TOW#2 - Nonfiction Text - Bop by Langston Hughes - 1949

Langston Hughes discusses the cultural significance of Bop music. The essay is written in a narrative format, and focuses on two main characters, Simple, and the author. Hughes’ audience is those whoIt begins as the Hughes is stopped by his friend Simple and is told to listen to the Bop music. At first, Hughes does not understand the significance of the seemingly non-sense lyrics. His friend, Simple, states that Be-Bop is colored folks’ music, “Be-Bop music was certainly colored folks’ music - which is why white folks found it so hard to imitate,” (Hughes 190-191). Simple goes onto say that Be-Bop comes “From the police beating Negroes’ heads… Every time a cop hits a Negro with his billy club, that old club says, ‘BOP! BOP! … BE-BOP! … MOP! … BOP!” Hughes uses diction in his interesting word choice, to parallel the style of Be-Bop music and the cultural origins of the particular style of music. After Simple explains the origins of the style, he then applies it to his own life, “In some parts of this American country as soon as the polices see me, they say, ‘Boy, what are you doing in this neighborhood?’ … And if my answers do not satisfy them, BOP! MOP! … BE-BOP! … MOP!” (Hughes 191).  His use of an anecdote, his explanation of the origins of Be-Bop music,  and the diction Simple used in his explanation, is to convey the idea that Be-Bop music embodies the struggles of African-Americans in America.