http://www.grandmasterflash.com
Hip-Hop culture offers its proponents a way of dealing with the frustrations of urban life via artistic expression. The lyrics of rap music are often harsh, even brutal in their portrayal of the everyday world of the inner city black youth who developed the form. Rapper Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five's 1982 recording "The Message," describes the streets of their neighborhood:
It's like a jungle sometimes it makes me wonder
How I keep from going under
It's like a jungle sometimes it makes me wonder
How I keep from going under
Broken glass everywhere,
People pissin' on the stair,
You know they just don't care.
I can't take the smell, I can't take the noise
Got no money to move out, I guess I got no choice (1-9)