October 06, 2006 @ 5:12 pm

Opinion: Ghetto Masterpieces

Christopher J. Farley

This week, the Sunday Times of London reported that Britain’s Prince Charles is set to unveil a plan to help renovate Bob Marley’s old neighborhood of Trench Town, a slum area in Kingston, Jamaica. Royalty and government agencies, from time to time, develop the urge to try to clean up inner-city areas. Sometimes the interest is lasting. Sometimes it’s passing, like a limo driving across 125th street on the way to the West Side Highway. right What’s worth noting, however, is that although ghetto areas are often held up to condemnation in the mainstream press—and everyone, of course, should want to see an end to poverty, joblessness and urban blight—not enough attention is paid to how inspirational some of these same areas have been to black artists, particularly musicians. In “No Woman, No Cry,” Bob Marley famously sang of his youth in Trench Town, of warming himself by communal fires and eating cornmeal porridge. In “Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem)”, Jay-Z rapped about his rough upbringing in Brooklyn—and how he now sees his art as a way to carry on the frustrated dreams of others. “I flow for chicks wishin, they ain’t have to strip to pay tuition,” he raps on that song. Nas has rapped repeated about his old stomping grounds of the Queensbridge housing projects in New York City, on songs such as “Memory Lane (Sittin’ in Da Park)” and “N.Y. State of Mind.” His main purpose is captured in the refrain of one of his most well-known songs: “Represent! Represent!” To some, the point of life is to move up and out. Upward mobility is everything. To these folks, a career should be all about “Movin’ on up” like the Jeffersons. But in black music, some artists have a different mindset. Sure, black musicians want to get paid. Marley once told reporters that he drove a BMW because it stood for Bob Marley and the Wailers. And we all know where Jay-Z stands on the subject of cheese. As he rapped on “Moment of Clarity”: “Truthfully I wanna rhyme like Common Sense/ But I did five mil/ I ain’t been rhyming like Common since.” But there’s also this sense of that the further one gets from one’s roots, the more one longs to return. Again and again, some of the best music that black artists have made has been about the very ghetto areas that inspired some of them to become musicians in the first place—just so they could have the money to leave. One of the finest tracks on “Songs in the Key of Life,” a classic album with a multitude of classic moments, is the song “Village Ghetto Land.” “Would you like to go with me/ Down my dead end street?” Wonder sings. “Would you like to come with me/ to Village Ghetto Land?” The harsh lyrics are accompanied by strings as Wonder turns suffering into something soothing and artful. On another song on that album, “I Wish,” Wonder looks back on hanging out with “hoodlum friends” and Christmas Days when his family was too poor to give each other gifts. Lauryn Hill would later draw inspiration from this number for her track “Every Ghetto, Every City.” Marvin Gaye channeled the ghetto experience for his song “Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)”, on which he sang “Inflation no chance/ To increase finance/ Bills pile up sky high/ send that boy off to die.” The Jamaican press is already reporting that Prince Charles’ cleanup plan of Marley’s old neighborhood is getting a positive reception from Trench Town representatives. Royalty and government are welcome to try to renovate urban areas in Jamaica, Brooklyn, Detroit or wherever. Black artists, however, have been on their own restoration campaign for years: turning pain into lyrics, hopelessness into rhythm, and transforming shattering childhood memories into melodies you never want to get out of your head. Christopher John Farley is the author of the biography Before the Legend: The Rise of Bob Marley and the novel Kingston by Starlight. For more on Farley visit MySpace.com/CJFarley.

Article tags: Bob Marley, Common, Common Sense, Jay-Z, Nas, Prince Charles 

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