Matt Matches
ES397 BLOG 2
Year of tha Boomerang
Rage Against the Machine, the American rap metal crew explore an array of inner aesthetic meanings relating to politics, culture and social attitudes within the hip-hop culture in their song Year of tha Boomerang.
Let’s start with the title, ‘tha’, which is popular pronunciation of the word ‘the’ within hip-hop culture. The title in a whole, The Year of the Boomerang is a reference from a quote by Jean-Paul Sartre, “it is in the moment of the boomerang” which analyzes his thoughts about Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth, which is a psychological analysis of the dehumanising effects of colonization, and a social movement for decolonization, written in 1961. From this title alone Rage Against the Machine explores elements of hip hop slang culture and intertwines it with references towards pro-independence movements relating to decolonization in literature. And to take it one step further, this could be a movement of decolonization within hip-hop.
Next let’s investigate the opening lyrics of the song; ‘the sistas are in so check the front line’. As you can see the word ‘sisters’ is exchanged with ‘sistas’ becoming another reference towards the slang within hip-hop culture, the line itself can also be interpreted as a reference towards feminism. In the 1960-70’s The civil rights movement and anti-racism was influenced and an influencer for feminism which was a controversial topic popular around the time of hip-hop’s origins. People’s attitudes at the time of the civil rights era were definitely different from attitudes of today’s society, these references towards the peak of those eras could indicate the band is suggesting a new approach to the modern attitude of American culture to the attitude of the past. Another quote worth exploring is only said once in the song but is very influential, ‘All power to the people’ which was originally quoted from the Black Panther Party as their central motto. Within the beginnings of hip-hop much of the surrounding culture was going through changes and movements especially around the South Bronx in New York. Some of these ‘changes’ included non-violent gatherings for equality and racial rights. The Black Panthers were a black revolutionary socialist organization active at that time, that influenced hip-hop gangs to spread the word of peace and equality instead of corruption and violence.
If Rage Against the Machine isn’t a band you’ve explored, and you enjoy the anatomy of the hip-hop culture, their music a perfect match, their name alone can cause a discussion. Just by exploring a few elements of their head rocking hip-hop rap song Year of tha Boomerang one may become very amused with what else they have to offer which inspects
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