The times may be a’ changing, but not quite fast enough.
Before Green Day won Grammies for singing of an American idiot, and Rage Against the Machine urged us to take the power back, The Clash wrote intricate songs about isolation, poverty, utilitarianism, and cultural upheaval. Before Bob Dylan won a Nobel Prize for Literature, his songs were recited and replayed over and over at picket lines across the United States when citizens took to the streets to protest the Vietnam War. Before Dr. Dre was selling his headphones to Apple and being treated like hip hop’s elder statesman and Ice Cube was making movies about barbershops and Jump Street, the “Niggaz With Attitude” were challenging police corruption and slapping us unapologetic-ally with a lyrical portrait of their realities in South Central, Los Angeles.
