Black Americans born between 1965 and the mid-1970s, at the height of the Black Power (BP) era, were shaped by social and cultural forces more conducive to Black cultural nationalism than were those born in the late 1970s and early 1980s, what he terms the post-Black Power (PBP) era. Teenagers in earlier group were surrounded by “nation-conscious” analytical rappers (Public Enemy, KRS-One, X-Clan, Queen Latifah, and others). Youth in the later group weren’t exposed so directly to “reality rap.” A noteworthy “gap in historical consciousness” exists between the two groups.
“Young African Americans could readily turn to non-underground [B]lack music for insightful discussions about the state of African people, past, present, and future,” Dagbovie writes of the BP Hip Hop generation. Analytical rap was more common in the late 1980s and the early 1990s than it was in the mid-2000s.
Black cinema, from the 1970s “blaxploitation” films to Spike Lee’s work “also played a major role in socializing young African Americans by addressing important and often controversial issues in their lives and in [B]lack history.”
Such movies paralleled the popularization of Malcolm X, the human rights activist and spokesperson for the Nation of Islam who was assassinated in 1965, Dagbovie observes. Simultaneously, the life and work of Malcolm X fostered “a black historical consciousness within the BP Hip Hop generation.”
For instance, Boogie Down Production’s album name By All Mean’s Necessary was a play on Malcolm X’s famous phrase “by any mean’s necessary.” In 1992, the film Malcolm X, starring Denzel Washington and directed by Spike Lee, introduced more members of the BP Hip Hop Generation to Malcolm X’s activism. In turn, young Black students were inspired to take action against anti-Black racism at predominantly white institutions.
“Using Malcolm X as a spiritual advisor and building upon the black student movement of the Black Power era, in the late 1980s and early 1990s thousands of black students at various predominantly white colleges and universities engaged in many meaningful, well-organized protests and sit-ins,” Dagbovie writes.
The confluence of movies and music meant that young Black people could easily access history through lyrics and dialogue that taught them about Civil Rights leaders and the racism Black people faced—and continued to face—in the United States. Dagbovie contrasts this with the experience of the PBP Hip Hop Generation.