Watts Prophets Music Group

Amde Hamilton knows how powerful an act of creativity can be. "I can say that a poem saved my life," says Hamilton, a member of the Watts Prophets, one of the forebears of rap. In an interview at his South-Central home, Hamilton says that when he walked into the Watts Writers Workshop in 1966 "and took my little writing that I had put on a piece of paper and people said that it was something, it was the most meaningful thing that ever happened to me. It changed my whole life."

Why? It's a question that many are asking after the recent fatal shooting of the Notorious B.I.G.--the second such incident of a major rap star in six months. The question goes beyond the circumstances of the slayings of B.I.G. and Tupac Shakur to the issue of the anger and violence in hip-hop. People continue to ask: Exactly where does it come from? And, perhaps more puzzling, why does it strike such a nerve in millions of record buyers?

Why? It's a question that many are asking after the recent fatal shooting of the Notorious B.I.G.--the second such incident of a major rap star in six months. The question goes beyond the circumstances of the slayings of B.I.G. and Tupac Shakur to the issue of the anger and violence in hip-hop. People continue to ask: Exactly where does it come from? And, perhaps more puzzling, why does it strike such a nerve in millions of record buyers?

Amde Hamilton knows how powerful an act of creativity can be. "I can say that a poem saved my life," says Hamilton, a member of the Watts Prophets, one of the forebears of rap. In an interview at his South-Central home, Hamilton says that when he walked into the Watts Writers Workshop in 1966 "and took my little writing that I had put on a piece of paper and people said that it was something, it was the most meaningful thing that ever happened to me. It changed my whole life."

Long before there was Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, Run D.M.C. or even Grandmaster Flash, there were the Watts Prophets. The trio, an outgrowth of the Watts Writers Workshops formed in 1970 in the wake of the 1965 Watts riots, was the first group on the West Coast to perform spoken words over jazz and other rhythm tracks.

Long before there was Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, Run D.M.C. or even Grandmaster Flash, there were the Watts Prophets. The trio, an outgrowth of the Watts Writers Workshops formed in 1970 in the wake of the 1965 Watts riots, was the first group on the West Coast to perform spoken words over jazz and other rhythm tracks.