“Fire in Little Africa,” A Rap Album about a Historical Tragedy

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

Politics, Arts, News, Wnyc, Books, David, Storytelling, Society & Culture, Yorker, New, Remnick

4.2 • 6.2K Ratings

🗓️ 18 May 2021

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Tulsa massacre of 1921 was a coördinated assault on and destruction of the thriving Black community known as Greenwood, Black Wall Street, or Little Africa. Even today, the death toll remains unknown. In fact, for generations, most people—including many Tulsans—did not know about the massacre at all. This year marks its hundredth anniversary, and it is being commemorated with documentaries, official events in Tulsa, and one very unusual rap album: “Fire in Little Africa,” which comes out in May on Motown Records. It features about forty rappers, and thirty other singers, musicians, and producers who tell the story of Greenwood at its height—and of their dreams of a revitalized Black Tulsa. The freelance producer Taylor Hosking explains the creation of the album to The New Yorker’s Vinson Cunningham.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This episode of our podcast contains explicit language.
0:08.4	This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.
0:14.8	Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick.
0:19.6	And I'm Vincent Cunningham.
0:21.1	I'm a staff writer at the New Yorker.
0:23.6	In two weeks, one of the most unusual rap albums I've heard about in years comes out.
0:29.2	About 40 different rappers and then another 30 singers, poets, and producers
0:33.7	recorded the album together in the home of a former member of the KKK in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
0:40.0	The album is a concept album about a long-forgotten piece of American history from a hundred
0:44.7	years ago that we all need to know more about.
0:46.9	Fight for every one of our brothers and sisters taken without harm.
0:50.6	Fight for justice.
0:51.8	Fight for safety.
0:52.9	Fight for freedom.
0:54.1	Fight for our fathers. fight for all of us.
0:56.5	This is our home.
0:57.5	Little Lapp.
0:58.5	One of the artists and sort of the linchpin of the project is a rapper named Steph Simon.
1:03.5	I heard about him from Taylor Hoskin, a journalist who covers music and culture.
1:08.5	Steph Simon has been on a mission to convince the nation that we should all be
1:12.0	paying more attention to the rap scene in Tulsa. So Taylor, what's Steph like? So Steph is 33.
1:20.1	Is it good, is it good? Uh, vocal, is the vocal good? He wears these wide brimmed hats and these like suede jackets with all this fringe going on.
	...

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