Somewhere between the pop love-fest of Sugarhill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight” and Puffy’s dancing in shiny suits to shake off pre-millennial tension, hip-hop had a message.

One of the earliest political rap songs, Grandmaster Flash’s “White Lines” track about cocaine use and addiction in the early 80s, was followed by a succession of other messages as people in urban communities across the U.S. and around the world struggled to express what was going on in their hoods and the importance of getting the word out NOW.

In Somebody Scream: Rap Music’s Rise to Prominence in the Aftershock of Black Power (Faber and Faber; released today), journalist and author Marcus Reeves explores the dynamic between the music and the politics that gave shape to the lyrics and the genre in the 80s and 90s. Placing hip-hop in a 30-year context of urban political movements, Reeves hopes, will keep us from focusing on a few bad headlines (of which there are plenty — you know what I’m talking about).

Erika Parkins: Hip-Hop seems less political now than it did in the 80’s or even the late 90’s with the rise of “conscious” rappers such as Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Common and Dead Prez; why do you think that is?

Marcus Reeves: Well, the tone [of hip-hop] has been changing for awhile. Rap can be divided into two periods, before “The Chronic” and after “The Chronic”. “Chronic” came out of the L.A. riots [of 1992] and you had rappers speaking about aggression, white supremacy, police brutality, and the government’s hand in what was going on in the community.

After the LA riots, the Time Warner rap controversy, the rise of police brutality, and the rap brouhaha between Clinton and Sistah Souljah, there was prevalent and accessible material for rappers to talk about.

Then comes an album like “Doggystyle”, out of Dre’s camp, by his protégé and homeboy Snoop, who represented the next wave.

He dropped all the aggression and kept gangster almost as a fashion statement — the dress, the slang. The culture was recast as a lifestyle thing that you could follow whether you were black, white or Latino. What was — and is — left is hardcore gangster lifestyle or what I call “gangster chic”.

EP: Who do you see then, incorporating politics and consciousness into their lyrics today?

MR: Everyone does, every rapper promotes himself as a voice of the streets. Jay-Z is a conscious rapper, so is 50 cent and Young Jeezy. What has happened is that they’re on the stylized gangster tip. Their lyrics represent blacks in a desperate situation and how that situation inspires the drive that leads to their subsequent success.

But the difference between then and now and conscious rap and rap that’s political, is that we don’t have rap that speaks to the cause of the consciousness in the way that Public Enemy, KRS-One, Parris and NWA did.

Common and Talib get closer to speaking to the problems but as much as I like Common, Talib and Mos Def, their music isn’t produced to be commercial. What made the conscious rap of the 80s and early 90s so great was that they made music and concepts to sell to the people. Kanye kind of did it with “Jesus Walks” — they said he couldn’t make a song with Jesus in it, but he did and people listened.

EP: How have the politics that are expressed in hip-hop now changed since the 1980s and 1990s?

MR: Rappers are not speaking to the root causes. They talk about killing each other but not the self-hatred that feeds into doing it. Even if they look back to the 80s and early 90s as a point of reference for what to talk about, it is now just a hollow blueprint of how to express the urban blues.

EP: How about the political movements associated with the music?

MR: Back in the late 80s and early 90s, people were already in the streets protesting. There was Apartheid and a global movement against it. There was crack.

Now, there is no national movement or outcry about anything. We could talk about growing violence in the community, the war in Iraq, against Bush or his policies — but there is no outcry. If there were pressing complaints, rappers would have more to say but until then, no one will feel compelled.

EP: In the 1980s, the political lyrics seemed to be coming primarily from the New York area, in the early to mid-1990s, Southern and West Coast rappers took over somewhat. In what ways do you think regionalism plays a role in the political nature of hip-hop lyrics?

MR: Regionalism played a part to the extent that rappers could speak about what was going on where they were. The police system in New York was different from L.A. so for each city the rapper could speak from the inside. It depended on what was happening where you were and what people were willing to talk about; and today every aspect of America is represented in hip-hop.

EP: This is an election year, a perfect opportunity for hip-hop to become a little more political in their lyrics. What issues do you see now that hip-hop could speak to?

MR: Hip-Hop could talk about a lot — AIDS in the community, the educational system, unemployment, jobs leaving America. I don’t think rappers should have to talk about what’s going on though; they should be creative first.

EP: What issues do you see affecting black youth most today and how do you see it being addressed in hip-hop?

MR: Nothing is being addressed — not violence, incarceration, the prison system or access to education. I don’t really see anything on a massive scale to help the youth. It is not coming from music or TV or our leadership. There is major discord between the leadership, which has broken down in the past 15 years, and the youth.

EP: What voices are missing from hip-hop and the community today? What voices are now being expressed through hip-hop that weren’t originally?

MR: There are no grassroots movements like in the late 70s and the early 80s, with a community orientation to push and nurture creativity. When I was growing up and discovered hip-hop in the early 80s, I could take that enjoyment to my community and share it. No effort is put into feeling good about what you do now. It’s more about making money and access to money.

The grassroots movement today is gang activity — it has spread across the country along color lines and it was not like that before. With gang activity comes drugs and rivalries. Is that where the energy should be going?

Creativity needs to be expressed more — hip-hop is basically a corporate product now. Tied to corporate entities, artists won’t have as much freedom because they have to sell units. It is a music business and I understand that but you lose the creativity

EP: In the period covered in Somebody Scream, hip-hop had a more unifying spirit in both its culture (break dance, graffiti, lyricists, etc.) and within its lyrics (topics such as the dangers of drug use, stop the violence, self-respect, teen pregnancy, etc.) Where do you think contemporary hip-hop stands?

MR: Contemporary hip-hop is at a crossroads. Financially, it isn’t doing as well and people are tired of the same “gangster chic” message over and over again. Hip-Hop is at a stage where it can either change or let its message shrink its audience until it is replaced by another genre that will do what it used to do.

They said reggaeton was supposed to be the new voice of hip-hop, but it didn’t evolve and now it’s dead.

I believe hip-hop is here to stay. It is definitely a part of the music landscape in the same way pop, rock and jazz are, but will it be as strong as it was? It won’t be unless it changes.

EP: How do you see hip-hop evolving as a form of political expression?

MR: I don’t see it evolving if it stays on its path. We’ll always have independents like Dead Prez and M.I.A. speaking out, but we won’t have a mass political awakening.

Then again, in the 80s, the political stage eventually became a gimmick. Everyone just got on because it was the thing to do. L.L. got heat because he wasn’t [getting on] and he kind of had to do “Illegal Search”. That moment in hip-hop was great but it had its flaws too.

Want to hear more? Engage in friendly debate? Then catch Reeves in person on one (or all, they’re free) of the following dates in New York.

April 14, 7:30 p.m., Barnes and Noble, Greenwich Village, NY
April 22, 6:00 p.m., Hue-Man Bookstore, Harlem, NY
April 24, 7:00 p.m., Brownstone Books, Brooklyn, NY
April 29, 7:00 p.m., Barnes and Noble, Brooklyn Heights, NY