Why The Caged Bird Raps
Markin comment:
On the face of the matter it would seem improbable, very improbable, that a leading voice of the hip-hop nation today, j. cole, and an old reprobate communist mired in be-bop 1950s youthful memories would have any points of intersection. And if it hadn’t been for happenstance that I ran into a young woman, Kelly, at a political event and mentioned to her that I was somewhat bewildered by the lack of political focus in today’s music and she mentioned some of j. cole’s stuff that she was crazy about it still would have been so. Naturally, since I am also in the midst of a craze of my own in trying to present archival material from the 1960s and 1970s concerning youth work among the leftist groups of the time, I checked out some of his lyrics.
The distance between a young black man growing up in the ‘hood of Fayetteville, North Carolina in the recent past, post-civil rights marches time, “post-racial” time and a 1950s be-bop rock white kid growing up in “the projects” turns out not to be so far after all. The connection: a simple lyric taken from j. cole’s Dolla and a Dream about how his mother, blessed mother of course, had to sew patches on his pants “to make do” when he was young. No heavy message needed there. I remember, and have written about, my own hand-me-down patched non-fashionista childhood. Now this lyric may no represent the “high” communist theory that we communist propagandists thrive on but if we can’t get to those kids, those ‘hood, barrio, projects kids who are also basically living on hand-me-downs, then we are going to have a very hard time trying to fight for our communist future, and theirs.
Maya Angelou's poetry and lyrics meet hip-hop beats on the new album Caged Bird Songs. Chester Higgins /Courtesy of the artist hide caption
Maya Angelou's poetry and lyrics meet hip-hop beats on the new album Caged Bird Songs.
Chester Higgins /Courtesy of the artist The new album Caged Bird Songs takes its title from Angelou's 1969 book I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. One of the last projects Angelou worked on before her passing in May, it blends some of her most famous poems and lyrics with hip hop beats.
Music producer Shawn Rivera said he was first inspired to put Angelou's words to music back in 2007 — and through a friend of a friend, he heard that she liked the idea. Still, it was years before he actually met Angelou, at her 80th birthday party.
"I said, 'Excuse me, Dr. Angelou, do you mind if I take a photograph with you?' " Rivera remembers. "She said, 'If you will stand with me, do not pose.' And I'm like, wow. I knew she was telling me to be myself, and we just kind of clicked right away from that point."
"When you read the poems on the page, they can be interpreted rhythmically by the reader," Rivera says. "But when Dr. Angelou reads them, there's no doubt that she was coming from the place of rhythm. ... You can tell the rhythms were implied already. She already was the first lady of hip-hop."
Angelou had released spoken word albums before — and won three Grammys for them. But her grandson, Colin Johnson, says this latest project shows Angelou in a new light.
"Some people can look at Grandma as a really heavy, kind of heady type of person. You know, really deep. But she liked to have fun," he says. "She was a fun person. She gave the best parties, too, by the way — I mean, hands down, the best."
He says that putting Angelou's words to hip-hop is a way to bring his grandmother's messages to a new generation. "One of the things that she speaks to, for me at least, is our humanity and where we can go as a people coming together," he says. "It's a valuable message, no matter what generation. And I want that message to continue on for many different years."
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