Peak
62
Weeks
7
Score
390
Chart Year
1982
"The Message" is the best-known track by legendary hip-hop innovators Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, and is a song that, without exaggeration, changed rap music's tone and content forever. With its hard-boiled chorus ("It's like a jungle sometimes / It makes me wonder how I keep from going under.") and unflinching observation of the perils and anxieties of contemporary urban life, "The Message" compelled Hip-Hop records away from their early emphasis on party anthems and empty braggadocio and toward the fearless social commentary that has dominated many of the form's most important recordings since. Indeed, when Public Enemy leader Chuck D proclaimed, famously, in the late '80s, that rap's ongoing documentation of problems for inner city African Americans made it "the black CNN," it was presumably songs like "The Message" and its inheritors that he had in mind. And while the song's importance cannot be overstated within the development of Hip-Hop, specifically, its influence extends well beyond popular music: as seen, for example, by its inclusion in academic texts like The Norton Anthology of African American Literature. Ed "Duke Bootee" Fletcher, who was a staff songwriter as Sugarhill Records, started writing this song on a piano in his mother's basement in 1980. He made a demo of the song with his own raps and took it to label boss Sylvia Robinson, who asked Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five to record it. Flash would later speak of the song as a landmark in the evolution of rap, but he and the group wanted nothing to do with the song, and even ridiculed it when he heard the demo. "The subject matter wasn't happy. It wasn't no party s--t. It wasn't even some real street s--t. We would laugh at it," said Flash. With the band balking at recording the song, she decided to record it with the group's rapper Melle Mel trading verses with Fletcher. At this point, Flash asked Robinson to let the entire group perform on the track, but she refused. Melle added some additional lyrics to the song as well. Unlike many early hip-hop hits, like Sugarhill Gang's "Rapper's Delight" or Kurtis Blow's "The Breaks," which turned on thumping, up-tempo disco tracks, composers Ed "Duke Bootee" Fletcher and MC Melle Mel based "The Message" on a slow groove and a reverberated synthesizer hook. Fletcher, a Sugarhill Records session player and aspiring producer, created most of the background music and all but one of the verses himself. (Note that Grandmaster Flash actually had very little involvement on the track.) As Fletcher admitted later, he'd been moved to write something in the spirit of Zapp's "More Bounce To The Ounce" or Tom Tom Club's "Genius Of Love," both of which utilized synthesizer hooks over an amped-up funk bass. The effect of the more relaxed tempo on "The Message," was to highlight Melle Mel's gritty rap about ghetto poverty and violence. (The single was definitely no call to the dance floor or invitation to wave one's arms in the air.) Effectively, then, this aesthetic decision had other lasting effects beyond the changes in rap lyrical content it inspired. That is, in moving away from rap's early emphasis as a DJ-centered dance music borne from Bronx block parties and Manhattan discos, "The Message" argued for the growing importance of the MC as community voice and political poet. Whereas MCs had originally been envisioned as mere complements to the turntable pyrotechnics of innovative DJs like DJ Hollywood or Grandmaster Flash, from this point onward, they emerged as hip-hop's vital interlocutors for the underprivileged, and as the music's prime movers and celebrities. "The Message" is ubiquitous in American popular culture, turning up on innumerable old school rap compilations, in video games like Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, Scarface: The World Is Yours, and in movies like Happy Feet and American Wedding. It has been sampled or alluded to by a wide range of hip-hop performers, all calling attention to its foundational place in the genre's evolution. In November 2011, the track's legacy was made even more clear, with a performance at the Nomination Concert for the 54th Annual Grammys that featured Grandmaster Flash and Melle Mel joined by their artistic heirs LL Cool J, Common, and Lupe Fiasco. Songwriting credits on this one read: Clifton Chase/Edward Fletcher/Melvin Glover (Melle Mel)/Sylvia Robinson. Chase was a producer at Sugarhill Records who worked on the song, and Robinson owned the label. Notably absent from the credits are all members of the group except for Melle Mel. Report this ad At the end of the song, the group does a skit where they are minding their own on a street corner when cops pull up and arrest them. This is the only time Flash & the Furious Five rappers besides Melle Mel appear on the track - the vocals were all Melle and Ed Fletcher. There was a video made for this song which showed Melle and Fletcher doing their verses while the other five guys hang out in the background. The skit gave them a brief acting role in the clip. This was named the Greatest Hip-Hop song of all time in a 2012 list compiled by experts for Rolling Stone. The magazine said it was the first track, "to tell, with hip-hop's rhythmic and vocal force, the truth about modern inner-city life in America." Sugarhill Gang's 1979 hit "Rapper's Delight," was runner-up. Some of Melle Mel's lyrics were recycled from the first Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five single, "Superrapin," which was released in 1979. It contained the verse that begins, "A child is born with no state of mind..." Rap songs often pilfer ideas from popular rock songs, but in this case, it was the other way around. Phil Collins got the idea for the lunatic laugh in the 1983 Genesis song "Mama" from this track.
It's like a jungle sometimes It makes me wonder how I keep from goin' under It's like a jungle sometimes It makes me wonder how I keep from goin' under Broken glass everywhere People pissin' 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, ha-ha-ha-ha It's like a jungle sometimes It makes me wonder how I keep from goin' under Standin' on the front stoop, hangin' out the window Watchin' all the cars go by, roarin' as the breezes blow Crazy lady, livin' in a bag Eatin' outta garbage pails, used to be a fag hag Said she'll dance the tango, skip the light fandango A Zircon princess seemed to lost her senses Down at the peep show watchin' all the creeps So she can tell her stories to the girls back home She went to the city and got so-so siditty She had to get a pimp, she couldn't make it on her own Don't push me 'cause I'm close to the edge I'm trying not to lose my head, ha-ha-ha-ha It's like a jungle sometimes It makes me wonder how I keep from goin' under It's like a jungle sometimes It makes me wonder how I keep from goin' under My brother's doin' 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 standin' on my back Can't stop to turn around, broke my sacroiliac A mid-range migraine, cancered membrane Sometimes I think I'm goin' insane I swear I might hijack a plane 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 goin' under It's like a jungle sometimes It makes me wonder how I keep from goin' under 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 'Cause it's all about money, ain't a damn thing funny You got to have a con in this land of milk and honey 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 I can't walk through the park 'cause it's crazy after dark Keep my hand on my gun 'cause they got me on the run I feel like a outlaw, broke my last glass jaw Hear them say, "You want some more?" Livin' on a see-saw Don't push me 'cause I'm close to the edge I'm trying not to lose my head, say what? It's like a jungle sometimes It makes me wonder how I keep from goin' under It's like a jungle sometimes It makes me wonder how I keep from goin' under It's like a jungle sometimes It makes me wonder how I keep from goin' under It's like a jungle sometimes It makes me wonder how I keep from goin' under A child is born with no state of mind Blind to the ways of mankind God is smilin' on you but he's frownin' too Because only God knows what you'll go through You'll grow in the ghetto livin' second-rate And your eyes will sing a song called 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 Drivin' big cars, spendin' twenties and tens And you'll wanna grow up to be just like them Huh, smugglers, scramblers, burglars, gamblers Pickpocket peddlers, even panhandlers You say I'm cool, huh, I'm no fool But then you wind up droppin' outta high school Now you're unemployed, all non-void Walkin' round like you're Pretty Boy Floyd Turned stick-up kid, but look what you done did Got sent up for a eight-year bid Now your manhood is took and you're a Maytag Spend the next two years as a undercover fag Bein' used and abused to serve like hell 'Til one day, you was found hung dead in the cell It was plain to see that your life was lost You was cold and your body swung back and forth But now your eyes sing the sad, sad song Of how you lived so fast and died so young So don't push me 'cause I'm close to the edge I'm trying not to lose my head, ha-ha-ha-ha It's like a jungle sometimes It makes me wonder how I keep from goin' under, ha-ha-ha-ha It's like a jungle sometimes It makes me wonder how I keep from goin' under, ha-ha-ha-ha
| Week | Chart Date | Position | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Oct 16, 1982 | 84 | 42 |
| 2 | Oct 23, 1982 | 75 | 51 |
| 3 | Oct 30, 1982 | 69 | 57 |
| 4 | Nov 6, 1982 | 62 | 64 |
| 5 | Nov 13, 1982 | 62 | 64 |
| 6 | Nov 20, 1982 | 85 | 41 |
| 7 | Nov 27, 1982 | 94 | 32 |