I first developed a glimmer of interest in this new sound, this “Black Noise” (props, Tricia Rose), back in 1979 when I heard the Sugar Hill Gang’s master hit, “Rapper’s Delight.” Then in 1982, when Joseph Saddler, aka Grandmaster Flash, and the Furious Five came wit “The Message”—“It’s like a jungle some times / It makes me wonder / How I keep from going under”—my interest shonuff peaked. A few years later, with the entry of P.E. (Public Enemy) into the game, I was all in. P.E.’s sampling of the speeches of Malcolm X (“too Black, too strong”) gave sustenance to us weary souls then witnessing the gradual loss of hard-fought Civil Rights Movement gains in the wake of the evolving Reagan-Bush Second Reconstruction.1 Rap music held out the promise of a beacon of hope that could help revive the Black Liberation Movement.