It is the story of their star pupil Malcolm X, a hustler turned political firebrand whose passion ignited the Harlem streets on which he preached, where his message resonated with a following whose struggles proved racism’s pervasiveness even in the liberal north (and where peace advocate Dr. It is the story of Fard Muhammad and his successor Elijah Muhammad, men who arrived in Detroit in the northbound rush teaching a new religion codified in Black disenfranchisement and resentment. It is the story of the Great Migration, when millions of Black Americans slipped out of the vice grip of the Jim Crow South to take their chances on New York, Chicago, Cleveland, and Philadelphia. Cities draw intrepid travelers out like lighthouses beckoning ships to shore, each in search of a new beginning. America is a place where a homeless graffiti kid can become an art-world darling, where a drug dealer can become a pop sensation, where a game-show host without a day’s experience in government can bluff his way into the nation’s highest seat of power. The framework has given rise to leaders, artists, artisans, hustlers, hucksters, grifters, and strange combinations of all of these. It is a promise that your finish line isn’t dictated by your point of origin, that you can become anything you can successfully convince the world that you are. The American Dream is a fantasy not simply of socioeconomic advancement, but of transformation. Photo: Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Anheuser-Busch Now that it’s finally here, don’t expect rap’s great mystery man to give up any secrets. Act II was once rap’s Nibiru, promised to collide with Earth in 2012.
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