Speech was the leader of the rap group Arrested Development. Their album 3 Years, 5 Months and 7 Days In the Life Of... revolutionized the game. In many ways, it was as political and theoretical as the stuff Public Enemy was doing, and Speech was Arrested Development's Chuck D.
What made Arrested Development different from Public Enemy though is that they were much more accessible. Public Enemy was aggressive and had heavy beats. Arrested Development was record scratching over world beat, which lyrics that were promoting peace. Their three hit singles -- "Peace Everyday," "Mr. Wendal," and "Tennessee" -- do show the ugly side of life, but then suggest positive methods for change. By carefully choosing how the audience saw them, and by choosing an almost cuddly image that would be accepted by almost anyone, Arrested Development was able to attain a large following quickly, even though many of its fans turned out to be too fickle to buy the follow up (I admit, I don't have their follow-up, either).
One of their best songs is "Fishin' 4 Religion," a song which critiques churches that don't take a pro-active approach to problem solving, but call instead for finding other ways to work within the church, to fish for religion, rather than calling to abandon it.
1 comment:
This band is criminally underrated. I have their follow-up, and it's fantastic, and I bet you can find it used for super cheap somewhere. Same as their "Unplugged" album.
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