Chuck D. from Public Enemy once called rap the black CNN, the historiography of the black community in the United States in the 20th and 21st centuries. The genre has consistently provided a reflection of societal and internal social conditions like no other form of music. No history book tells the story of the ongoing, everyday struggles of the black community in the US better than all the rap albums of the last 40 years strung together.
A reunion with these long-gone albums marks a continuum at the same time. Take Public Enemy’s »Fear Of A Black Planet« (1990), Ice Cube’s »AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted« (1990) and a whole hundred rap albums from East to West between 1983 and 2018 and you’re standing in the middle of Black Lives Matter. Pick up Digable Planets’ »Reachin’ (A New Refutation of Time and Space)« and you’ll find the inner turmoil of a nation behind all the deeply chilled jazz samples and raps. Digable Planet’s debut is highly political for all its musical laid-backness and despite its less forthright slogans. Alongside references to the 5-percent movement, there are confessions to Karl Marx, Erich Fromm and Jean-Paul Sartre – and hence world views that stand on the opposite side of the strangely conglomerated ideology of fundamentalist Christian conservatism and neoliberal dishwasher tittle-tattle in the States.
This is most clearly revealed on »La Femme Fetal«. The song is a strong statement in favour of female autonomy and pro-choice. It is a clear rejection of racism and the hypocrisy shown by conservative Christians. The song is State of Affairs from 1993, as it is for 2018.
This is most clearly revealed on »La Femme Fetal«. The song is a strong statement in favour of female autonomy and pro-choice. It is a clear rejection of racism and the hypocrisy shown by conservative Christians. The song is State of Affairs from 1993, as it is for 2018.
Liberals versus Conservatives
This is because what is currently happening in the USA is not only a swing to the right with its underlying racist intentions. It is a dangerous power grab by a radical Christian – majority white – elite that has been trying to halt social progression in the US for decades. At the forefront are the evangelicals who, with Mike Pence, Betsy DeVos and Paula Michelle White-Cain, and others, have finally got their fingers on the trigger after decades of campaigning. Apart from their declared goal of bringing God back into the classroom, the issue of abortion and the empowerment of women associated with it has always been a thorn in their side. Butterfly addresses this struggle in »Le Femme Fetal« with the finest storytelling, initially told from the perspective of a friend called Nikki.
»You remember my boyfriend Sid that fly kid who I love?
Well, our love was often a verb and spontaneity has brought a third
But due to our youth and economic state, we wish to terminate
About this we don’t feel great, but baby, that’s how it is
But the feds have dissed me. They ignored and dismissed me
The pro-lifers harass me outside the clinic
And call me a murderer, now that’s hate
So needless to say, we’re in a mental state of debate«
Feminism and female autonomy
Whereas male rappers usually contemptuously assign this topic to women and banish it from their own sphere of responsibility, Butterfly makes an empathetic statement. In this statement, he not only outlines the currently reigniting discussions about pro-life vs pro-choice. He also takes an extremely feminist standpoint that clearly exposes patriarchal and social power relations.
Hey, beautiful bird, I said digging her somber mood,
The fascists are some heavy dudes
They don’t really give a damn about life
They just don’t want a woman to control her body
Or have the right to choose
But baby that ain’t nothin’
They just want a male finger on the button
Because if you say war,
they will send them to die by the score
Aborting mission should be your volition
But if Souterand Thomas have their way
You’ll be standing in line
unable to get Welfare
while they’ll be out hunting and fishing.
The reference to Clarence Thomas, who has been a Supreme Court justice since 1991, also addresses the ongoing conflict in the courts in the US. Often referred to as the most conservative member of the Supreme Court, Thomas sided with pro-lifers in the 1992 Planned Parenthood vs Casey case https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_Parenthood_v._Casey . The hearing sought to bury the Roe v Wade decision – the landmark 1973 Supreme Court ruling that established a nationwide framework for legal abortions for the first time.
Hypocrisy is here to stay
The attempt failed, but in 2018 we are at a similar turning point as in 1992. With theocrat Mike Pence as Vice President and a deeply sexist evangelical ass-licker at the helm of the White House, the institutions and structures for planned parenthood and pro-choice are currently being dismantled. Naturally, Trump understands only too well that the laws are difficult to circumvent. That is why the 45th US president employs the weapon that suits him best: Money. He simply turns off the public purse strings to unloved programmes and institutions – showing not least how fragile the social welfare system is. This is because, as opposed to pro-choice, pro-life is very heavily financed by private money from multi-billionaires. Nothing has changed in that respect either, as Butterfly notes:
It has always been around,
it will always have a niche
But they’ll make it a privilege, not a right
Accessible only to the rich
Hey, Pro-lifers need to dig themselves
Because life doesn’t stop after birth
And for a child born to the unprepared
It might even just get worse
The situation would surely change
if they were to find themselves in it
Supporters of the H-Bomb,and fire-bombing clinics
What type of shit is that?Orwellian, in fact.
Losers are, as Butterfly already muses, the people with no influence, no money and no perspective. All you have left is friendship and pride. When he fades out at the end of the song with »Confrontations Across the nation/Your block/My block/Dreadlocks/What a shock/Land of the free/But not me/not me«, this disappearance into invisibility, into not being heard, is the perfect metaphor for the state of a society where the power structures have not changed for centuries. It’s very likely that in 25 years we’ll hear this echo again on every newly released rap album.
