our youth know things are wrong with their existence, but what he maybe failed to realize sufficiently
was their ignorance of the causal connections which dominated their man-made reality. Nevertheless, his observations
were very beneficial to sparking more of a desire within our youth to wholly understand the underlying factors affecting
their situation.
“Hope to raise my young nation/In this world of greed/Currency means nothing if you still ain’t free/Money breeds
jealousy/Take the game from me.”351 This is one of the most profound statements attributed to Pac’s poetry in regards to
both his objective and the main objective of most Black youth today. Why? Because he counters our oppressor’s most
utilized tool in the perpetuation of our exploitation and enslavement: the allegedly almighty dollar. He attacks the
institutionalized myth that money solves all problems by boldly declaring that money means nothing if you still must
depend absolutely on someone else, especially if it’s your oppressor, for the necessities of survival. “Before I close my
eyes I fantasize I’m livin’ well/Then I awake and realize I’m just a prisoner in hell.”352
I’ll never, never trade my self-determination for a car, cheap mass-produced clothes, clapboard house, or a
couple of nights a week at the go-go. Control over the circumstances that surround my existence is of the first
importance to me. Without this control, or with control in someone else’s hands, I am forever insecure, subject
at all times to the whim and caprice of the man in control, and you and I know how whimsical some men can
be.353
Shakur lyrically questioned the lasting effects of our premeditated lack of self-determination: What if they reinstituted legal and blatant segregation and all of their banks closed its doors to Black people, who then would cash the
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petty checks they gave us? What if their gas stations would not allow cars, no matter how expensive, being driven by
Black people to fill up with their gas? What if their stores would shut its doors to Black people, how would we feed
ourselves, clothe ourselves, supply ourselves? What if their electric company, their water company, their housing and
rental companies, their auto manufacturers, their schools, their insurance agencies, their phone company, etc., etc. would
no longer need Black dollars, thereby making them obsolete and invalid; what, “rich” Black man or woman, would you
do? Probably die from lack of self-preparation, reliance, and defense. This is what Pac was warning us about, but you
didn’t hear it, or maybe couldn’t overcome your fear of the commitment and truth within it. Damned by illusion and
confusion, “niggas are [stilled] scared of revolution.”354
During a certain stage in the psychological transformation of a subjected people who have begun struggling for
their freedom, an impulse to violence develops in the collective unconscious. The oppressed people feel an
uncontrollable desire to kill their masters. But the feeling itself gives rise to myriad troubles, for the people,
when they first become aware of the desire to strike out against the slavemaster, shrink from this impulse in
terror. Violence then turns in upon itself and the oppressed people fight among themselves: they kill each other,
and do all the things to each other they would, in fact, like to do to the master. Intimated by the superior armed
might of the oppressor, the colonial people feel that he is invincible and that it is futile to even dream of
confronting him.355
Then, to couple this overt tactic, the oppressors of Black life have systematically instilled a sophisticated self-hatred
within the psyche of their property to manipulate our reactions throughout our entire lives. We have been made to
become hate; “can’t you see we’re raised to all be thugs.”356 This is so we could never conceive rising above the chaos
that currently controls us; so we could never become self-loving to the point of constructing a positive reality independent
of enemy influence, preferring to always destroy and despise, even, rather, especially, towards self.
As Frantz Fanon realized: “Hate is not inborn; it has to be constantly cultivated, to be brought into being, in conflict
with more or less recognized guilt complexes. Hate demands existence, and he who hates has to show his hate in
appropriate actions and behaviors; in a sense, he has to become hate.” For anyone to claim this brilliant observation not
true in regards to today’s Black youth who grow up to be lost souls and despondent slaves to the constitutionalized chaos
and confusion of White supremacy would require an extreme degree of either unconsciousness or stupidity. Pac was
neither.
I thought I hit rock bottom, they ban my album, point tha’ finga’
I guess nobody loves a real nigga’ slash rap singer
I thought I’d bring a little truth to the young troops
I brought proof that the niggaz need guns too357
When asked what motivated his poetry, Tupac Shakur elaborated: “Poverty, needs, wants, pain. Now, I’m dealing
with a more military type of philosophy—to mix the street life with respected, known and proven military philosophy.
So, when I’m rapping and talking that hardcore shit, at least it’ll be from a military mindest.” Does this sound like some
“thugged-out” rapper or a misunderstood, or perhaps underestimated, underground revolutionary?
When asked why do so many young Black males identify with his message, he bluntly replied: “Cause we’re all
soldiers, unfortunately. Everybody’s at war with different things. With ourselves. Some are at war with the
establishment. Some of us are at war with our own communities.”
They got a nigga shedding tears
Reminiscin’ on my past fears
Cause shit was hectic for me last year
It appears that I’ve been marked for death
My heartless breath, the underlying cause of my arrest
My life is stressed, and no rest forever weary
My eyes stay teary for all the brothers that are buried in the cemetery
Shit is scary, how black-on-black crime legendary
But at times unnecessary, I’m gettin’ worried
Teardrops and closed caskets
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The three strikes law is drastic
And certain death for us ghetto bastards
What can we do when we’re arrested but open fire
Life in the pen ain’t for me cause I’d rather die
But don’t cry through your despair
I wonder if the Lord still cares for us niggaz on welfare
And who cares if we survive
The only time they notice a nigga is when he clutchin’ on a four-five
My neighborhood ain’t the same
Cause all these little babies goin’ crazy
And they sufferin’ in the game
And I swear it’s like a trap358
Shakur’s more socially defiant lyrics would lead one to believe in the inevitability of the clash between those who
enslaved and those who had became aware and tired of being enslaved. He conveyed the frustration of a Black nation
conscious of the systematic savagery that suppressed their aspirations. He encouraged us to comprehend, with an
appropriate response against, the destructive progressions painfully evident within a society dedicated on our systematic
subservience and eventual extermination. He revisited the revolutionary call of his Black Panther forefathers who warned
their oppressor that: “Black people, forced to respond with a form of War of Salvation that in the chaos of carrying it out
and the attempt to repress it, will gut this country and utterly destroy it. Before we accept Genocide, we will inflict Total
Destruction upon Babylon.”
Killing us one by one
In one way or another
America will find a way to eliminate the problem
One by one
The problem is the troubles in the
Black youth of the ghettoes
And one by one
We are being wiped off the face of this earth
At an extremely alarming rate
And even more alarming is the fact
That we are not fighting back
Brothers, sistas, niggas,
When I say niggas it is not the nigga
We are grown to fear
It is not the nigga we say as if it has no meaning
But to me it means
Never Ignorant Getting Goals Accomplished
Niggas what are we going to do
Walk blind into the line or fight
Fight and die if we must like Niggas359
“I see no justice/All I see is niggas dying fast/The sound of a gun blast/Then watch the hearse pass.”360 Pac
witnessed an enormous amount of unjustified death throughout his life, and discussed it through his rhyme. Yet more
significantly, he reported on who he saw doing the killing. As if he had inherited the journalistic instinct of an Ida B.
Wells, who over a century ago reported the excused lynching of innumerable Black men, Pac described both the modernday lynched and lyncher, the latter of which, specifically the racist White police who legally terrorized the Black
community.
“Niggas ain’t just the blacks/Also a gang of motherfuckas dressed in blue slacks/They say niggas hang in packs and
their attitude is shitty/Tell me who’s the biggest gang of niggas in the city.”361 What’s a more accurate definition of a
nigga, or nigger? An ignorant individual whose ignorance breeds an overwhelming fear that eventually results in a
stifling intolerance and violent hatred of those persons most ignorant about, not to exclude possibly self. Sounds familiar.
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Regrettably, it does. Yet the most horrific truth is that the real killer is continually concealed by denial and deception; the
police are just his paid employees, and we are just his slaves. Think about that. “The police love to break a nigga/Send an
upstate cause they straight-up hate the niggas.”362
…the real criminals in this society are not all of the people who populate the prisons across the state, but those
people who have stolen the wealth of the world from the people. Those are the criminals….so every time a
black child in this city dies, we should indict them for murder, because they’re the ones who killed that black
child.363
“Whole family behind bars/And they wonder why we scarred.”364 Our oppressor knows the intrinsic value of strong
family networks in the creation or rather, rebuilding, of competitive nations; thus, throughout the entire history of Black
subjugation, the family structure has been attacked and altered for the sole purpose of perpetually unchallenged soul
purchase. What better means of division and conquest than by the institutionalized criminalization for the subsequent
incarceration of a race.
The inequitable incarceration of Black people, and the Black male in particular, is more of a convenient act of group
potentiality repression than an obvious method of mass physical murder or inexpensive manual labor alternative. “Even
thou you innocent you still a nigga, so they figure/Rather have you behind bars than triggers.”365
The oppressor, who dominates society in the cover of hypocritical silence, knows that with the intensification of his
genocidal advancements against a now obsolete Black labor force there comes the possibility of a more motivated
rebellion by the targeted masses. He knows that bullets are not always the answer to his problems, and through his
diabolical genius devises means of limiting the physical rather than simply destroying it. Of course, this is made easier
with the systematic strangling of the Black mind and spirit. Yet, when all else fails, he is more than willing to employ his
militaristic might to justify that his wrong is in fact right.
Violence in the American situation is inescapable. White society is violent, white American society is
particularly violent, and white American society is especially violent towards blacks. Slavery was founded and
maintained by violence, and in the 100 years since the “Emancipation” of slaves in the U.S. the society has
continued to do black people violence by denying them any power or influence (except for the occasional
individual). Their interests are therefore ignored, so that thousands of black babies die each year because of lack
of proper food, shelter, and medicine, while hundreds of thousands are destroyed emotionally and intellectually
because of conditions of poverty and discrimination. This is the worst sort of violence, and it is accompanied by
many acts of individual violence carried out by white citizens, police, and sheriffs against blacks. Most
incidents of rioting in recent years arose spontaneously out of self-defense and out of anger against brutality.
When black Americans react to meet force with force this should surprise nobody, because even the most
harmless animal will finally turn in desperation against its hunters.366
“When they ask me, when will the violence cease?/When your troops stop shootin’ niggaz down in the street.”367
Again, the why behind the drama must be addressed in order for the when it will be stopped to be decided. Why does
White power deem it absolutely necessary to react so violently to the mere presence of Black potentiality? Why must
they kill us so repetitively—and with perpetual impunity? Why Pac? “They kill you to control ya’/Pay top dollar for your
soul?”368 Who are they? The folks not dying daily from drug abuse related afflictions, the lethal byproducts of poverty,
misplaced hate, hopelessness, bullets that ricochet from the sadistic intentions of racist cops, and the conveniently
concealed yet explosively emerging reality of A.I.D.S. throughout their young community. But why? Fear. Of what?
Change, or rather, retribution.
Now of course I want peace on the streets
But realistically paintin’ perfect pictures
Ain’t never work my misery was so deep
Couldn’t sleep through all my pressures
And my quest for cash
I learned fast using violent measures
Memories of adolescent years there was unity
But after puberty we brought war to our community
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So many bodies droppin’ it’s got to stop
I want to help but still I’m steppin’
Keepin’ my weapon must protect myself
The promise of a better tomorrow
Ain’t never reach me
Plus my teachers were too petrified to teach me
Sippin’ Thunderbird and grape Kool-Aid
Callin’ Earl since my stomach was empty
It seduced me to fuck the world
Watch my little homies lose their childhoods to guns
Nobody cries no more cause we all die for fun
So why you ask me if I want peace
If you can’t grant it
Niggas fightin’ across the whole planet369
“The American dream, though it seems that it’s attainable/They’re pulling your sleeve, don’t believe/Cause it will
strangle ya’.”370 If we are not even meant to survive then how in this world within the existing chaos it has been brought
asunder can we dare succeed or have dreams fulfilled?
They got dough but they hate us though
You better keep your mind on the real shit
And fuck tryin’ to get with these crooked ass hypocrites
The way they see it, we was meant to be kept down
Just can’t understand why we gettin’ respect now
Mama told me they’re be days like this
But I’m pissed cause it stays like this371
Existing in a foreign land based on the demonic maintenance of economic differences and divisions, Black people
have long been the alliterate victims of a history authored by Pale hands. We are a murdered people, assassinated by the
enslavement of our minds and stagnation of our souls, blinded by the golden glow of Dark blood that forever flows
through the streets of our communal death row. “I watch the murder rate increases and even worse/The epidemic and
diseases, what is the future?/The projects lookin’ hopeless, where/More and more brothers givin’ up and don’t care.”372
The incomparable scholar Manning Marable described our historic predicament best by stating:
The most striking fact about American economic history and politics is the brutal and systematic
underdevelopment of Black people….At the highest level of underdevelopment, the daily life of the Black poor
becomes a continuous problematic, unresolved set of dilemmas which confront each person at the most
elementary core of their existence. The patterns of degradation are almost unrelenting, and thrust upon every
individual and family a series of unavoidable choices which tend to dehumanize and destroy many of their
efforts to create social stability or collective political integrity.373
Marable continues:
Each oppressed person under capitalism must come to the realization that his/her death is a requirement for the
continued life of the system. Corporate economics requires the existence of an undernourished, half-educated
working class; millions of persons caught in perpetual penury, filth and disease; hundreds of thousands
imprisoned, and millions more arrested annually; the development of the periphery, and the systematically
elimination of the weak, the young, and the homeless.374
And when the most blinded slaves proclaim that their Blackness is no longer an antagonistic factor in the absolute
wealth accumulation of White supremacy, the enslavers secretly maintain their sadistic stronghold on the truth far away
from the masses.
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The rich have always used racism to maintain power. To hate someone, to discriminate against them, and to
attack them because of their racial characteristics is one of the most primitive, reactionary, ignorant ways of
thinking that exists.375
With the two-fold reality of overwhelming poverty and self-hatred comprising the fundamental crisis of the Black
masses, spiritual degradation becomes the inescapable rule and accomplice of economic genocide. When and where there
is no hope among the people in regards to obtaining or even witnessing the slightest degree of freedom, evidence has
found that Black folks have become the most ignorant of self and reality and most fearful and dependent of White power.
In other words, they become emasculated and dehumanized by internal and intentional “ghettoization.”
“Why must I sock a fella’, just to live large like Rockefeller?”376 Our premeditated poverty often influences violent
reactions, usually directed at those just as victimized as the direct perpetrator, deemed necessary to survive in a moneydominated, over-materialistic environment. So continues our conditioned cycle of self-defeat and destruction in the name
of money over self-determination. “Internally I live in sin/Until the moment that they let me breathe again.”377
It cannot be denied that some very important advantages have accrued to the black man from his deportation to
this land, but it has been at the expense of his manhood. Our nature in this country is not the same as it appears
among the lordly natives of the interior of Africa, who have never felt the trammels of a foreign yoke. We have
been dragged into the depths of degradation. We have been taught a cringing servility. We have been drilled
into contentment with the most undignified circumstances. Our finer sensibilities have been blunted. There has
been an almost utter extinction of all that delicacy of feeling and sentiment which adorns character. The
temperament of our souls has become harder or coarser, so that we can walk forth here, in this land of
indignities, in ease and in complacency, while our complexion furnishes ground for every species of social insult
which an intolerant prejudice may choose to inflict….But a change is coming over us.378
In order for Black people to regain control of their lives, the economic foundations of White supremacy must be
crumbled into dust by the hands of the Black man and woman. Yet, if this is to be a futuristically successful venture, we
must equip ourselves with the institutions necessary for the sustaining of life. Until these things are realized and
actualized, peace or progress of any degree or type for Black people is perpetually prohibited. “We can’t have peace til
the niggaz get a piece too.”379
Amerika, Amerika, Amerikkka
I charge you with the crime of rape, murder, and assault
For suppressing and punishing my people
I charge you with robbery for robbing me of my history
I charge you with false imprisonment for keeping me trapped in the projects
And the jury finds you guilty on all accounts
And you are to serve the consequences of your evil schemes
Prosecutor do you have any more evidence380
“The Seal [of the United States] and the Constitution reflect the thinking of the founding fathers, that this was to be a
nation by White people and for White people….non-White people were to be the burden bearers for the real citizens of
this nation.”381 What historic occurrences can you recall that suggests anything other than Farrakhan’s announcement?
Before you continue to rack your brains in search of a worthless exception, let me tell you that there are none. Regardless
of what those false prophets and promise-makers tell the masses, remember that it’s all a premeditated plan for
pacification and persecution. “Who knows what tomorrow brings/In this world where everyone lies.”382
This is for the masses, the lower classes
The ones you left out
Jobs were givin’, better livin’
But we were kept out
Made to feel inferior, but we’re the superior
Break the chains in our brains that made us fear ya’
Pledge allegiance to a flag that neglects us
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Honor a man who refuses to respect us
Emancipation, proclamation, please
Nigga just said that to save the nation
These are lies that we all accepted
Say no to drugs but the governments keep it
Running through out our community
Killing the unity
The war on drugs is a war on you and me
And they say this is the home of the free
But if you ask me it’s all about hypocrisy
The constitution, yo’, it don’t apply to me
Lady liberty still the bitch lied to me
Steady strong nobody’s gonna’ like what I pumpin’
But it’s wrong to keep someone from learning something
So get up, it’s time to start nation building
I’m fed up, we gotta’ start teaching children
That they can be all that they wanna’ be
There’s much more to life than just poverty383
Pac understood that once we organized in the name of self-defense, our morally weak and cowardly enemy would
respond either in all-out annihilation or final respect for our acknowledged possibility for power. He knew that we must
steer clear of society’s tendency of “making men despair and in keeping them from taking responsibility for their own life
with all its weight of errors and greatness.”384 He was mindful of the strength gained from conscious struggle and how
weak Black folks had been made to become due to absence of conscious struggle in our daily lives.
NIGHTMARE, that’s what I am
America’s nightmare
I am what you made me
The hate and evil that you gave me
I shine as a reminder of what you have done to my people for four hundred plus years
You should be scared
You should be running
You should be trying to silence me
But you cannot escape fate
Well, it is my turn to come
Just as you rose you shall fall
By my hands385
By trying to persuade his audience, especially the youth, through his rebellious lyrics to become more complete,
conscious, compelling, and confident human beings, Shakur supported the profound revolution long occurring within the
minds and souls of Black people that sought to destroy the barriers purposely placed within their path to the promise land.
Through critically conscious commentary, he hoped to convert these unique internal changes into external conditions of
constructive optimism.
“United we stand, divided we fall/They can shoot one nigga/But they can’t take us all.”386 Shakur understood that if
any lasting and significant change was to occur within this racially oppressive and violent society, it must begin with the
unity of the oppressed and brutalized. “The unity of the people is the greatest weapon against the system’s works.
Therefore, our unity is so important. Therefore, our unity is attacked.”387
But no mere mortal can be repressed nor victorious eternally, thus within our desperation for change in position lies
the essence of our prophetic challenge to successfully revolutionize our destiny. “The present American ‘system’ can
never produce freedom for the black man,”388 so we must design and sign our own emancipation proclamation. “What is
it we all fear, reflections in the mirror/We can’t escape fate, the end is getting nearer.”389 Destruction lies ahead for us all
unless we force changes upon the destiny of the world due to its present dispossession by the amoral enemies of humanity.
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We are indeed a race in a race against time with only so much blood to shed due to our misaligned reluctance to
defend ourselves. We must redirect our entire thought process and sociological patterns so that we can confidently
challenge the chains emplaced by an oppressive society. “Conspiracy surrounds me/So I’m an outlaw/From now until
eternity.”390
So we of this present generation are also witnessing how the enslavement of millions of black people in this
country is now bringing White America to her hour of judgment, to her downfall as a respected nation. And
even those Americans who are blinded by childlike patriotism can see that it is only a matter of time before
White America too will be utterly destroyed by her own sins, and all traces of her former glory will be removed
from this planet forever.391
“Cause this game brings lessons for your eyes to see/Though things change the future’s still inside of me/We must
remember that tomorrow comes after the dark/So you will always be in my heart with unconditional love.”392 This
remarkable young Black man surrendered his own mortality to spark the change necessary for the achievement of our
collective resurrection. Who would dare negatively criticize someone so worthy to be glorified for his contributions to the
possibility of Black positivity.
He was a straight soldier who evolved into our shining Black prince. He was a brilliant poet with tremendous social
insight. He was so many things, but above all, he was always himself: Tupac Shakur, a lost soul who rebuked ignorance
while always getting goals accomplished.
In scary night I wandered, praying,
Lord God my harshener,
speak to me now or let me die;
speak, Lord, to this mourner.
And came at length to livid trees
where Ibo warriors
hung shadowless, turning in wind
that moaned like Africa,
Their belltongue bodies dead, their eyes
alive with the anger deep
in my own heart. Is this the sign,
the sign forepromised me?
The spirits vanished. Afraid and lonely
I wandered on in blackness.
Speak to me now or let me die.
Die, whispered the blackness.
And wild things gasped and scuffled in
the night; seething shapes
of evil frolicked upon the air.
I reeled with fear, I prayed.
Sudden brightness clove the preying
darkness, brightness that was
itself a golden darkness, brightness
so bright that it was darkness.393
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I offer the following poem, “Bury Me In a Free Land,” as a historical prayer, prewritten by Frances E. W. Harper, in
conscious and committed remembrance of the legacy unrealized and prophecy unfulfilled of the Black men discussed
primarily within this volume. If they are to ever truly rest, we must create the revolutionary changes necessary for
consummate peace. Thank you Curtis, Bob, and Pac for surrendering your life’s work to the success of our timeless
struggle.
If I am to give of my final self for the serenity of my people, to uplift their fearful, doubtful whispers thereby creating
the possibility of an almighty choir liberated by conscious unity and worthy of God’s audience alone where at first laid
only a ruined mob, a miserable race of ghosts in black face, than my sole regret is the finiteness of my humble mortality
coupled by the disastrous desperateness of change. I beg of The Most High to let the words I have so bravely and
intelligently spoken echo within the memories of the masses for the eternities of empowerment through equity that is sure
to follow the current centuries of wicked dehumanization and unjustifiable domination.
Make me a grave where’er you will,
In a lowly plain, or a lofty hill;
Make it among earth’s humblest graves,
But not in a land where men are slaves.
I could not rest if around my grave
I heard the steps of a trembling slave;
His shadow above my silent tomb
Would make it a place of fearful gloom.
I could not rest if I heard the tread
Of a coffle gang to the shambles led,
And the mother’s shriek of wild despair
Rise like a curse on the trembling air.
I could not sleep If I saw the lash
Drinking her blood at each fearful gash,
And I saw her babes torn from her breast,
Like trembling doves from their parent nest.
I’d shudder and start if I heard the bay
Of bloodhounds seizing their human prey,
And I heard the captive plead in vain
As they bound afresh his galling chain.
If I saw young girls from their mother’s arms
Bartered and sold for their youthful charms,
My eye would flash with a mournful flame,
My death-paled cheek grow red with shame.
I would sleep, dear friends, where bloated might
Can rob no man of his dearest right;
My rest shall be calm in any grave
Where none can call his brother a slave.
I ask no monument, proud and high,
To arrest the gaze of the passers-by;
All that my yearning spirit craves,
Is bury me not in a land of slaves.
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1
Charles H. Fuller, Jr., The Rise, p. 37.
Welton Smith, “malcolm.”
3
Renee Winegarten, Writers and Revolution. (New York: New Viewpoints, 1974), p. ix.
4
Del Jones, Culture Bandits Vol. I. (Philadelphia, PA: Hikeka Press, 1990), p.108.
5
Albert Camus, Resistance, Rebellion, and Death. (New York: Dell Publishing, 1973), p. 265-267.
6
Richard Wesley, Black Terror.
7
Jones, p. 99.
8
Tupac Shakur, “Fallen Star.”
9
Langston Hughes, “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain.”
10
Shakur, “Keep Ya Head Up.”
11
Eldridge Cleaver, 1969.
12
William L. VanDeburg, New Day in Babylon. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), p.193.
13
Paul Laurence Dunbar, “The Poet.”
14
Edmund Burke, 1790.
15
Mercer Cook and Stephen E. Henderson, The Militant Black Writer. (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1969), p. 65.
16
Winegarten, vii.
17
VanDeburg, p. 196.
18
Camus, p. 258.
19
Haki R. Madhubuti, “Book of Life.”
20
Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man, p. 136.
21
Camus, p. 255.
22
Rousseau
23
Molefi Kete Asante, The Afrocentric Idea. (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1987.), p. 125.
24
Imamu Amiri Baraka, “Black Art.”
25
Camus, p. 267.
26
Asante, p. 5.
27
bell hooks, Killing Rage.
28
Steve Biko, Black Consciousness in South Africa.
29
Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., 1966.
30
Winegarten, p xxx.
31
Richard Wright
32
J.P. Makouta Mboukou, Black African Literature. (Washington, D.C.: Black Orpheus Press, 1973), p. 28-29.
33
Stephen Henderson, The Militant Black Writer, p. 87.
34
Thomas Hodgkin, Nationalism in Colonial Africa, p. 97.
35
Del Jones, p. 104.
36
Camus, p. 271.
37
Ibid.
38
Ibid., p. 268.
39
A.W. Schlegel
40
Winegarten, p. xxi.
41
Ibid., p. xxiii.
42
Eldridge Cleaver
43
Huey P. Newton, 1969
44
Camus, 208.
45
VanDeburg, p. 271.
46
Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, p. 222-223.
47
Ibid., p. 273-4.
48
Byron
49
McKay, “The White House.”
50
Asante, p. 5.
51
George Orwell, 1984, p. 138.
52
Lenin
53
Che Guevara
54
Mercer Cook, The Militant Black Writer.
55
Mutulu Shakur
56
Howard Thurman, Disciplines of the Spirit.
2
80
57
Ellison, p. 175.
Soul Brother #44, Why We March.
59
Ibid, p. 178.
60
Schiller, Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man.
61
Hughes, “Freedom’s Plow.”
62
Mayfield, Detroit News, Feb. 22, 1997.
63
Dunbar, “Why Fades a Dream?”
64
Hughes, “Freedom’s Plow.”
65
Rza comments from The Source, March 2000, p. 208.
66
Bob Marley, “Stiff Necked Fools.”
67
Camus, p. 253.
68
Ellison, Invisible Man.
69
Dunbar, “We Wear the Mask.”
70
McKay, “Outcast.”
71
David Walker, Appeal
72
McKay, “Baptism.”
73
Malcolm X, Autobiography.
74
Bania Mahamadou Say, “Lapsus.”
75
Camus, p. 261.
76
Gwendolyn Brooks, “Medgar Evers.”
77
Marley, “I Shot the Sheriff.”
78
Chester Himes, 1943.
79
Dunbar, “Compensation.”
58
80
CURTIS MAYFIELD: “PUSHERMAN”
Frank Kofsky, Black Nationalism and the Revolution in Music. (New York: Pathfinder Press Inc., 1970), 9.
81
Mayfield, “Jesus.”
82
Kenneth Estell, African America: Portrait of a People. (Detroit, MI: Visible Ink Press, 1994), 545.
83
VanDeburg, p. 195.
84
Ibid., p. 205.
85
Alan Light, "A Lasting Impression," Rolling Stone (October 28, 1993): 62.
86
Mayfield, “Get Down.”
87
Richie Unterberger, Curtis Mayfield Biography [essay online] available from
http://wl.320.telia.com/~u32002291/CURTIS/bio2.htm; Internet; accessed June 16, 1998.
88
Henderson, Militant Black Writer, p. 125.
89
VanDeburg, p. 212.
90
Mayfield, “(Don’t Worry) If There’s Hell Below We All Gonna Go”
91
Peter B. Levy, Documentary History of the Modern Civil Rights Movement. (New York: Greenwood Press, 1992), 242-259.
92
Steve Biko, Black Consciousness in South African.
93
Mayfield, “Sweet Exorcist.”
94
Ibid.
95
Bruce C. Geary, Cadillac Alley.
96
VanDeburg, p. 213.
97
Martin Luther King, Jr., 1967.
98
Marcus Garvey
99
Monroe Anderson, "Curtis Mayfield: From Super Fly to Super Star," Ebony (June 1973): 66.
100
Estell, 545.
101
Mayfield, “We the People.”
102
Ernest Hardy, Curtis Mayfield [essay online] available from http://imusic.com/showcase/urban/curtismayfield.html; Internet:
accessed December 12, 1999.
103
R. Serge Denisoff, Sing a Song of Social Significance. (Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green University Popular Press, 1972), 5.
104
Ibid, 2-3.
105
Edward J. Mullen, Critical Essays on Langston Hughes. (Boston, MA: G. K. Hall & Co., 1986), 144.
106
Ibid, 145.
107
Alain Locke, The New Negro, [1925]. (New York: Macmillan, 1992.
108
Ibid.
109
A. Scott Galloway, Roots liner notes.
81
110
Mayfield, “Jesus.”
Ibid.
112
Mayfield, “Cannot Find a Way.”
113
Jon M. Spencer, ed., Sacred Music of the Secular City. (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1992), 205.
114
Mayfield, “When Seasons Change.”
115
Ibid.
116
Mayfield, “Don’t Worry.”
117
Asa G. Hilliard, The Maroon Within Us.
118
Mayfield, “Blue Monday People.”
119
Contemporary Black Biography, Vol. 2, (Detroit, MI: Gale Research Inc., 1992), 154.
120
Chicago Tribune, September 2, 1990.
121
Mary Ellison, Lyrical Protest: Black Music's Struggle Against Discrimination. (New York: Praeger, 1989), 131.
122
Spencer, 211.
123
Curtis Mayfield, Poetic License: In Poem and Song. (Beverly Hills, CA: Dove Books, 1996), 16.
124
Kwame Nkrumah, Promise of Power.
125
Malcolm X, The Autobiography of.
126
Sterling Tucker, Beyond the Burning.
127
Spencer, 212.
128
Ibid, 213.
129
Mayfield, 2.
130
Derrick Bell, “Racial Realism.”
131
Spencer, 215.
132
Kwame Nkrumah
133
Ibid, 216.
134
Mayfield, “Kung Fu.”
135
Mayfield, 10.
136
Ibid, 26.
137
Ellison, 64.
138
Muhammad, The Flag of Islam.
139
Ibid.
140
Mayfield, “Kung Fu.”
141
Mayfield, “Ain’t Got Time.”
142
Ibid.
143
Ibid.
144
Mayfield, “Beautiful Brother of Mine.”
145
Ibid.
146
Curtis Live!, p.1, [lyrics online]; available from http://www.hh.se/stud/d96join/cm/lyrics/live.html; Internet; accessed June 16,
1998.
147
Mayfield, 6.
148
Ibid, 34.
149
Ibid, 14.
150
Mayfield, liner notes of Roots.
151
James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time.
152
Mayfield, “Love to Keep You in My Mind.”
153
Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth.
154
Mayfield, “Now You’re Gone.”
155
Ibid.
156
Mayfield, “So I n Love.”
157
Mayfield, “Love Me.”
158
Mayfield, “So You Don’t Love Me.”
159
Zolo Agona Azania
160
Steve Biko, Black Consciousness in South Africa
161
Mayfield, “Keep On Keeping On.”
162
Ibid.
163
Wyatt T. Walker, “Crime, Vietnam and God.”
164
Ibid.
165
Huey P. Newton, Revolutionary Suicide.
111
82
166
Mayfield, “Underground.”
bell hooks, Killing Rage.
168
Ibid.
169
Lerone Bennett, Jr., The Negro Mood.
170
Ibid, 44.
171
Ibid, 47.
172
Derrick Bell, And We Are Not Saved.
173
Kenneth B. Clark, Dark Ghetto.
174
Ibid, 39.
175
Mayfield, “New World Order.”
176
Ibid, 37.
177
Curtis Live!, 2.
178
Nathan Wright, Jr.
179
Robert Purvis, Reaction to the Dred Scott Decision.
180
Mayfield, 37.
181
Ibid, 22.
182
Sterling Tucker, Beyond the Burning.
183
Ibid, 28.
184
Mayfield, “Love to the People.”
185
Ibid, 4.
186
Marcus Garvey
187
Cornel West, Race Matters.
188
Comments on The Impressions/Curtis Mayfield from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame [essay online]; available from
http://www.rockhall.com/induct/impressi.html; Internet; accessed June 18, 1998.
189
Light, 65.
190
The New York Times, May 6, 1983.
191
Paul Robeson, Here I Stand.
192
Hughes, “Still Here.”
167
BOB MARLEY: “SMALL AXE”
193
Del Jones, p. 109.
Marley, “Mix Up, Mix Up.”
195
Sam Brown, interview 1976.
196
Ibid.
197
Marley, “Trenchtown Rock.”
198
Marley, “Chant Down Babylon.”
199
Leonard E. Barrett, Sr., The Rastafarians. (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1988), p. 117.
200
Phil Cooper from songs of freedom by Adrian Boot and Chris Salewicz. (New York: Viking Studio Books, 1995), p. 107.
201
Marley, “Jailhouse.”
202
Michael Cooper from Soul Rebel by Maureen Sheridan (New York: Carlton Press, 1999), p. 62.
203
Marley, “Jah Live.”
204
Marley, “Natural Mystic.”
205
Sam Brown, interview 1976.
206
Marley, “Soul Rebel.”
207
Marley, “Trench Town.”
208
Marley, “Mix Up, Mix Up.”
209
Ibid.
210
Ibid.
211
Malika Whitney, Bob Marley: Reggae King of the World
212
Quote from Marley in songs of freedom, p. 215.
213
Marley, “More Axe.”
214
Ibid.
215
Marley, “Kaya.”
216
Ibid.
217
Quote from 1999 Bob Marley Calendar.
218
Ras Brown, interview 1976.
219
Taken from the Black Panther Party Platform.
194
83
220
Mortimer Planner on his tutorship of Bob Marley’s conversion of Black Consciousness through Rastafari.
Marley, “Slave Driver.”
222
“Three Hundred Years.” The Crisis, August 1919.
223
Del Jones, The Black Holocaust.
224
Na’im Akbar, Chains and Images of Psychological Slavery.
225
Claude McKay, “Enslaved.”
226
Marley, “All in One.”
227
Marley, “So Much Trouble in the World.”
228
Jomo Kenyatta, Facing Mount Kenya.
229
Ibid.
230
Bob Marley.
231
James Baldwin, The Price of the Ticket.
232
Marley, “Top Rankin.”
233
Marcus Garvey, Philosophies & Opinions.
234
Marley, “Running Away.”
235
Marley, “Babylon System.”
236
Marley, “Burnin’ and Lootin’.”
237
John Henrik Clarke, Notes for an African World Revolution.
238
Marley, “Crazy Baldheads.”
239
Marley, “Brain Washing.”
240
Marley, “Buffalo Soldier.”
241
Marley, “Crisis.”
242
Ibid.
243
Chancellor Williams, Destruction of Black Civilization.
244
Marley, “I Shot the Sheriff.”
245
Marley, “Who the Cap Fit.”
246
Marley, “Johnny Was.”
247
Bob Marley.
248
Marley, “Pimper’s Paradise.”
249
Marley, “Concrete Jungle.”
250
James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time.
251
Marley, “Them Bully Full.”
252
Mario Savio.
253
David Walker, Appeal.
254
Marley, “Forever Loving Jah.”
255
Bob Marley.
256
Marley, “Top Rankin.”
257
Amiri Baraka, 1960.
258
Marcus Garvey, Philosophies and Opinions.
259
Marley, “Ambush in the Night.”
260
Marley, “Africa Unite.”
261
Ibid.
262
Kwame Nkrumah.
263
Robert L. Allen, Black Awakening in Capitalist America.
264
Melvin B. Tolson, “A Legend of Versailles.”
265
bell hooks, Talking Back.
266
Na’im Akbar, Visions for Black Men.
267
Marley, “Midnight Ravers.”
268
Marley, “We and Them.”
269
Camus, Rebellion, p. 246.
270
Marley, “Wake Up and Live.”
271
Marley, “Redemption Song.”
272
Marley, “Ride Natty Ride.”
273
Marley, “Could You Be Loved.”
274
Marley, “Positive Vibration.”
275
Marley, “Put It On.”
276
Marley, “Guiltiness.”
221
84
277
Marley, “Exodus.”
Timothy White, Catch a Fire, p. 239.
279
Marley, “Get Up, Stand Up.”
280
Marley, “Chant Down Babylon.”
281
Marley, “Ride Natty Ride.”
282
Marley, “Small Axe.”
283
Marley, “Zimbabwe.”
284
Marley, interview 1977.
285
Marley, “I Know.”
286
Marley, “Stop That Train.”
287
Marley, quoted in songs of freedom, p. 214.
288
W.E.B. DuBois, 1937.
289
Judy Mowatt, quoted in songs of freedom, back cover.
290
Hughes, “Fantasy in Purple.”
278
291
TUPAC SHAKUR:
“DEFINITION OF A THUG N.I.G.G.A.”
N.I.G.G.A. stands for Never Ignorant Getting Goals Accomplished
Justin Hall, “Rap Lyrics: Voices of Liberation and Social Change.”
293
Dante Alighieri, The Inferno.
294
Countee Cullen, “To Make A Poet Black.”
295
Shakur quoted from Vibe magazine interview.
296
Martin Luther King, Jr., Where Do We Go From Here?, p.66, 182.
297
Ibid., p. 37.
298
Camus, p. 235.
299
Dudley Randell, “Roses and Revolution.”
300
Shakur, “Cradle to the Grave.”
301
Shakur, “Still I Rise.”
302
Shakur, “White Man’s World.”
303
Shakur, “Smile for Me Now."
304
Eldridge Cleaver, Soul on Ice.
305
Shakur, quote from Vibe magazine interview
306
Shakur, “Open Fire.”
307
Shakur, “Ghetto Gospel.”
308
Shakur, “Young Niggas.”
309
Ibid.
310
Shakur, “Rebel of the Underground.”
311
Shakur, “The Rose That Grew From Concrete.”
312
Shakur, “Me and My Girlfriend.”
313
Eldridge Cleaver, Soul on Ice.
314
William Wells Brown, Clotel.
315
Shakur, “Brenda’s Got a Baby.”
316
Shakur, “So Many Tears.”
317
Shakur, “Tradin’ War Stories.”
318
Shakur, “In the Depths of Solitude.”
319
Shakur, “Life of an Outlaw.”
320
Huey P. Newton, Revolutionary Suicide.
321
Shakur, “Me Against the World.”
322
Shakur, “Letter to the President.”
323
Shakur, “Life is a Traffic Jam.”
324
Shakur, “Nothing to Lose.”
325
Shakur, “And 2morrow.”
326
Shakur, “The Streetz R Deathrow.”
327
Shakur, “All Eyez on Me.”
328
Shakur, “Ghetto Gospel.”
329
Shakur, “I’ve Seen Your Soul Before.”
330
Shakur, All Eyez on Me.”
292
85
331
Shakur, “Blasphemy.”
Shakur, “Young Black Male.”
333
Haki Madhubuti, 1975.
334
Shakur, “Violent.”
335
Maulana Ron Karenga
336
Shakur, “Holla’ If Ya’ Hear Me.”
337
Shakur, “Rebel of the Underground.”
338
Louis Farrakhan, 1997.
339
Shakur, “2Pacalypse Now.”
340
Shakur, “Holla’ If ya’ Hear Me.”
341
James Baldwin, 1963.
342
Shakur, “Ghetto Gospel.”
343
Malcolm X.
344
Shakur, “Homies and Thugs.”
345
Shakur, “Keep Ya’ Head Up.”
346
Malcolm X, “Communication and Reality.”
347
Shakur, “16 on Death Row.”
348
Ibid.
349
Shakur, “Unconditional Love.”
350
Shakur, “Krazy.”
351
Shakur, “Hold Ya’ Head Up.”
352
Shakur, “Outlaw.”
353
George Jackson, Soledad Brother.
354
Last Poets.
355
Eldridge Cleaver, Soul on Ice.
356
Shakur, “Make Moves.”
357
Shakur, “Point tha’ Finga’.”
358
Shakur, “My Block.”
359
Shakur, “Words of Wisdom.”
360
Shakur, “I Don’t Give a Fuck.”
361
Ibid.
362
Shakur, “Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z.”
363
Angela Davis, 1970.
364
Shakur, “Letter to the President.”
365
Shakur, “It Ain’t Easy.”
366
Walter Rodney, The Groundings with My Brothers.
367
Shakur, “I Wonder if Heaven got a Ghetto.”
368
Shakur, “Souljah’s Revenge.”
369
Shakur, “Never Be Peace.”
370
Shakur, “Words of Wisdom.”
371
Shakur, “I Don’t Give a Fuck.”
372
Shakur, “Young Niggaz.”
373
Manning Marable, How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America.
374
Ibid.
375
Assata Shakur, Assata.
376
Shakur, “I Wonder If Heaven Got a Ghetto.”
377
Shakur, “Heartz of Men.”
378
Edward W. Blyden, 1862.
379
Shakur, “I Wonder If Heaven Got a Ghetto.”
380
Shakur, “Words of Wisdom.”
381
Louis Farrakhan, 1995.
382
Shakur, “White Man’s World.”
383
Shakur, “Words of Wisdom.”
384
Camus, p. 223.
385
Shakur, “Words of Wisdom.”
386
Shakur, “Last Words.”
387
Mumia Abu-Jamal, 1999.
332
86
388
Malcolm X.
Shakur, “Who Do You Believe in.”
390
Shakur, “Letter to the President.”
391
Malcolm X.
392
Shakur, “Unconditional Love.”
393
Robert Hayden, “The Ballad of Nat Turner.”
389
87