As such, it’s much better to hear RZA and Prodigal Sunn rap about the general psychological effects of 5% philosophy than it is to learn about the technical parts of the movement. These are dudes that come from grimy places with not a lot of opportunities to flex mental muscle and not get clowned for it, and their encounters with 5% brothers were instrumental in forging their own self-worth.
It becomes clear that the 5% influence on most rappers came in the form of intellectual power. RZA raps about his childhood with real emotion, which he’s done many times before to good effect. Likewise on “Deep Space” with RZA, Lord Jamar sounds ill because he’s ill, not because he’s teaching class. A generous portion of 5% thought is centered around not whoring yourself out, preserving your worth, and walking with your head up, and those lessons are aided a million times more by the intrinsic emotion in Puba’s windswept delivery than a 90-page instruction book. The Puba track introduces another aspect of this album: some of these songs are tight even if divorced from the overtly 5% packaging. It’s a played out topic, but the point is supposed to be that Puba, Jamar, and the other guest emcees don’t rap about rebirthing morality from an ivory tower. Grand Puba shows up on “The Corner, The Streets” to speak on the evils of the streets and the decline of morality. The song is simple, direct, and heartwarming. They explain that the Earth reflects God onto the Stars. They rap about suns and moons coming together to make stars. They elaborate on the drastic depths they’re willing to plumb in order to care for and protect the Earths. Bronze Nazareth does the trad-Wu beat as the two biz-hardened emcees wax poetic about the importance of respect toward women. That said, it is exactly that type of astrophysical philosophizing that lends fairy-tale mythological charm to “The 5% Album.” When Lord Jamar and Prodigal Sunn get down on “Same Ole Girl”, this album seems like a pretty good idea. Accepting some basic connection between Man, Woman, Child, God, World and Universe (and seeing each in the others) begs at least some type of mutual respect and moral reflection. See the world through the eyes of a 5% adherent and you’ll see that things aren’t just co-related, they’re connected. Personally, though I don’t get down with some of the key 5% beliefs, I’ve always liked how 5%-styled rappers break the barrier between cosmological metaphor and metaphysical assertion. There’s also a lot of universe-speak – 5%-influenced dudes rap a lot about suns, moons, stars and planets.
As confused and off-the-rails as they can be, I like that the 5% are intellectual rebels.
Especially prescient in America, the land that tried to keep blacks uneducated for as long as possible, is the opportunity the 5% nation extends to blacks that want to become a part of an underground, untouchable intelligentsia. In general, 5%-inspired emcees sound like they belong to a secret society that knows what’s really real and what’s designed to deceive, and though the focus is on living outside the Matrix, 5% rhetoric often suggests its own anti-Illuminati Illuminati. Government names are eschewed in favor of more righteous monikers. Specific letters and numbers have double meanings that go unobserved by the unenlightened. To most rap heads, the linguistic incarnation of the 5% philosophy sounds vaguely mystical. That probably also means you listen to the Wu, who are all over this LP. What is clear to me is that the 5% camp bears a distinct linguistic mark, and if you’ve heard emcees rap about Gods, Earths, Knowledge of Self and Divine Mathematics you’ve already been reached by the movement’s best word-spreader: hip-hop. That’s rule number one of fight club.Īfter reading the 90-page informational booklet (!) that accompanies this LP as well as doing a little internet research, I still cannot claim to fully understand the tenets or history of the 5% movement. 85% of the world is living in the dark, 10% are trying to keep it that way, and 5% see the light and want you to see it too.
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