The New York transit strike that inspired a pioneering hip-hop song
“It’s like a jungle sometimes / It makes me wonder how I keep from going under.” These words, delivered in Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five’s classic 1982 track ‘The Message,’ are arguably some of the most well-known in hip-hop—and the history powering them is fascinating.
‘The Message,’ while credited to the group as a whole, was mainly written by producer-songwriters Ed “Duke Bootee” Fletcher and Jiggs Chase, neither of whom were members of the Furious Five. Melle Mel, in fact, was the only group member to help with the writing.
The song was written in response to the state of New York at the time. The city, by 1980, had developed a reputation for its urban decay and poverty, while political struggles between the working class and government were intense. The song captures this moment in time.
“Got a bum education, double-digit inflation,” the track says at one stage. “Can’t take the train to the job, there’s a strike at the station.” That reference to a strike was based on an actual historical event, which was the 1980 New York City transit strike. That was when 33,000 Transport Workers Union walked off their jobs.
The workers argued that pay had not kept up with the rising cost of living, so they called for a raise. When their demands were not met, they walked out of work on April 1, 1980. They wouldn’t return for 12 days, meaning New York’s buses and subways were left at a standstill for nearly two weeks. It was a hugely significant action.
The strike was called off on April 11, after a deal was finally made. While the Transport Workers Union’s initial wage demands were not met, they nonetheless managed to secure a raise to their pay. They duly went back to work and got New York moving again.
‘The Message’ sought to capture something of the atmosphere around New York during this time. As well as specifically mentioning the strike, it also broadly deals with the conditions of poverty and systemic oppression that people lived under during this period. Indeed, it is recognised as one of the first ever hip-hop songs to offer social commentary.
‘The Message’ was only the seventh rap song to ever chart in America, reaching a height of number 62. That may not seem too impressive, but it signalled the potential of the new hip-hop style and, from the perspective of those who knew it, the track was a smash. As Grandmaster Flash himself once noted to Rolling Stone, “It played all day, every day. It put us on a whole new level.”
The song’s place in history has since been recognised by US Library Of Congress, which added it to its archive of “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” recordings in 2002. The song, in a very visceral sense, is an important snapshot of history.