Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).
The Message (1982)
When "The Message" by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five came out in 1982, it was hailed as one of the first hip hop songs to focus on social issues instead of having a good time or boasting about being the best rapper. But the way it came about was interesting, given that only person from the group was involved in making the song.
Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five were formed in the South Bronx in 1978 by Grandmaster Flash, Kidd Creole, Keef Cowboy, Melle Mel, Scorpio and Rahiem. They started out playing parties and quickly established a reputation as the top rap group in NYC. They signed a contract with Sugar Hill Records, which released the first big hip hop single "Rapper's Delight" by the Sugarhill Gang. The group released a few singles and then the live album The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel.
"The Message" was actually put together by studio percussion player Ed "Duke Bootee" Fletcher, who played with Sugar Hill's house band (which included bassist Doug Wimbish, currently of Living Colour). Label head Sylvia Robinson heard Fletcher playing a rhythm on a plastic bottle and encouraged him to record it. Eventually, Fletcher and producer Jiggs Chase were trying to come up with lyrics when Fletcher came up with the song's classic refrain: "Don't push me, 'cause I'm close to the edge. I'm trying not to lose my head. It's like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder how I keep from going under."
The song was intended for the Sugarhill Gang, but they didn't want to do it. And Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five weren't interested, either, because it was too serious. They wanted to stick to party tracks. But Melle Mel stuck around and worked on it with Fletcher on synths and percussion, a drum machine and guitarist Skip McDonald. Fletcher, who wasn't even an official member of the group, took the intro, chorus and two verses and Mel took the other verses. Fletcher's raps were just supposed to be reference vocals for someone else to be on the finished track, but Robinson liked them so much she kept them in the song.
The song kicks off with an iconic squiggly synth line and then Duke Bootee with that intro: "It's like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder how I keep from going under."
Then Melle Mel jumps in. "Broken glass everywhere/People pissing on the stairs, you know they just don't care/I can't take the smell, can't take the noise/Got no money to move out, I guess I got no choice/Rats in the front room, roaches in the back/Junkies in the alley with a baseball bat/I tried to get away, but I couldn't get far/'Cause a man with a tow truck repossessed my car/Don't push me 'cause I'm close to the edge/I'm trying not to lose my head."
Fletcher said he wasn't trying to be political, but hold a mirror up to what was happening on the street.
"My brother's doing bad, stole my mother's TV/Says she watches too much, it's just not healthy/All My Children in the daytime, Dallas at night/Can't even see the game or the Sugar Ray fight/The bill collectors, they ring my phone/And scare my wife when I'm not home/Got a bum education, double-digit inflation/Can't take the train to the job, there's a strike at the station/Neon King Kong standing on my back/Can't stop to turn around, broke my sacroiliac/A mid-range migraine, cancered membrane/Sometimes I think I'm going insane, I swear I might hijack a plane."
Mel ends the song with a verse from Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five's "Superrappin'," which came out in 1979. "A child is born with no state of mind/Blind to the ways of mankind/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 of deep hate/The places you play and where you stay/Looks like one great big alleyway/You'll admire all the number-book takers/Thugs, pimps and pushers and the big money makers/Driving big cars spending 20s and 10s/And you wanna grow up to be just like them, huh/Pickpocket peddlers, even panhandlers/You say, 'I'm cool, huh, I'm no fool'/But then you wind up droppin' out of high school/Now you're unemployed, all null and void/Walking 'round like your Pretty Boy Floyd/Turned stick-up kid, but look what you done did/Got sent up for an eight-year bid."
At 7:11, the song was unusually long but it was an immediate hit in the dance clubs and on the radio. It went to #4 on the Billboard Hot Black Singles chart (yes, that was an actual thing), #12 on the Hot Dance Club play chart and #62 on the Billboard Hot 100. It was hailed for bringing social consciousness to hip hop, but it also signified that rappers were bigger stars than the DJs in hip hop groups. It was sampled in many songs and even served as an inspiration for Phil Collins' evil laugh in Genesis' hit song "Mama."
In 1983, Grandmaster Flash sued Sugar Hill Records for $5 million in unpaid royalties, despite not appearing on any of the group's studio recordings. The lawsuit resulted in the song "White Lines (Don't Don't Do It)" being credited to Grandmaster Flash and Melle Mel; this led Melle Mel, Scorpio and Cowboy to leave after the song became a hit. They formed Grandmaster Melle Mel and the Furious Five in 1984. Meanwhile, Grandmaster Flash, Kidd Creole and Rahiem went to Elektra Records and added three new members, going under the name Grandmaster Flash. They released three albums. In addition to releasing music on his own, Mel also appeared in Chaka Khan's "I Feel for You."
The original lineup of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five reunited for a charity performance in 1987 and then released a new album in 1988, but it didn't do well and the group split afterwards. The group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007, having inspired countless artists over the years.
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