Considering the Canon: The Message

Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five's "The Message" is an enduring expression of suppression by a social hierarchy wherein race and class are inextricably intertwined.

The recent murders of Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner and Mike Brown have pushed into public light the ongoing oppression of Black men. The final scene in "The Message" is as familiar today as it was in 1982. It's only by dent of the poet being Black that "The Message" is about Black men: it is equally the story of Indian and Latino men. It's a story that happens in cities and on reservations nationwide.

"The Message" is in fact a collection of stories, culminating in Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five's wrongful arrest. All are set in an environment of social decay wrought by abject poverty. All are punctuated by the desperate chorus:

"Don't push me because I'm close to the edge,

I'm trying not to loose my head.

It's like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder

How I keep from going under."

After setting the scene, Flash describes a second-person protagonist who responds to the emotional degradation by "walkin' round like you're Pretty Boy Floyd" only to wind up incarcerated. You, the protagonist, spend the time between your arrest and suicide or murder getting raped. After a final chorus, Flash and the Furious Five are wrongfully arrested in a segment that plays like found audio.

"The Message" is considered a classic because of its unfortunate timeless depiction of class in America defined by race and enforced officially by the police or pseudo-officially by the repo man and debt collectors in Flash's song, or the neighborhood watch in recent news. The song itself is class-specific. If you haven't been hassled by the police purely on the basis of your skin color, how can you relate? If you can walk down the street and not have a reasonable concern about being shot or choked to death, then this song will be alien to you.

Even if it doesn't achieve real universality, "The Message" retains relevancy and an unfortunate timelessness. Everyone, Black, Indian, White and so forth ought to give it a listen.