Rhetorical Devices In The Message

The early 1980s was considered the “Golden-Age of Hip Hop”, this due to the fact that the genre was in its infancy and every new record that was released during this time period was seen as an innovation. Before 1982, hip hop records were boastful party-raps that illustrated the perseverance of young African Americans self-confidence even through dire circumstances. After Grandmaster Flash and the furious five released their classic hip-hop record “The Message”, the scope of hip-hop as a genre changed forever. Melle Mel’s verse in “The Message” utilizes Craig Werners 3 step processes by using personal experiences to explain the struggles of African Americans in New York’s inner cities.
Before Grandmaster Flash and the furious five released

“The Message”, social commentary was not illustrated on a large scale in hip-hop. Breaking out of the already familiarized party and chant-anthem hip hop music was a risk that even Grandmaster flash and the furious five were hesitant to take. In an interview with NPR Melle Mel (A member of the group) said “Our group, like Flash and the Furious Five, we didn't actually want to do "The Message" because we was used to doing party raps and boasting how good we are and all that." Certain members of the group pushed for the song to be released now Melle Mel’s verse is considered one of the greatest verses of all time.
Music scholar Craig Werner theorizes in the first chapter of Understanding Hip-Hop Cinema that blues music “does not reaffirm the brutal experience it reaffirms the value of life” (5).

He writes that a typical blues or gospel song both followed a three-step process that can be used by entertainers across multiple platforms. These processes, although slightly different in wording, do share an overall meaning and purpose. The process begins with the artist acknowledging their overall experience or burden, after that the artist must find the voice to tell the story through. This story can be told from the perspective of the artist themself, or through the perspective of another individual. The final step consists of the artist using said struggle to demonstrate how it affects people on a larger scale, this is the step that makes a piece of art relatable and palatable. Whether Melle Mel of the Grandmaster Flash and the furious five knew about this process or not, he seemed to explain the hardships of living in New-York inner cities through this process

exactly.
Melle Mel introduces the fourth verse of the song by drawing from a personal experience between him and his son stating “My son said, Daddy, I don't wanna go to school ’Cause the teacher's a jerk, he must think I'm a fool and all the kids smoke reefer, I think it'd be cheaper If I just got a job, learned to be a street sweeper or dance to the beat, shuffle my feet Wear a shirt and tie and run with the creeps” (Verse 4). Melle Mel utilizes all three steps of Werner’s process by using the voice of his child to explain the immediate effects of low expectations in poor and disenfranchised African American communities. The education system his child was trapped in immediately expects his son to be a failure, which causes his son loses faith in his own abilities to succeed. As a result, the child feels the need to be cynical towards his own abilities and feels as if he should just take on a working-class career like becoming a "street sweeper" or a "dancer'". These lyrics really shed a light on how systemic racism affects the troubled youth. Professor Sanchez touches on this subject in Understanding Hip Hop Culture when she writes “Virtually invisible and with few paths for success, urban youth faced a plethora of popular images of themselves and their communities that implied that they were unsuccessful primarily because of personal failures as opposed to political and social structures” (9). Under the Reagan presidency, African American youth were exposed to the media as a population that were destined for failure. Although keeping this narrative alive is an entertaining for uninvolved communities, Melle Mel uses this verse to established how the media’s wrongful portrayal of African American you legitimately affects their willingness to succeed.
Melle Mel continues his fourth verse when stating “They pushed that girl in front of the train took her to the doctor, sewed her arm on again stabbed that man right in his heart gave him a transplant for a brand-new start”. Melle Mel uses a metaphor for society's treatment of social injustices in America such as poverty, education, and overall racism. As he raps from his own perspective, he uses a metaphor to address the larger issue of America doing its part to treat the symptoms of these social injustices but avoids making effort to cure the overall disease of systematic racism. Political principles like Reaganism seemed to be putting poor African American citizens in the gutter. As a historian explains in Craig Watkins “Social Conservatism and the Culture Wars”, Reaganism meant “large tax cuts for the rich, less government help for the poor, weaker enforcement of civil rights”. This very issue is what produced the various black power movements in the late 1900’s. Professor Sanchez writes in Understanding Hip-Hop Cinema that “The frustration about lack of progress inspired the rise of Black power movements and insurrections against the government in protest. Discrimination, unemployment, and poverty, known factors in civil unrest, are implicated in riots that occurred in Black communities.” (7) Melle Mel uses this metaphor to explain why so many Afircan AMericans were frsustrated by their treatmeent in the 1980s.
Melle Mel concludes his verse when rapping “God is smiling on you, but he's frowning too because only God knows what you'll go through you'll grow in the ghetto living second-rate and your eyes will sing a song called deep hate”(4).

Melle Mel raps from his own perspective in this section of the verse. I believe Melle Mel uses the end of the verse to address the youth listening to the song but also explains to the audience why so many of the troubled youth at that time were so rebellious. Citizens that lived in these inner cities resented individuals who were not going through their struggle because they understood that lack of empathy displayed by middle and upper class America entails they were seen by the general public as second class citizens. This creates a natural divide between cultures and races in America. Manning Marable explains how the government conspired against the rights of African Americans when he states “So much was his 1980 candidacy for the White House identified with the various movements against affirmative action, court-ordered busing, and civil rights for blacks, Latinos, women … Economically, as the 1970s and 1980s continued, Blacks in urban areas found that many industries associated with cities had moved to different locations or had outsourced jobs to foreign countries”. As an African American youth, there was no positive portrayal of who they were in the media, they were marginalized in society but also increasingly stereotyped as a threat to

individuals outside of their circles, leaving no room for success in America.
Melle Mel’s verse in the message does a commendable job of using his personal experiences to express African American struggles in the early 1980s. Craig Werner believes that genres like gospel and jazz are especially helpful in portraying the black struggle due to its ability to address certain societal issues through honest real life experiences. Melle Mel was one of the first artists to use embody the three step process that Werner explains in the textbook in a hip-hop format. This verse was a catalyst for many of the socially conscious rhymes that helped empower African American youth in the late 1980s and early 1990s.