Chapter One
Hip hop is like a slave song that speaks of the conditions and hopes
of a people, spinning words and communicating ideas in codes; hiding
behind a language only to reveal its absolute strength and
metaphorical depths.
The subversion of the language is the art form. But it's nothing
new. Consider Muhammad Ali "Floating like a butterfly and stinging
like a bee" in the 70's, the jive talk of the 20's or back further
when recently transported Africans were forced to code the language
as a direct means of survival because by law slaves were not
permitted to read or write.
The language of hop hop, like the "languages" of the past, is the
spontaneous expression of words. Artists write what they feel. They
speak what they live and know. There is humor, deceit and anguish
that exposes and glamorizes urban madness that turns the real and
ugly into poetry, while ...
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