Todays poem is brought to us by the Great poet Ice Cube, originally from arguably the greatest and most influential Hip Hop group ever, NWA. Hip Hop was more than words. Hip Hop was our voice. Although we have artists that are conscious today, I highly doubt that we will ever see these types of lyrics by mainstream artists again on a large scale as we did in the late 80’s and early 90’s. These artists were not “conscious rappers”, they just happen to be conscious of what was going on in their communities. That has to be understood.
Fuck the Police By Ice Cube(Mc Ren, Eazy E)
Fuck the police coming straight from the underground
A young nigga got it bad cause I’m brown
And not the other color so police think
They have the authority to kill a minority
Fuck that shit, cause I ain’t the one
For a punk motherfucker with a badge and a gun
To be beating on, and throwing in jail
We can go toe to toe in the middle of a cell
Fucking with me cause I’m a teenager
With a little bit of gold and a pager
Searching my car, looking for the product
Thinking every nigga is selling narcotics
You’d rather see, me in the pen
Than me and Lorenzo rolling in a Benz-o
Beat a police out of shape
And when I’m finished, bring the yellow tape
To tape off the scene of the slaughter
Still getting swoll off bread and water
I don’t know if they fags or what
Search a nigga down, and grabbing his nuts
And on the other hand, without a gun they can’t get none
But don’t let it be a black and a white one
Cause they’ll slam ya down to the street top
Black police showing out for the white cop
Ice Cube will swarm
On any motherfucker in a blue uniform
Just cause I’m from the CPT(Compton)
Punk Police are afraid of me, huh
A young nigga on the warpath
And when I’m finished, it’s gonna be a bloodbath
Of cops, dying in L.A…
“These Songs Contain Explicit Lyrics: Parental Guidance Suggested”
Introduced in 1993, this label was not only used to stop kids from listening to sexually explicit music. This label was also used to keep kids from listening to music that the US government was afraid of, and that parents did not understand.
It is messed up that parents of young Black men helped the government quell a resistance that was brewing within Black communities during the late 80’s into the 90’s.
Instead of Black elders asking the younger generations for an explanation for lyrics like this. These lyrics were frowned upon by older generations of the Black community. Instead of listening to these young Black men express their frustration and anger towards the Police and society, the US government, along with US corporations and sadly older generations of Black people stopped this movement from growing. They stopped this issue from becoming a part of a national conversation on police brutality that may have been able to sway public opinion in favor of stopping police brutality towards black men under the protection of the law.
Tupac and Ice Cube and many more artists like them have many songs that voiced the issues that Black men and women were dealing with. I wonder what impact these lyrics would have if we recognized conscious hip hop artists as great poets that spoke about the harsh realties of their environment.
Ice Cubes lyrics in this song suggest that Black men had already reached the point where we were ready to fight back. Fuck the Police was the mentality and for good reason. The Police are the most dangerous extremist group in the United States of America. The Police have a long tradition of harassing and unlawfully murdering innocent Black men.
Long ugly history
I do not condone violence, but the mentality portrayed in this song and many more songs like it, from an era in hip hop where the voice was directly from the people with little corporate tampering, is much needed today.
School is extremely important, but a good education alone will not stop Black men from being murdered. Dressing a certain way will not stop Black men from being murdered. The fact that we have to dress a certain way to decrease the risk of death is ridiculous. A Black President will not stop Black men from being murdered, nor will a Black Attorney General. Police will not stop Black men from being murdered at the hands of Police. I am convinced that the only people that can put an end to the violence that Black men face at the hands of the police and vigilantes are Black men.
We need solidarity. Stand together and defend ourselves.