After the virus had snuck into the United States, after it crept through one body to another and to another and to another, after slowly killing thousands with bizarre cancers and pneumonias, and after the pyrotechnical hysteria of the media and a panicked public, only then did HIV/AIDS became a metaphor.
It was a boogey man, a symbol for societal ills, for gross inequalities that still persisted following the civil rights movement. It was an insatiably lethal, faceless force decimating the marginalized and weak in society: gay men, intravenous drug users, hemophiliacs. In time, a conspiracy theory would evolve, vehementlybelieved in the African-Americancommunity that the disease was a man-made virus, some foul result of an ugly government plot unleashed upon the poor, gay men and African-Americans in order to slash their numbers (1).
In response to its presence, artists throughout all genres sang of the disease and its effects on society. Included in a playlist below are nine hip-hop and R&B artists from the late 1980s and early 1990s that proselytized to their listeners, admonishing them to practice safe sex, to be careful, to consider how deadly this epidemic was and could be. Today these songs sound like sponsored PSAs for safe sex and STD prevention, and seem wisely prescient: today nearly 50% of all new cases of HIV in the United States are among black Americans. If this dismal trend continues, “it will probably be the case that 5 to 6 percent of all African-American adults who are sexually active will be infected with the virus" (2). Staggering. Listen to them now at the this playlist here and check out the list of the artists and selected lyrics below.
Let’s Talk about Sex: Hip Hop on HIV 1. Coolio - Too Hot (1995) 2. TLC - Waterfalls (1994) "One day he goes and takes a glimpse in the mirror,
