This was the first time I've listened to this album. I picked up on a lot of samples and references to it by 90s hip-hop artists. It starts with a sample from one of my all-time most listened to and loved songs: "All Night" by the Alkaholiks. The chorus of "Living for the City" was repeated in Wu-Tang's "The City." In that line someone comments, "New York City, skyscrapers and everythang" which was repeated in the track "All the Critics in New York" by Westside Connection. I also had forgotten that the RHCP song "Higher Ground" was actually a cover. So in addition to pointing to how pervasive the 70s were in 90s music, my lack of awareness of this album's influence also points to a generational and cultural disconnect between me and the artists who created that music.
There is a lot of depth to this album and I'll need to listen to it again to fully appreciate it. I was taking in the sound and music and less the lyrics, and I understand that these are laden with social commentary of life as a Black man in mid century America, personal experiences with drug addiction, and so on. Plus there is clear significance in the title Innervisions that can't be appreciated without hearing the lyrics and getting to some of the deeper layers of the music.
A few years ago I put together a playlist where I tried to get one song from as many rap albums from 1990 that I could find. I didn't start listening to rap deeply until 1996, starting with Pac, Snoop, Warren G, Westside Connection, Wu-Tang, and Bone Thugs. I branched out quite a lot, and went a bit backwards in time but I mostly went forward, until about 2001. Most of the artists I exposed myself to either did not address racial and political injustice or did so indirectly. Unfortunately, I largely missed out on black nationalist rap and most politically and racially conscious rap completely.
It's difficult to assess the credibility of this article suggesting there was an intentional effort within the recording industry to turn rap into "music which promotes criminal behavior" in order to boost publicly traded, privately-owned prison populations and therefore boost stock prices https://www.hiphopisread.com/2012/04/secret-meeting-that-changed-rap-music.html. There's probably some truth to that, but there are many other factors that went into it; but there is no doubt that rap in the early 90s was much more focused on systemic racism and injustice than the topics that came to dominate it in the mid-late 90s. At least you could say that it explored a range of issues and black experience, but popular rap later in the decade was much more narrowly focused. I also felt that it had a sense of optimism, that black people were becoming conscious of these injustices and there was hope that they were empowered and their centuries of struggle were finally forcing this racist society to treat black people as equals.
This album carries all the boldness, fearlessness, anger, and pride as the rap records I loved, and it is has so much depth and range, lyrically and musically, and channels its aggression towards these issues. It's relentless, not only in the message but in the music, which demands you face it and listen to it. "Fear of a Black Planet" - yes, white people were and are afraid of Black people and this bullshit is constantly propagated in various ways across the media, as the title track and other songs on the album repeat. But although the album is aggressive and angry, it's also very non-violent, calling on white people to wake up and black people to continue organizing and picking themselves up.
What's sad is both in seeing how racism is still so saturated and institutionalized, and how blind so many white people are to it. But Black people have continued to resist it, speak their truth and fight the power as Chuck urged throughout the album. Powerful, inspirational, uplifting, deep, thoughtful and righteously angry; a great album that deserves many relistens while reading and considering the lyrics.
I've been wonderin' why people livin' in fear of my shade
(Or my high-top fade)
I'm not the one that's runnin', but they got me on the run
Treat me like I had a gun
All I got is genes and chromosomes
Consider me Black to the bone
All I want is peace and love on this planet
Ain't how that God planned it?
When I first heard License to Ill, I think Brass Monkey, it was one of the coolest things I’d ever heard. I didn’t actually get it for a few years and picked up Ill Communication, which I also thought was so awesome. I actually never had Paul’s Boutique and just so happened to never really have friends who put it on. I tried to listen to it a few years ago and never really got into it. I listened to it again today and to be honest felt really bored. I know it’s legendary for its samples, but I just am not feeling it. Maybe I just need to listen to it a few times, but it doesn’t have the coolness of Communication, or the novelty I felt back in the day with License. I know it’s sacrilege in some circles, but I can’t see myself really jamming this.
