Conscious Rap: The Birth and the Backlash

The Nod

Gimlet

Tv & Film, Society & Culture, Arts

4.8 • 3.5K Ratings

🗓️ 2 July 2019

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The turbulence and violence of the late 1980s pushed hip-hop away from its party music roots, giving birth to a new subgenre: conscious rap. Groups like and Public Enemy and artists like KRS-One became stars, creating music that emphasized pro-Black political messaging. But just as conscious rap was reaching its height, one song threatened to bring the whole movement crashing down. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	For Gimlet Media, this is The Knives.
0:07.1	A Black culture podcast brought to you by Blackness's biggest fans.
0:10.9	I'm Eric Getting.
0:12.0	When I say the words, conscious rap.
0:18.9	What comes to mind?
0:20.4	Well, a lot of folks think about artists like public enemy.
0:25.3	I don't think I'm a beast, I just think I'm a step.
0:28.9	We got the fight, the power's back beat.
0:31.6	Fight the power.
0:35.5	Still so good after all these years.
0:37.8	You know, or you might think about Tally of Quiley.
0:49.8	In 2019, you're absolutely thinking about Kendrick Lamar.
1:05.1	At its simplest, we think of conscious rap as rap with a political message.
1:08.7	You know, it's lyrics do things like highlight the realities of life in the hood.
1:12.5	You know, it calls out our government and politicians or sometimes a simply dream of a world where
1:17.5	Black people are insubjugated.
1:19.7	Now I was one of the oldest subgenres in hip hop is also one of the most divisive.
1:24.5	With many folks feeling like conscious rap or the rappers who make it are corny and kind
1:29.0	of inauthentic.
1:30.7	But recently I heard a story about the history of conscious rap that really surprised me.
1:36.3	It went back to the early days of hip hop and laid out how conscious rap came to be and
1:40.8	the forces that tried to suppress its rise.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Gimlet, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Gimlet and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.