H. RAP BROWN
H. Rap Brown (born Hubert G. Brown and also known as Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin; October 4, 1943) was the fifth chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in the 1960s, and during a short lived (six months) alliance between SNCC and the Black Panther Party, he served as their minister of justice. He is perhaps most famous for his proclamations during that period that “violence is as American as cherry pie” and that “If America don’t come around, we’re gonna burn it down.” He is also known for his autobiography, Die Nigger Die!. (More from Wikipedia)
Speaking rather than singing vocals did not originate with rap music, nor did the term “rap” either for that matter. I wasn’t sure anyone else felt the connection, but I did find this in Wikipedia: “By the late 1960s, when Hubert G. Brown changed his name to H. Rap Brown, rap was a slang term referring to an oration or speech, such as was common among the ‘hip’ crowd in the protest movements; but it did not come to be associated with a musical style for another decade.”
(September 2016)
