All Black Everything

Earlier this year, while I was searching for a blog for a to comment on, I came across a blog from Carolyn Arden (a student in my class).This blog focused on how music was used in Vietnam protests as an anti-war tool.(For more on this blog click here.) My comment was based on how few artists today actually focus on something that has to do with social or political protests. Valerie Caeser (another student in my class) gave examples of some bands that do focus on controversial topics, yet none of those bands were especially mainstream. Although still popular, I was focusing on artists that would be on the top of the itunes charts, or played on mainstream radio. Today I came across a song that will be released in a new Lupe Fiasco album, Lasers, called "All Black Everything". Looking at lyrics to this song proved how wrong I am. The song is about a dream Lupe Fiasco had in which there was no racism. One verse goes:

"Uh, and we ain’t get exploited
White man ain’t feared so he did not destroy it
We ain’t work for free, see they had to employ it
Built it up together so we equally appointed
First 400 years, see we actually enjoyed it
Constitution written by the W.E.B. Du Bois
Were no reconstructions, Civil War got avoided
Little black Sambo grows up to be a lawyer
Extra extra on the news stands
Black woman voted head of Ku Klux Klan
Malcolm Little dies as a old man
Martin Luther King read the eulogy for him
Followed by Bill O’Reilly who read from the Quran
President Bush sends condolences from Iran
Where FOX News reports live
That Ahmadinejad wins Mandela peace prize"

I found it fascinating that there was mainstream rap that involved politics, and history. I know that other rap, of course, has commentary on racism, but I was surprised to see a song that didn't have just a verse on racism, but dedicated the whole song to the history of racism. Lupe raps of reconstructions, which was the period of time after the civil war that led to segregation among blacks and whites among other things. I believed historical references such as this one were non-existent in mainstream music. A few lines I found particularly interesting:

"I know it’s just a fantasy
I cordially invite you to ask why can’t it be?
Now we can do nothing bout the past
But we can do something about the future that we have"


To me this was particularly interesting because instead of talking about what was, he addresses what could be. He also is acknowledging that now, even in our progressive society with a black president, racism is still everywhere. By rapping that we can make change in our "future" suggests to me that we still have much to work on. What I noticed from Carolyn A.'s blog post was that the songs were obviously referring to a problem with Vietnam War, and with music now that talks about racism, artists like Lupe are making it clear that racism is still a very important issue, although sometimes forgotten by the public.