The Message - Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five (1982)

the person that first played this track for me introduced it by saying something along the lines of "hey guys, hip hop and rap isn't all about 40s and blunts."

now, i'm not one to talk down 40s and blunts, but let me just say that the era of rapping solely about 40s and blunts wouldn't even come until the early 90s, a decade after Grandmaster Flash got his message out.



while most rap tracks rarely exceed 5min in length (notably, 2Pac's "California Love" goes for 6.5 min), "The Message" hits seven minutes and twelve seconds, an epic for the genre.

but the length is necessary.

the beat is so tight that everyone wants to rap over it: Ice Cube, Puff Daddy...
the lyrics are so fucking brutal that everyone wants to repeat them: Andre Nickatina, Snoop Dogg, Immortal Technique...

and the message?

the message is the Message: it's about how fucked up life is in the ghetto, it's about frustration, and you feel it:

don't
push
me
cause
i'm
close
to
the
edge

i'm
try
ing
not
to
lose
my
head

it's like a jungle sometimes. it makes me wonder how i keep from going under.

such a fucking badass.