The Message (song)

Infobox Song
Name = The Message


Artist = Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five
Album = The Message
B-side = The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on The Wheels of Steel
Released = May 1982
Format = CD, Vinyl, Cassette
Recorded =
Genre = Old school hip hop, political hip hop, conscious hip hop
Length = 7:10
Writer = Ed "Duke Bootee" Fletcher
Grandmaster Melle Mel
Label = Sugar Hill Records
Producer = Ed Fletcher
Clifton "Jiggs" Chase
Sylvia Robinson [http://www.discogs.com/viewimages?what=R&obid=1259537]
This single = "The Message"
(1982)
Next single =

"The Message" is an old school hip hop song by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. Sugar Hill Records released it as a single in 1982 and it was later featured on an album named "The Message".

Though not the first in the genre of rap to talk about the struggles and the frustrations of living in the ghetto, the song was unique in that it was set to a slower beat, refocusing the song on the lyrics over the music [Jeff Chang. (2005) "Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation." New York: St. Martin's Press. 179.] . The song was written by Sugar Hill session musician Ed "Duke Bootee" Fletcher and Furious Five MC Melle Mel. Flash and the other members of The Furious Five, although credited on the record, were uninterested in recording the song and are not found on the finished record.

Legacy

The song's signature synthesizer riff has been sampled by popular rap artists such as Ice Cube on "Check Yo Self", Puff Daddy on "Can't Nobody Hold Me Down" and Ahmad on "Only If You Want It." The song's chorus of "Don't push me 'cuz I'm close to the edge" has become one of the most well known choruses in rap music history. Lyrics from the song have also been used (albeit with varying degrees of alteration) many times in hip hop songs by artists such as Andre Nickatina ("Jungle" and "The Stress Factor"), AZ ("Sunshine"), Mos Def ("Close Edge"), Talib Kweli ("Broken Glass"), 2Pac ("2 of Amerikaz Most Wanted" and "Gangbangin 101"), Coolio ("County Line"), Mickey Avalon ("Waiting to Die"), dead prez ("Psychology"), Common ("Chapter 13 [Rich Man vs. Poor Man] ") and Ice Cube ("Check Yo Self"). In addition, it was sampled in the song "Magic Spells" by the Toronto based chiptune-band Crystal Castles.

"The Message" was included as ingame radio music for the 2002 video game ', and the 2006 video game ', an adaption of the 1983 film. For the MTV-produced compilation album "Lit Riffs: The Soundtrack" in 2004, the band Katsu supplied a stripped-down cover version of "The Message". It also appears in the film "Happy Feet". The second and last verse of the song are sung by Mushroomhead in the song "Born of Desire" off their XX album. Additionally, The Madow Brothers have parodied this song with dental lyrics for their dental seminars. American singer-songwriter Willy Mason also covered this song for BBC Radio 1's Live Lounge on the 25th of February 2005.

In 2007, the 25th anniversary of "The Message", Melle Mel changed the spelling of his first name to Mele Mel and released "M3 - The New Message" as the first single to his first ever solo album, "Muscles". 2007 is also the year that Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five became the first hip-hop act ever to be inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. [ [http://www.rockhall.com/inductees/inductee-list/ Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum - Inductee List] ]

Reception

Retrospective

"Rolling Stone" ranked "The Message" #51 in its List of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time (the highest placing for any song released in the 1980s, and highest ranking hip-hop song on the list).

It was voted #3 on About.com's Top 100 Rap Songs, after "I Used to Love H.E.R." and "Rapper's Delight". [ [http://rap.about.com/od/top10songs/ss/Top100RapSongs_10.htm Top 100 Rap Songs] . About.com.]

In 2002, it was one of 50 recordings chosen that year by the Library of Congress to be added to the National Recording Registry, [ [http://www.loc.gov/rr/record/nrpb/nrpb-2002reg.html The National Recording Registry 2002] ] the first hip hop recording ever to receive this honor.

It was even used in a British Government commissioned public information film on road safety. [ [http://www.noisetosignal.org/tv/2008/03/the-good-old-days-road-safety-part-2-tell-it-to-the-kids.php "» The Good Old Days? - Road Safety (part 2; Tell It to the Kids" - Noise to Signal] ]

Chart positions

United States:
*US Billboard Hot 100: #62
*UK top 75: No. 8

References

Further reading

*Chang, Jeff. (2005) "Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation." New York: St. Martin's Press.

External links

* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6e9G-ump3Y Video]
* [http://www.melemel.net/ Grandmaster Mele Mel Official Website]