Way Back Wednesday- The Message
Wednesday seems like a good day to post an old school hip hop track. Too many people forget hip hop’s roots and it’s time to educate them. Good music, useful information, what can you lose? This may even become a weekly feature, we shall see. I know I plan on doing at least a few more.
The first Way Back Wednesday is dedicated to the song “The Message” by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. This song was released in 1982 and is one of the first hip hop songs to deal with the social ills of the urban poor. When you listen, a picture is drawn before you of the projects in New York city under Reagan Era policies that made the poor get poorer. You listen and realize what life is like in a poverty-stricken, hopeless community.
Rolling Stone ranked “The Message” #51 in its List of Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time (the highest ranking hip-hop song on the list). It was also voted #3 on the 100 Greatest Rap Songs, after I Used to Love H.E.R. and Rapper’s Delight. In 2002, it was one of 50 recordings chosen that year by the Library of Congress to be added to the National Recording Registry, the first Hip Hop recording ever to receive this honor. The beat has been used in many songs since it’s released and the lyrics have been referenced in many other hip hop songs. It is nothing short of a classic.
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