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letra de an analysis - luke davis

the unspoken – somewhat ironically – inspiration from the african griots in the rhetoric of modern day rappers was particularly prevalent in mos def’s debut album black on both sides. released in 1999, it stood out amongst the burgeoning era of more “commercial” hip hop and materialistic lyricism from jay-z and eminem. what makes black on both sides so different is how rich the content is in black music pedagogy in a culture of bravado and excess. these kinds of albums weren’t necessarily new and already had a term attached to them: “conscious rap”. much like “urban music”, conscious rap is generalised phrase to denote rap with a socio-political agenda, with more emphasis on the collective rather than the individual (kitwana, 1994, p.32). conversely, the “gangsta rap” of the 90s was seen as the corrupted form, commercialised and taken away from its roots. but as saddik argued, this would lead to the -ssumption that hip hop existed as a pure art form (saddik, 2003, p.113)

mos def addressed this binary construct within hip hop as well as black music roots and their appropriation within his lyrics. from the offset, on “fear not of man”, mos def discusses hip hop in a metaphorical sense

people talk about hip-hop like it’s some giant livin’ in the hillside
comin’ down to visit the townspeople
we are hip-hop
me, you, everybody, we are hip-hop
so hip-hop is goin’ where we goin’
so the next time you ask yourself where hip-hop is goin’
ask yourself… where am i goin’? how am i doin’?

hip hop, in his eyes, isn’t a metaphorical giant but instead a way of life and being and in talks of cultural corruption of the genre, he asks people to ask themselves what they are doing to change it. the track also samples fela kuti, an african musician who was also a member of the black panthers. on tracks like “hip hop”, he raps about his writing process, from a place of “restlessness” saying “it’s hard to really chill and sit still” (mos def, 1999). as the song goes on, he later expresses relief at the ability to articulate himself in a more comfortable setting, from speaking “the king’s english” to “now my chat just like dis” (mos def, 1999). this exhibits the contrast of what is perceived within the black music community as the “white voice” and the “black voice”. on “rock n roll”, mos def questions the true “ownership” of genres derived from rock ‘n’ roll

i said, elvis presley ain’t got no soul (huh)
chuck berry is rock and roll (d-mn right)
you may dig on the rolling stones
but they ain’t come up with that style on they own (uh-uh)

here, he acknowledges the appropriation of black music by elvis presley (an artist who had been the subject of an attack by public enemy in the lyrics “elvis was a hero to most/but he never meant sh-t to me you see/straight up racist that sucker was/simple and plain” ten years previously) (public enemy, 1989) and instead attributed rock ‘n’ roll to chuck berry. he also infers that the rolling stone’s sound wasn’t original

- luke davis

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