Missing Malcolm X: Are Rappers Scared of Revolution?
, Robert F. Williams said that as early as 1957, he was strappin’ Black people in Monroe, North Carolina, to protect themselves from the Ku Klux Klan. However, Malcolm X still holds a special spot in the Black psyche.The spirit of Malcolm X has long been present in Hip-Hop. In 1983, Keith LeBlanc sampled his speeches on “No Sell Out” and Afrika Bambaataa and the Soul Sonic Force shouted him out on “Renegades of Funk.” However, it was during the late ’80s when Hip-Hop became infused with the ideology of Malcolm X courtesy of groups like Public Enemy, so much so that by the early ’90s, the X caps had replaced Kangols as the official Hip-Hop head gear.
So the question in 2012 becomes, why is Hip-Hop producing so many Meek Mills and so few Malcolm Xs ?
Back in the 1970s, the forefathers of rap, “The Last Poets,” released “N*ggers Are Scared of Revolution”, a song that proclaimed that some Black folks will do everything under the sun except engage in rebellion against the system. So, in 2012, are rappers scared of revolution, too?
