A HAZY SHADE OF SLUMBER: ACT II: RAP ROCKS TO A DIFFERENT KIND OF BASS (BASE)
Percolating beneath Black music's underbelly, rap's party-rocking rhymes set out on a singular road that went on until the break of dawn. In time, rap embarked on a divergent path lyrically exploring utopian themes ("Planet Rock"), urban working-class woes ("The Breaks" and "Hard Times"), and current events. The peak moment of this seminal shift was Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five featuring Melle Mel and Duke Bootee's "The Message" (1982). Spawning no less than a half-dozen hard-knock life narratives ("What People Do For Money" "It's Like That" "You're Blind"), " The Message" also planted future inspirational seeds: regional rap markets found their own voices apart from New York hip hop stylings exploring similar subject matter. (See "The Message") On the heels of a few Message-tinged follow-ups, Melle Mel, now cemented as hip hop's resident soothsayer-...