The Message

About The Message

"The Message" is a song by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. It was released as a single by Sugar Hill Records on July 1, 1982 and was later featured on the group's first studio album, The Message. "The Message" was the first prominent hip hop song to provide a social commentary rather than the self-congratulatory boasting or party chants of earlier hip hop. The song's lyrics describe the stress of inner city poverty. "The Message" took rap music from the house parties of its origin to the social platforms later developed by groups like Public Enemy, N. W. A, and KRS-One. Melle Mel said in an interview with NPR: "Our group, like Flash and the Furious Five, we didn't actually want to do "The Message" because we was used to doing party raps and boasting how good we are and all that."The song was written by Duke Bootee and Melle Mel.. The stanza "A Child is Born" was taken from an early Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five track, "Superrappin'" from 1981 on the Enjoy label. more »

Year:

1996

7:10

66 Views

Playlists:

#1

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Broken glass everywhere
People pissing on the stairs, you know they just
Don't care
I can't take the smell, i can't take the noise
Got no money to move out, i guess i got no choice
Rats in the front room, roaches in the back
Junkie's in the alley with a baseball bat
I tried to get away, but i couldn't get far
'Cause the man with the tow-truck repossessed my car

Don't push me, cause i'm close to the edge
I'm trying not to loose my head
It's like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder
How i keep from going under

Standing on the front stoop, hangin' out the window
Watching all the cars go by, roaring as the breezes
Blow
Crazy lady, livin' in a bag
Eating out of garbage piles, used to be a fag-hag
Search and test a tango, skips the life and then go
To search a prince to see the last of senses
Down at the peepshow, watching all the creeps
So she can tell the stories to the girls back home
She went to the city and got so so so ditty
She had to get a pimp, she couldn't make it on her
Own

It's like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder
How i keep from goin' under

My brother's doing fast on my mother's t.v.
Says she watches to much, is just not healthy
All my children in the daytime, dallas at night
Can't even see the game or the sugar ray fight
Bill collectors they ring my phone
And scare my wife when i'm not home
Got a bum education, double-digit inflation
Can't take the train to the job, there's a strike
At the station
Me on king kong standin' on my back
Can't stop to turn around, broke my sacroiliac
Midrange, migraine, cancered membrane
Sometimes i think i'm going insane, i swear i might
Hijack a plane!

My son said daddy i don't want to go to school
Cause the teacher's a jerk, he must think i'm a
Fool
And all the kids smoke reefer, i think it'd be
Cheaper
If i just got a job, learned to be a street sweeper
I dance to the beat, shuffle my feet
Wear a shirt and tie and run with the creeps
'Cause it's all about money, ain't a damn thing
Funny
You got to have a con in this land of milk and
Honey
They push that girl in front of a train
Took her to a doctor, sowed the arm on again
Stabbed that man, right in his heart
Gave him a transplant before a brand new start
I can't walk through the park, cause it's crazy
After the dark
Keep my hand on the gun, cause they got me on the
Run
I feel like an outlaw, broke my last fast jaw
Hear them say you want some more, livin' on a
Seesaw

A child was born, with no state of mind
Blind to the ways of mankind
God is smiling on you but he's frowning too
Cause only god knows what you go through
You grow in the ghetto, living second rate
And your eyes will sing a song of deep hate
The places you play and where you stay
Looks like one great big alley way
You'll admire all the number book takers
Thugs, pimps, pushers and the big money makers
Driving big cars, spending twenties and tens
And you want to grow up to be just like them
Smugglers, scrambles, burglars, gamblers
Pickpockets, peddlers and even pan-handlers
You say I'm cool, I'm no fool
But then you wind up dropping out of high school
Now you're unemployed, all null 'n' void
Walking around like you're pretty boy floyd
Turned stickup kid, look what you done did
Got send up for a eight year bid
Now your man is took and you're a may tag
Spend the next two years as an undercover fag
Being used and abused, and served like hell
Till one day you was find hung dead in a cell
It was plain to see that your life was lost
You was cold and your body swung back and forth
But now your eyes sing the sad sad song
Of how you lived so fast and died so young

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Grandmaster Flash

Joseph Saddler (born January 1, 1958 in Bridgetown, Barbados), better known as Grandmaster Flash, is an American hip hop musician and DJ—one of the pioneers of hip-hop DJing, cutting, and mixing. more »

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