The Infernal Rapstravaganza!

So I wanna be a rap superstar, live large, etc...

This is a long overdue post. I was notified that Swendoog was going to post this media file, so I figured I had better beat him to the punch with the full story. Hopefully the html will work.

As you know if you are a follower of the Swendoog blog, my buddy Brendan recently got really into making beats on his computer. In addition to this, for unknown reasons I have for the last few months listened almost exclusively to hip hop. These two factors and a general curiosity led me to try my hand at the rap game. Below you will find my debut single, entitled "The Frame-Up." The verses are written and performed by MC Danger Potential, with beats by DJ Brendo and chorus by the beautiful and talented Naomi.

The driving narrative of the song is a 1916 bombing and court case in San Francisco, known as the Preparedness Day Bombing or the Tom Mooney Case. I have been researching this case extensively in the past few months and found the incident to be a perfect subject to tackle in my debut hip hop attempt.

This track is entitled "The Frame-Up":





Now I will explain what you have heard in greater detail. The story goes like this:

In the summer of 1916, conservative business interests in San Francisco were incredibly excited for the United States to join World War I. To further drum up support for the war effort, San Francisco held a Preparedness Day parade on Saturday July 22, 1916 in which veterans and groups from different industries would march down Market Street to show how excited they were for the USA to start fighting the Germans. However, at 2:06 PM on July 22nd, about half an hour into the parade, a bomb went off in the middle of the crowd of parade watchers at Steuart and Market streets, near the Embarcadero. Ten people would ultimately die as a result of the bombing and forty others were injured in the incident.

The city was immediately in a frenzy over the bombing. A reward for information on the bombing soon reached $16,000 (approximately $300,000 today). Now, from the newspaper reports directly after the bombing it is clear that the police have no idea who did it. They arrested a Norwegian sailor and an IWW member in Fresno who said he thought it was a good idea. These seemingly random arrests and other leads were released and not prosecuted. But after a few days and a meeting between the San Francisco District Attorney and an influential private investigator who had formerly worked with the Pinkertons and PG&E to quell Bay Area labor disputes, the investigation became fixated on two men involved in the labor movement, Tom Mooney and Warren Billings. Soon all other leads fell by the wayside, including a man in Portland who said he was in San Francisco at the time and confessed to placing the bomb. These two men were involved in labor disputes, but not to a particularly militant extent, Mooney had been previously caught near Martinez with dynamite caps but no dynamite, and Billings had been caught carrying dynamite in Sacramento and liked to start fights with scabs, but neither one of them had been linked to any major disturbances.

Next thing you know, witnesses are coming in from all over the bay reporting that they saw Mooney and Billings looking suspicious on the day of the bombing. After two trials built on eye witness accounts that placed each of the men in at least two different locations at the same time, Mooney and Billings were found guilty of placing the bomb at the Preparedness Day Parade. Billings was given life imprisonment and Mooney was sentenced to death.

Soon after the trials, information came out that one of the key witnesses was most likely lying about having even been in San Francisco at the time of the bombing, and he was subsequently brought to trial for suborning perjury. Protests of Mooney's death sentence then broke out around the world, most notably including a protest in front of the American embassy in St. Petersburg. To help relations with his WWI allies, President Wilson called on the governor of California to commute Mooney's sentence.

To make a very long story slightly shorter, Mooney's sentence was commuted to life imprisonment to match Billings' and the two stayed in prison even though more and more witnesses came out saying that they had lied about what they saw in order to receive the reward money. The two were finally released from prison in 1939 after multiple appeals and petitions for pardons.

Tom Mooney came out of prison a sick and weathered man and died in 1942. Warren Billings went on to live to his seventies, passing away in 1972.

To recap, the dates:

Bombing: July 22, 1916
Sentenced: February 1917
Released: 1939
Rapped about: 2009

Hope you guys enjoyed the song and the Bay Area history lesson. Let me know your thoughts on the rap. See you all next time on the blog.