Black Power/Proto-Rap

The Black Power movement in the late 1960s and 1970s has much in common with the previous decade's Beatniks, right down to the stereotypical bongos, berets, black turtlenecks, and protest poetry. This time, however, spoken-word and "concept" albums were in their heyday. Besides the obvious (fear and suppression of the Black Power movement), what kept this countercultural phenomenon marginal was the distraction of many other movements and events of the period. But, as with soul jazz, free jazz, and so on, time allows for correction and retrieval.

Whatever one thinks of race and militancy in America, Black Power rap is merely an art form, nothing more and nothing less. It never posed any real threat, yet its influence cannot be dismissed as minimal or dated. It is proto-rap, the primordial verbal stew, as well as forward-looking "African Visionary Music." For its origins, look to the same ones as for vocal jazz and calypso: patois, slave speech, the dozens, spirituals, work songs. For its legacy, look to Sun Ra, Gil Scott-Heron, rap and hip hop, and great speeches by African-American leaders.

Black Power rap, really an attempt to raise consciousness and inspire courageous action (at least promote awareness, pride, and free expression), begins with New York's Last Poets. Of the relatively few Black Power rappers to record, the Last Poets were the first to develop and hone the idiom, the only very successful one, and the only one enjoying longevity and even a renaissance in later decades. These iconoclasts deserve to be heard indefinitely and, if anyone does, treated as icons.

No less influential may be Melvin van Peebles, who defied the "blacksploitation" tag through films and records. Spike Lee and others have continued the tradition (e.g., Ossie Davis drum-rapping in "Get on the Bus"). Another source for Black Power rap, surprisingly, is Motown. Its Black Forum label has perhaps the closest thing to a Black Power series, and these records are some of the heaviest and best of the idiom. And Roland Kirk and others telling stories and jokes between tunes practiced a form of it. Pan-African Nationalism, ghetto indignancy, out jazz, science fiction, Egyptology, the Dozens...Black Power rap contains multitudes.