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Transcription: [00:02:19]
{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
Uh, do that rap?
[00:02:25]
No, no.
[00:02:26]
[[BG]]
[00:02:31]
Right, calypso, reggae, rhythm, and blues. That's uh, that's takin all- all the different art forms and puttin' 'em together, so you know like-
[00:02:41]
[[BGV]]
[00:02:44]
That's in a lot of the raps. That's in a lot-
[00:02:47]
[[BGV]]
[00:02:55]
Do it?
[[BGV]]
[00:03:05]
Tryin to figure it out.
{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}
Ok.
Uh. It uh, this is a song that by uh, who was it?
[00:03:12]
Uh, it's the Soul Sounding Force. The Soul Sounding Force.

[00:03:19]
They used to go "Calypso reggae rhythm and blues, master mix those number one tunes.

[00:03:24]
Play those favorite songs of mines, and accept my calls on the request line.

[00:03:29]
A DJ will play just for you, cause you gotta get down to show one knows how to."

[00:03:36]
And then uh, another one that I do that has all the art forms in it is "The music is pumpin sounds has got the floor shakin

[00:03:42]
the ability to move is got the able bodied breakin, movin faster and faster
[00:03:46]
and somehow it seems as though we're fantasizin or livin a dream.
[00:03:50]
Pop blockers, pump rockers climb up onto the floor. The MCs are rockin rythms with rhymes galore.
[00:03:55]
And for all of those out there who appreciate rappin be prepared to kick alive because we're fresh and snappin.
[00:04:00]
Windmills, backhands, spinnin on your knees and DJs are spinnin beats and tunes to please.
[00:04:05]
The feelin feels good and your adrenaline is risen, the graffiti walls has blurred your vision.
[00:04:10]
Listen up in the dark hole, boys are makin art.
[00:04:12]
The MCs out there are tryin to get up on the chart.
[00:04:15]
Billboard, black stars, are all magazines, and the record sales are boomin selling to the teens.
[00:04:19]
The evolution of music in the whole has changed, everything is so different, synthesized, and strange.
[00:04:24]
But the beat is so unique that on the street, the feelings are the same no matter who you meet.
[00:04:29]
Cause the young and the old, they never pause to say, that they wouldn't mind rappin to be a DJ.
[00:04:34]
The talents are buried deep within our souls, and we wish to be raised from this hellhole.
[00:04:38]
Cause money is hard in the government, and the poor is watchin their every cent.
[00:04:43]
While they sit, sad, and sob, have to share and divide, and they're always prayin giving praises to God."
[00:04:49]
{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}
Created by MC Caesar. [[applause]]
[00:04:53]
{SPEAKER name="Speaker 3"}
I think the, the link between the forms–the calypso, the toasting in certain areas of the West Indies,

[00:04:59]
the message rap. All of this really can be traced back to an African tradition of making social commentary in song.

[00:05:09]
Certainly when you listen to African songs, uh, especially the older traditional pieces,
[00:05:15]
you find that song was perhaps the major vehicle for making commentary. You could say things in song about your society,
[00:05:24]
about your tribal group that you could never say outright. Song was always that sort of vehicle.
[00:05:31]
In this country in the African American community, song has long served the same purpose.
[00:05:35]
Perhaps the clearest example of this in the 1800s and the early 1900s was the entire African American work song tradition
[00:05:44]
where blacks would sing to set a tempo and to ease the tedium of group work. Let's say there might be 50 persons hoeing in a field,
[00:05:54]
or shucking oysters, or working in a tobacco factory.
[00:05:57]
Though if you listen to the words of these songs,
[00:06:00]
and this is the recording of them is one of the great contributions of the Library of Congress
[00:06:04]
who sent field workers into the southern states in the 1930s to record work songs.
[00:06:09]
When you listen to them you realize there is a, a long tradition of protest there.
[00:06:15]
Of social commentary which was the songs were being sung in front of the uh,
[00:06:22]
well years and years ago in front of the white slave owners. In this decade they were being sung in front of the white captains and foremen, and,
[00:06:28]
and uh bosses on the work gangs. As long as you were working you could say these things in song.
[00:06:36]
Well the same use of music as a vehicle for social commentary has carried right through in the Caribbean it has taken the form of Calypso,
[00:06:44]
it has taken the form