Rick, now I understand you better. Yes I can agree that there were some songwriters who might have been lionized principally for their political point of view. I think of a lot of the songs that were disposable as being relevant to a picket line or an immediate cause that have little durability. Some rap may turn out to be this way. It may reflect a moment in time without much substance and then there may be those "raps" that have a life beyond. There is folk song doggerel too. Not all folk songs are wonderful. I can think of offensive variations of minstrel show songs that are not wonderful although unfortunately, there are some that are in that they have infectious melodies and durable images. I think of songs like Jimmy Crack Corn and The Boatman Row which were in the minstrel show tradition.

Regarding Aunt Molly, she was principally a labor organizer and had a traditional folk singing style. I'm sure that she sang many disposable songs in her day as did many other folkies of the time. Pete has sung a few in his day. Whenever there is a body of song material being created, some of it is bound to be "doggerel". Some of the traditional folk songs have been so hacked up through the process that they are fairly unintelligible without footnotes. Here is where I would take the liberty to step in and mess with them so they would make sense to today's audiences. But this may be one of the roles of a "revival" singer.

In a sense, this is what the rap singer does. A lot of the images are caught in the "rap" and borrowed for others. This is kind of a folk process as the ideas adapt to new circumstances. Harlem and Watts have similar conditions. The LAPD and the NYPD may not be far apart in their marginalizing practices. I think of rap as a kind of protest music. This is similar to the style of Fela Anikupalo Kuti in his African pop songs which were based on traditional fusions of African music and jazz. His were basically chants as well. The African chant has a venerable history. Some found Fela so politically offensive that they bombed his home. He was incarcerated for his songs as Victor Jara was. In this, rap isn't all that different in content from Reggae or Calypso music in the Islands. What I'm trying to point out, here, is that rap may have corollary forms over the world, today, which increases it's tendency to be folk music. I find it necessary to keep an open mind that some of it may be quite good and that I haven't had the opportunity to be exposed to that yet. If we thought of folk music as only being that which we heard on the radio (that's being called folk music, today) our appreciation would be limited.

Frank Hamilton