Kool G Rap & DJ Polo, Big Daddy Kane & Biz Markie — Erase Racism

JUL 01 1990 · 12:00

Kool G Rap & DJ Polo, Big Daddy Kane & Biz Markie — Erase Racism (1990) Director: Fab 5 Freddy (Fred Brathwaite) Era: Golden Age Hip-Hop (1990) - Peak Juice Crew era; socially conscious New York rap responding directly to racial violence and urban unrest in early post-civil-rights America Exceptional tier archival value. This video functions simultaneously as a primary source document of the hip-hop community's response to the Yusef Hawkins murder, a rare Juice Crew collective performance, and an example of Fab 5 Freddy's early directorial work at the apex of his cultural influence as Yo! MTV Raps host. The location footage of Jersey City streets and the Harsimus Cemetery provides irreplaceable visual anthropological documentation of early 1990s New York urban environments. Essential for collections focused on hip-hop activism, Golden Age rap production history, or the cultural politics of race in American popular music. Context: Released in 1990 as the second single from Kool G Rap & DJ Polo's album Wanted: Dead or Alive, 'Erase Racism' was a direct artistic response to the August 1989 murder of 16-year-old Yusef Hawkins in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn — a racially motivated killing that galvanized New York's hip-hop community. The reunion of Juice Crew members Kool G Rap, Big Daddy Kane, and Biz Markie for an explicitly anti-racist track represented a rare moment of conscious solidarity within a collective more often associated with lyrical competition and street-level bravado. The video, filmed in Jersey City rather than Bensonhurst, uses authentic urban community spaces — rowhouse stoops and a historic cemetery — to anchor the message in lived Black urban experience. Directed by Fab 5 Freddy, then simultaneously the host of Yo! MTV Raps, the video commanded guaranteed major media visibility at a pivotal moment of racial tension in New York City. Director notes: Confirmed as Kool G Rap & DJ Polo's third music video directed by Fab 5 Freddy. Filmed on location in Jersey City, NJ — specifically on 7th and 8th Streets and at the Historic Jersey City and Harsimus Cemetery — and not in Bensonhurst, the Brooklyn neighborhood where Yusef Hawkins was killed, despite the song's direct response to that 1989 murder. The location choice grounds the video in authentic urban New York geography while maintaining symbolic distance from the crime scene. The track was produced by Biz Markie and Cool V, and samples 'Black and White' by Three Dog Night, 'What's Going On' by Les McCann, 'Sneakin' in the Back' by Tom Scott and The L.A. Express, and 'Zimba Ku' by Black Heat.