Writer, studio musician at Sugar Hill Records, and singer, Bootee couldn’t take the upbeat party aims of early hip-hop. So he wrote “The Message” about the serious, gritty life of his hometown, Elizabeth, N.J. Questlove: “The world (me included) absolutely froze in its tracks the week it debuted on radio. … Hip-hop was once known as party fodder, a fad. ‘The Message’ pulled a 180 and proved it could be a tool of sociopolitical change.” – The New York Times
