English music album by Inner Circle 1.
![]() Dre was best known for pricey headphones and Ice Cube was a family movie star, the two were part of the outfit that changed hip-hop - for both better and, undoubtedly, worse - launching gangsta rap and putting Compton on the national map. - “ Fuck tha Police”: The mother of all contemporary anti-police-brutality songs, N.W.A.’s “Fuck tha Police” is a rap classic and still, more than 25 years later, the ultimate “fuck you” to the cops. But here, in no particular order, are just 20 of them.*1) N.W.A. There are of course, far too many anti-police-violence songs to round up in a single list. Adobe premiere editingSinger Joe Strummer cheekily sings, “You have the right not to be killed / Murder is a crime / Unless it was done by a / Policeman or aristocrat.” As true today as the day it was sung. Ice Cube would go on to write a number of anti-police brutality songs including “ Who Got the Camera,” “ The Predator” and “ Endangered Species,” featuring Public Enemy’s Chuck D.2) The Clash - “ Know Your Rights”: The Clash kicked off 1982’s “Combat Rock” with this cut, which outlines your rights - and exactly how they’ll inevitably be quashed by the powers that be. There’s too many apt and great lyrics to quote here, but the opening lines are a good place to start: “Fuck the police comin' straight from the underground / A young n*gga got it bad cause I'm brown / And not the other color so police think / They have the authority to kill a minority.”Other anti-police brutality songs titled “Fuck the Police” include tracks by the late J. Word has it the FBI warned Ruthless Records about the song’s lyrical content pre-release, apparently, to little avail. He revists the topic - of black oppression and police harassment - on “ Holler if Ya Hear Me.”4) Sinéad O’Connor - “ Black Boys on Mopeds”: The sparse, aching beauty of Sinéad O’Connor’s 1990 acoustic ballad belies the searing anger at its core. Here, on “Trapped,” he raps about the feelings of anger created by the kind of constant, looming terror police harassment creates in poor black communities. (In fact, with 75 million records sold, he’s one of the best-selling artists of all time, regardless of genre.) More sensational remembrances of Tupac downplay how keenly conscientious the rapper was of social inequalities - from racism to poverty - a consciousness he displayed again and again on record. He is, obviously, one of modern music’s most well-known artists and rap’s most important figures, even nearly two decades after his death. Colin Roach, 21, was killed by a shotgun blast to the head in a London police station. Cops claimed they suspected Bramble of stealing the bike, but it was later discovered it belonged to the teenager. Nicholas Bramble, 17, died after losing control of the moped he was riding in a chase with the police. Bad Boy Song Cops Skin In His“Is it a gun, is it a knife / Is it a wallet, this is your life / It’s ain’t no secret, no secret my friend / You get killed just for living in / Your American skin.” When the song was played on Springsteen and the E. The factor of race - and the role of Amadou’s black skin in his and so many others’ deaths - was the titular concern of the song. (A jury, unsurprisingly, ruled in favor of the police’s fantastic version of events.) After mocking Margaret Thatcher’s faux-outrage over human rights deaths in other parts of the world, Sinéad demystifies England’s fairytale image in just a few lines: “England’s not the mythical land of / Madame George and roses / It’s the home of police who kill / Black boys on mopeds.”5) Bruce Springsteen - “ American Skin (41 Shots)”: This is Springsteen’s ode to murdered Guinean immigrant Amadou Diallo, who in 1999 was hit by 19 of the 41 shots police fired at him after mistaking his wallet for a gun. Trayvon." The resulting single, produced by rapper El-P, is an awesome and intense behemoth of a song. This track, released in 2012, was written with victims of police brutality both recent and historic in mind he told Pitchfork the song was crafted “o we never forget Fred Hampton, Oscar Grant, Sean Bell and other good men killed unjustly by police in this country. The city ultimately paid Diallo’s family a wrongful death settlement of $3 million.6) Killer Mike - “ Don’t Die”: The son of a cop, Killer Mike talks about police violence with an impassioned voice that’s made his takes on Ferguson some of the most insightful, incisive and moving of the last few months. (He later apologized.) All of the officers in the Diallo case were acquitted. Taking things a step further, then-president of the state's Fraternal Order of Police Bob Lucente called Springsteen "a fucking dirtbag” and a "floating fag,” which sounds a little like he was stringing random hateful words together. Helen Hill’s voice is perfection on a track that slowly builds to barbed life and spills into one of punk’s most cathartic releases. In the years since their demise, they’ve become one of the most influential bands in street punk, with this particular single appearing on countless compilations. Louis show just hours after the Ferguson verdict - its heartbreaking earnestness and passion is why it went viral.7) The Violators - “ Summer of ‘81”: One of the very best, and shortest lived, punk bands, The Violators released a handful of 7” and 12” recordings in the early ‘80s before summarily falling apart and disappearing altogether. After recognizing Fred Hampton, a Black Panther murdered as he slept by Chicago Police and the FBI in 1969, Scott-Heron asks, “For my protection? Who's gonna protect me from you?. On 1972’s “No Knock,” Scott-Heron not only rips into the then-newly instituted policy that allows police to enter a home without knocking, but takes on police overreach and violence in general. “We gotta start to resist / Black poor people / Get no justice / The courts, the judge / And the jury is fixed.”10) Gil Scott-Heron - “No Knock”: Known as both the “Godfather of Rap” and the “People’s Poet,” Scott-Heron gave voice to the seething rage bred by racism and injustice in America’s black and poor neighborhoods. “Keep shooting my people / We will shoot back,” the duo raps. Using the beat from KRS-One’s 1993 track “ Black Cop” as their sonic backdrop, Dead Prez paint a vivid picture of a time when police brutality against African-Americans will demand an in-kind response. As Hill sings, “There’s blood on the streets / And the smell is so sweet / Cause another blue bastard has just gone down … So it’s goodbye to one more facist clown / We’ve got a riot / Can’t keep us quiet / This is our answer to your law.“9) Dead Prez - " Cop Shot": Dead Prez (along with Oakland’s The Coup) have been among rap’s most revolutionary since they formed in the late ‘90s, eschew posturing and flashiness for rhymes about veganism, racism, pan Africanism, socialism, Panther-style revolution and more. Co-written by Murvin and reggae and dub legend Lee “Scratch” Perry, the song put the gangs of Jamaica and the police with whom they’re at endless at war on a par - implying the two were equally lawless, violent and bloodthirsty.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorCarrie ArchivesCategories |