It's Bigger Than Hip Hop: The Rise of the Post-Hip-Hop Generation by M.K. Asante Jr Page A
Authors: M.K. Asante Jr
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LAST POETS ,
“ NIGGERS ARE SCARED OF REVOLUTION ,”
THE LAST POETS
The Last Poets, a music/poetry group whose members included Abiodun Oyewole, Alafia Pudim, and Omar Bin Hassan, record
The Last Poets
, an LP that combines spoken word with jazz and drum instrumentals and lays the foundation for rap music. Their name is taken from a poem by the South African revolutionary poet Keorapetse Kgositsile, who believed he was in the last era of poetry before guns would take over.
On May 4, the largest student strike in U.S. history takes place and four Kent State University students demonstrating against the Vietnam War are shot dead by the National Guard in Ohio. Ten days later, on May 14, during a student protest at the historically Black Jackson State College, police fire more than 460 rounds of ammunition, killing two African-American students.
1971
I got twenty-five cans in my knapsack crossin’ out the
wick-wack
Puttin’ up my name with a fat cap
.
— KRS-ONE, “OUT FOR FAME ,”
KRS-ONE
On July 21 ,
The New York Times
runs a front-page article on graffiti writer TAKI 183. The article, titled “‘Taki 183’ Spawns Pen Pals,”puts national attention on graffiti writing, one of the four elements of hip hop. The article also ignites competitive tagging among youth across the five boroughs and eventually the world.
On September 13, 1,500 New York State troopers storm Attica prison, killing forty-three prisoners after the inmates led a rebellion. The prison, built to house 1,200 inmates, had over 2,000 inmates, 54 percent of whom were African-American and 9 percent Puerto Rican. All of the 383 correctional officers at Attica were white and frequently abused inmates. The inmates had demanded an improvement in their living conditions, showers, education, and vocational training, as well as reduced censorship of their mail and visitors. Before the uprisings, inmates were given one bucket of water a week as a “shower” and one roll of toilet paper a month.
1972
The Tuskegee Experiments end. Beginning in 1932, the U.S. Public Health Service’s forty-year experiment on hundreds of poor, mostly illiterate, Black men was described by one news anchor as using “human beings as laboratory animals in a long and inefficient study of how long it takes syphilis to kill someone.”
Soul Train
, a Black music TV dance program created by Don Cornelius and backed by Johnson hair products (manufacturers of the Afro Sheen line), moves into syndication and becomes a hit. Tagged by some as the “Black American Bandstand,”
Soul Train
would become the longest-running first-run nationally syndicated program in television history.
1973
Passed the Rockefeller laws to make us all state prop
Feds handin’ out bids startin’ 15 a pop
.
— DEAD PREZ FEATURING DIVINE, “BABY FACE ,”
TURN OFF THE
RADIO: THE MIX TAPE VOL 2: GET FREE OR DIE TRYIN’
Nelson Rockefeller , Republican governor of New York, introduces and signs the Rockefeller drug laws in his last year in office. Under these extremely harsh laws, the penalty for selling two ounces (approximately fifty-six grams) or more of heroin, morphine, “raw or prepared opium,” cocaine, or cannabis, including marijuana, or possessing four ounces (approximately 128 grams) or more of the same substances, was made the same as that for second-degree murder: a minimum of fifteen years to life in prison, and a maximum of twenty-five years to life in prison. As a result New York’s prison population jumped from 12,500 in 1971 to 71,000 in 1999, and is now over 150,000.
Jalal Mansur Nuriddin of The Last Poets releases his first solo album,
Hustlers Convention
, under the alias Lightnin’ Rod. The album is a poetic narrative exploring a day in the life of two hustlers and would later be remade by rappers Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five.
Afrika Bambaataa, a student at Adlai E. Stevenson High School in the Bronx, inspired by a trip to Africa,
“ NIGGERS ARE SCARED OF REVOLUTION ,”
THE LAST POETS
The Last Poets, a music/poetry group whose members included Abiodun Oyewole, Alafia Pudim, and Omar Bin Hassan, record
The Last Poets
, an LP that combines spoken word with jazz and drum instrumentals and lays the foundation for rap music. Their name is taken from a poem by the South African revolutionary poet Keorapetse Kgositsile, who believed he was in the last era of poetry before guns would take over.
On May 4, the largest student strike in U.S. history takes place and four Kent State University students demonstrating against the Vietnam War are shot dead by the National Guard in Ohio. Ten days later, on May 14, during a student protest at the historically Black Jackson State College, police fire more than 460 rounds of ammunition, killing two African-American students.
1971
I got twenty-five cans in my knapsack crossin’ out the
wick-wack
Puttin’ up my name with a fat cap
.
— KRS-ONE, “OUT FOR FAME ,”
KRS-ONE
On July 21 ,
The New York Times
runs a front-page article on graffiti writer TAKI 183. The article, titled “‘Taki 183’ Spawns Pen Pals,”puts national attention on graffiti writing, one of the four elements of hip hop. The article also ignites competitive tagging among youth across the five boroughs and eventually the world.
On September 13, 1,500 New York State troopers storm Attica prison, killing forty-three prisoners after the inmates led a rebellion. The prison, built to house 1,200 inmates, had over 2,000 inmates, 54 percent of whom were African-American and 9 percent Puerto Rican. All of the 383 correctional officers at Attica were white and frequently abused inmates. The inmates had demanded an improvement in their living conditions, showers, education, and vocational training, as well as reduced censorship of their mail and visitors. Before the uprisings, inmates were given one bucket of water a week as a “shower” and one roll of toilet paper a month.
1972
The Tuskegee Experiments end. Beginning in 1932, the U.S. Public Health Service’s forty-year experiment on hundreds of poor, mostly illiterate, Black men was described by one news anchor as using “human beings as laboratory animals in a long and inefficient study of how long it takes syphilis to kill someone.”
Soul Train
, a Black music TV dance program created by Don Cornelius and backed by Johnson hair products (manufacturers of the Afro Sheen line), moves into syndication and becomes a hit. Tagged by some as the “Black American Bandstand,”
Soul Train
would become the longest-running first-run nationally syndicated program in television history.
1973
Passed the Rockefeller laws to make us all state prop
Feds handin’ out bids startin’ 15 a pop
.
— DEAD PREZ FEATURING DIVINE, “BABY FACE ,”
TURN OFF THE
RADIO: THE MIX TAPE VOL 2: GET FREE OR DIE TRYIN’
Nelson Rockefeller , Republican governor of New York, introduces and signs the Rockefeller drug laws in his last year in office. Under these extremely harsh laws, the penalty for selling two ounces (approximately fifty-six grams) or more of heroin, morphine, “raw or prepared opium,” cocaine, or cannabis, including marijuana, or possessing four ounces (approximately 128 grams) or more of the same substances, was made the same as that for second-degree murder: a minimum of fifteen years to life in prison, and a maximum of twenty-five years to life in prison. As a result New York’s prison population jumped from 12,500 in 1971 to 71,000 in 1999, and is now over 150,000.
Jalal Mansur Nuriddin of The Last Poets releases his first solo album,
Hustlers Convention
, under the alias Lightnin’ Rod. The album is a poetic narrative exploring a day in the life of two hustlers and would later be remade by rappers Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five.
Afrika Bambaataa, a student at Adlai E. Stevenson High School in the Bronx, inspired by a trip to Africa,
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