Freestyle Fellowship: Relax Your Mind, and Take Your Time

I'm old school.  I identify as black.  I have a real commitment to blackness, and understand it as a socio-political identity with the power to transform and dismantle hierarchies of oppression.  I am proud that I am the descendant of slaves.

This sense of (my)self was probably cultivated in the late 80s and early 90s, when pre-commodified conscious, jazz-inspired rap (am I romanticizing?) was flourishing. Cats like Brand Nubian, Latifah, Isis (of the X-Clan crew) and Poor Righteous Teachers were my Afrocentric mentors. I rocked an Africa medallion (copped at the Fort Wayne Black Expo), read Roots and the work of Malcolm X, probably alarmed my teachers and parents with my DANGER! educated black woman game, and begged my pops to buy me a 14K gold X chain for my 13th birthday--that's black militant bling right there, homie.  And yes, you can see it in some of my school pictures.

I didn't exactly catch all the messages then, but I slowly learned that a lot of the rhymes I was committing to memory were inspired by The Nations of Gods and Earths and Islam.  I found Islam attractive.  It felt, I guess, very radical for me at the time.  I didn't grow up in a particularly religious household, but when we did worship, we went to church and studied the white man's religion.  The alternative spirituality I was hearing in rap music was alluring, but I never converted.  I blame that on being a little scared and a girl.  Though I found pictures of the women of Nation of Islam movingly beautiful, I think my negative response to the white hijabs they wore was really my nascent, inarticulate critique of gender politics, and perhaps a portend to my budding sexuality--I wanted a bow tie.  I remember reading the section of The Autobiography of Malcolm X where he described how/why he "chose" Betty Shabazz as a wife and thinking, "Hell nah."  Plus, I really enjoyed bacon.

Anyway, Freestyle Fellowship's "Inner City Boundaries," from their second album Innercity Griots, is a perfect example of the kind of rap I was obsessed with as a pre-teen.  (I should also note that IG features "Shammys" one of my favorite misogynistic rap songs.)  A lot of folks forget about Freestyle Fellowship, but they're dope.  Aceyalone, Self Jupiter, Myka 9, and P.E.A.C.E. never got the shine they deserved, partly because most of what was coming out of L.A. at the time was (what would be deemed) "gangsta rap."  But Freestyle Fellowship weren't the only left coasters interpreting hip-hop in this artful, jazzy way.  For a fuller account of L.A.'s hip hop scene circa '93, check out This is the Good Life, if you haven't already.  I caught it a while back and loved it.  So much so that writing this post has compelled me to add it to my Netflix.

In the meantime, let's sing along:

I gotta be righteous, I gotta be me
I gotta be conscious, I gotta be free
I gotta be able, I gotta attack
I gotta be stable, I gotta be black