Nonviolent Rap Song of the Week #4 Wish You Could See Me by Haystak

Wish you could see me is from one of America's most underrated White rappers EVER. Haystak's first album Car Fulla White Boys was one of my top favorite solo album releases of all time. Great album, great production, raps, etc. But it seemed to me a lot of politics played into his lack of overall success. Nevertheless, this record is a classic and Wish You Could See Me is one of the best songs on this album.

One of the things many of us forget when we observe Hip-Hop in all of its core forms, it that ALL OF IT, it a guerrilla arts response to being boxed out of society.

Another thing that is hard to comprehend is that even if you take the most violent, offensive, shocking, rap song you can thing of- it is STILL nonviolent. Essentially, a person was mad and wrote a poem rather than kill. We can debate the impact of art on society and try to define when art imitates life or if its the other way around. What we cannot debate is that no matter how you feel about it and angry kid wrote a poem.

Rather than be mad that the kid wrote a poem that scared you, you should be trying to figure out what in his world could make him that mad.

The violence is always around them. The death is always around them. The impact of the violence and the death pushed them at an early age to think a lot about theology, philosophy and politics before they even know what the topics are.

This song is deep and has brought me to tears many times. It is one of the most touching tributes to a young mans' dead friends ever made.


We had high hopes just knowing he'd pull through
But he got this look on his face like he just knew
He might not be able to come back
I said squeeze my hand if you feel me- he didn't react
So that's one more homie that we lost to the late night
[Rain Starting]
Kill tha head light pull up at tha grave sight
We were there twenty minutes seemed like forever it lasted
His brother broke down his moms collapsed on tha casket
See tha caretaker throw the first shovel of dirt
I can't begin to describe how much that hurt
I can begin to describe I ain't going pretend
I can't begin to describe that

I encourage you to listen to the full song and read the annotated lyrics at Rap Genius.

WATCH: Wish You Could See Me 

To read more about nonviolence in Hip-Hop read Bobby, Bruce & the Bronx: The Secrets of Hip-Hop Chess in Amazon.com.

Nonviolent Rap Song of the Week #2 Dead Homiez by Ice Cube

      Ice Cube was one of the most polarizing solo artists in Hip-Hop in the 1990's. 

Dead Homiez showed his softer side.

In the mission of HHCF to promote nonviolence and show the history of Hip-Hop as a nonviolent artform, we look at the work of the one and only Ice Cube from the Kill at Will EP. The song is one that served as a turning point for me as young Black male in America at the time.

My goal is to drop these every Monday and Friday. I will do all I can to hold to that. If you want to email me suggestions (though I cannot promise to honor everyone's request) hit me on twitter @hiphopchess !!

Rap had indeed taught me many different things by the time this song was released in 1990. I will do some more research, but I think it may be the first rap song looking into the psychology of HOW death affected what we were seeing on the streets of LA, NY, Chicago, Oakland and San Francisco.

I remember feeling like I had never ever felt like I felt when I heard this song. As suburban as I was, being in Hip-Hop, you just know people who are connected to the reality of the streets. One of my boys was a lightweight drug dealer. He and a friend were tied to the car seat his Cadillac and shot in the face with shotguns. This was a childhood friend.

Not long after, another friend shot himself in the head. He was a good friend and very skilled artist. But he came from the deep streets of LA. Word was he had killed someone who tried to kill him. It was self-defense he was never caught but it appeared that he could never recover from taking someone's life. One day, he just killed himself. No note, no sense of closure.

I never went to the funerals of either of them. I felt like a coward for not going. I still do. I never understood it. I used to play this song on repeat. The second verse always haunted me:

Another homie got murdered on a shakedown {3 gun shots}
And his mother is at the funeral, havin' a nervous breakdown
Two shots hit him in the face when they blasted {2 gun shots}
A framed picture and a closed casket
A single file line about 50 cars long
All driving slow with they lights on
He got a lot of flowers and a big wreath
What good is that when you're six feet deep?
I look at that shit and gotta think to myself

To me, this song opened the door for a lot of the others songs that come out of Hip-Hop that share the trauma of the victims, friends, and families of those who were front row to the Black death of the 80's and 90's. I'm not alone. Just look up the statistics online. Gun violence was as common as rainfall back then. It may even be worse now. I cannot tell and I'm not sure I actually want to know the answer.

Dead Homiez was a cleansing song as necessary as any Gospel song my granny would have played after her friends died. It may not have made sense to anyone else, who was not young and Black at that time. But I needed this song and all those like them.

WATCH: Dead Homiez by Ice Cube

Read the annotated lyrics to Dead Homiez at Rap Genius to soak in the wisdom. There is a parental advisory on this one. A few curse words are in the track. But I never saw it as gratuitous in nature.

To read more about nonviolence in Hip-Hop read Bobby, Bruce & the Bronx: The Secrets of Hip-Hop Chess in Amazon.com.

Nonviolent Rap Song of the Week #1 Live and Let Live by Souls of Mischief

HHCF has always been an advocate for nonviolence at it's root. We have spent more than a decade promoting peace through fusion of art an logic. It is in that undying spirit that we will post a song once a week that promotes peace and or share the impact of violence in urban communities.

We will post these uncensored (though many will not have curse words). The first song is one that I have always loved, Live and Let Live by Oakland icons Souls of Mischief from the mighty Hieroglyphics Crew. It came out in 1993. However, I will post rap songs from all eras of rap. This will not just be a look back, but a look at now- as we look forward.

Note these songs are chosen at random and are NOT a ranking, but simply a LIST of the songs about peace that permeate rap music. 

I will post a link to the lyrics so you can read along. It is important to soak in the idea that code switching is always at the root of a lot of rap. I cannot walk you through all of the slang in each song. I encourage you to use Rap Genius to help you get clear on certain words if you do not come from the rap world. Please use the annotation of the lyrics. 

However, the reality of Hip-Hop (and rap music specifically) as an art form celebrating peace above and beyond all other forms of mainstream music is part of what we aim to prove. This song contains curse words. Parental discretion is advised.