Compare what Bob Dylan suggests about writing and music in “The Times They Are A-Changin’” to what Mos Def suggests in “Hip Hop."

Bob Dylan's song is a call to action as he urges the influential to seize the moment of social change that has come.

Come writers and criticsWho prophesize with your penAnd keep your eyes wideThe chance won't come again

He believes that as society undergoes rapid and inevitable change in the 1960s; people must embrace the change or further the generation gap between young people and their seniors, evident in this verse:

Come mothers and fathersThroughout the landAnd don't criticizeWhat you can't understandYour sons and your daughtersAre beyond your commandYour old road isRapidly agin'.Please get out of the new oneIf you can't lend your handFor the times they are a-changin'.

In 1999's "Hip Hop," Mos Def sees his music as a tool for social change and an artistic force that is much larger than himself, seen in these words:

Speech is my hammer bang the world into shape Now let it fall... (Hungh!!) My restlessness is my nemesis It's hard to really chill and sit still
Committed to page I write rhymes Sometimes won't finish for days Scrutinize my literature from the large to the miniature

Moreover, "Hip Hop" asserts that the times call for a new language; the rhymes of hip hop are the vehicle and voice for a new generation, seen here:

Used to speak the king's English But caught a rash on my lips So now my chat just like dis Long range from the base-line (switch)


Unlike "The Times They Are A-Changing," the message in the final lines of "Hip Hop" explicitly expresses discontent about economic status and race and acknowledges the limits of rap music, as the song concludes:


From the sovereign state of the have-nots Where farmers have trouble with cash crops (woooo) It's all city like phase two Hip Hop will simply amaze you
Craze you, pay you Do whatever you say do But black, it can't save you