Two points.

First, the content was, as you mention, sparse at best. All the above mentioned artists had no dinstinct and clear-cut worldview, but rather represented the various ideas; the dialogue of their age. If anything, it manifested a kind of black pluralism, a smorgasbord of historical black ideology. The music was merely the sounding board for figuring out which tendency would win (unfortunately it seems that, for the time being, it is black enterprise–even though most black folks are obviously not entrepreneurs).

You are right to thank KRS-One. I have yet to do that. I told Chuck D in 1996 (when I was 16) that his music was important. And it was. So I don’t think by looking at this era of hip-hop with a critical eye devalues or dismisses it. It just helps to give you a new notion, a new way to look at familiar shit.

Second, You are absolutely right to place primacy upon the black student movement of the late 80s/early 90s itself as the basis for “golden age” rap, rather than the other way around.

Throughout the past few years, I myself have butted heads with close friends of mine who are political MCs that tend to think that “conscious” (I hate that term, simply because all rap is conscious and most so-called conscious rappers are politically confused) rap will help usher in another movement.

I think if we have learned anything from history it is that movements throw up artists of all kinds which represent the tendencies and dominant ideas of their respective times. I don’t care what Amiri Baraka says, no amount of “revolutionary” theatres and poets and rappers will create a popular revolutionary culture. That is because they are attempting to relive their version of the past which is obviously out of step with the prevailing values, attitudes, and ideas of contemporary society.

To quote an anonymous author of a review of I Looked Over Jordan, “A distinctive and autonomous [working class] culture will develop as part of a distinctive and autonomous [working class].”

Ok that’s it. Feel free to point out any shortcomings in my response. I was nine-years-old when my Mom bought me To The East Blackwards, so I wasn’t exactly in college then. Peace.

Here’s a first cut though.

When I say there was no content, I don’t mean that we had the wool pulled over our eyes by artists who ended up selling out. There’s a quote in the book that I didn’t cite, “this rap shit is a mothafucka.” What homeboy meant was that rap ain’t no part-time hobby if you want to make money at it. It’s more than a full-time job. And even though I don’t like the contemporary content, I appreciate that.

I also don’t mean that people are just making stuff up when they talk about this age. Chuck D. and KRS-One aren’t as responsible for me being here as you and the other old heads at Michigan were. I’m not saying they weren’t responsible, just that they weren’t as responsible as we might think.

In fact, I think I’d put more of the onus on the work WE were doing at places like Michigan, Dartmouth, UMass, Howard etc. The student led protests of the eighties led to more student controlled resources. These resources were largely spent on a combination of black nationalists academics (Molefi Asante, Ivan Van Sertima), conspiracy theorists (Steven Cokely, Francis Cress Welsing), and NOI leaders (Khallid Muhammad, Rasul Muhammad, Farrakhan). This helped to usher in a new wave of black nationalism that expanded when MCs were able to present these ideas to wider markets.

There were more politically conscious MCs then than now (at least on first glance). And the product they put out had a greater market than the product put out by contemporaries like Immortal Technique. But in raw terms there was never as much political rap out there as we think there was. And although we ate it up, I’m not sure (based purely on record sales) that their work was as widely consumed by people as we think. We may refer to that period as a golden age only because this age appears to be so bankrupt.

Being an conscious artist (recording, film, etc) has to be an extremely difficult balancing act, between being true to self and trying to attain commercial success. You drop too much and people’s attention wanders and the intended message gets lost.

Anyway, Prof, it was good seeing you last week at Rhino’s down in the “D.” Let’s stay in contact.