where it needed to go.
“The neighborhood I was living in, the things I saw — it was like a jungle sometimes in Elizabeth,” Fletcher told The Guardian in 2013. In another interview, with hip-hop historian JayQuan, he recalled how often someone would “ride by and you hear a bottle get broken.”
The images of the jungle and broken glass contributed two signature lyrics of “The Message,” that painted a vivid picture of what was really going on. The song began to define what everyday life for those who created hip-hop. The rhymes included “Got a bum education, double-digit inflation…Can’t take the train to the job, there’s a strike at the station.” Fletcher wrote most of the lyrics and the lurching, ominous electro melody.
This gritty approach to hip-hop was new back then. So new, in fact, that Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five weren’t feeling it at first.
“It was just too serious,” Melle Mel, a member of the group, told Uncut magazine in 2013. “We were making party tracks,” he added, “and wanted to keep in the same lane. Nobody wanted that song.”
Melle Mel eventually caved to pressure from Sylvia Robinson, one of Sugar Hill’s owners. He contributed a final verse to “The Message” and shared rapping duties with Fletcher, who played all the instruments except guitar.
As a rapper, Fletcher’s baritone voice registered a cool impassivity that stood in contrast to the excitability of many of his peers.
The song was an instant hit and as they say, the rest in history.
Rest in Peace Duke. We will carry on the message for you.