RAP Is a Patchwork Quilt, Part 2

This is a continuation of a previous post. As with the previous post, I am continuing my rant. I am tired of silly, divisive arguments about the roots of RAP. The roots of RAP are a patchwork quilt of influence. There is the Black Arts Movement, Southern music, Asian dance moves, and the bass line of the Caribbean. Last week, I wrote about Southern music and the Black Arts Movement. This week, the focus is on Asian dance moves, and the bass line of the Caribbean.

As I hear or read various people argue about the roots of Hip Hop, I get more and more agitated. First, most people do not understand the difference between Hip Hop and RAP. Hip Hop is an entire culture. It encompasses RAP, cars, clothing, dance, music, and even art. RAP is an acronym: Rhythm & Poetry (RAP). The acronym is reflective of its Black Arts Movement roots.

The complex rhythm of RAP music comes from several musical traditions that were somehow meshed together: African drumming, R & B (particularly Southern acts), jazz (Gang Starr, anyone?), and that hard-hitting bass from the Black Caribbean.

1. ) The gift of the Black Caribbean still reverberates in African American culture: RAP is no different. As a professor, I am comfortable teaching RAP as a literary artform, because ALL AFRICAN LITERATURE IS BASED ON ORAL LITERATURE. RAP is an oral literature. The Black Caribbean has been infusing African American literature with its rhythms, scenic views, complex views of urban and peasant Black culture and intricate environmental descriptions since before the Harlem Renaissance. For example, Claude McKay is a celebrated figure of the Harlem Renaissance.

Most people do not realize that Claude McKay was born in Jamaica. He began writing and publishing as early as 1912, while he was still in Jamaica. McKay published Constab Ballads and Songs of Jamaica while still on the island. He used the profits from Songs of Jamaica to finance a trip to America. McKay’s poetry and prose would go on to influence Black literature globally. Some say it was McKay's, Home to Harlem really began the Negritude Movement. About two generations later, the daughters of Caribbean immigrants gifted the Black literary world again: Paule Marshall and Audre Lorde. Marshall began crafting in the 1950s while Lorde made a splash as Black feminist lesbian poet in the…