Young T & Bugsey – “Don’t Rush (Remix)” (feat. It’s one more clear sign that this movement is an unprecedented phenomenon, that the future remains unwritten. In any case, it’s pretty amazing to see that the smart commercial move now - the thing that a superstar rapper can use to solidify his hold on the #1 spot - is to make a hit song more political, more angry. DaBaby shows real fire on that new opening verse, and what he says on it is nothing he hasn’t said before. It’s a smart, cynical move, but that doesn’t mean that it’s dishonest. With this new version, he’s tied “Rockstar” to an ongoing movement that’s dominating the news. DaBaby’s song is more likely to have a longer run at #1 if he keeps coming out with remixes. The “Rockstar” remix is a nakedly commercial move. A couple of weeks ago, YG filmed his “FTP” video at a massive 20,000-person Black Lives Matter march on Hollywood Boulevard. That message isn’t too far from the music that YG’s been making it’s part of the reasons that his rare protest songs don’t come off forced. “FTP” has a very simple message: The American underclass will burn down cities if that’s what they have to do. Instead, he’s making something hard and direct, something that you can chant. When he makes protest songs, he’s not teaching history classes. “ FTP,” YG’s new fuck-the-police song, belongs to that same lineage. Four years ago, YG and the late Nipsey Hussle made “ FDT,” a furious fuck-you directed at the man who was about to be elected president. But taken together, they add up to something. These songs and gestures aren’t all effective, and they aren’t all musically compelling. Machine Gun Kelly, reliably the most awkward motherfucker in the room, is out here covering Rage Against The Machine. 52-year-old NCIS: Los Angeles star LL Cool J, who was on “Accidental Racist” with Braid Paisley five years ago, is suddenly transforming into his former labelmate Chuck D, booming angry and powerful slam poetry into his webcam. T-Pain and Trey Songz are making protest songs. The moment demands response.Ĭharacters as seemingly apolitical as Juicy J and Teejay圆 have been coming out with songs of genuine anger and confusion. Cole, an artist who is known for being political, just came out with a defensive song about why he hasn’t done enough in the present moment. I saw bits and pieces of that kind of sentiment in the early days of the Iraq war, or after Hurricane Katrina decimated New Orleans, or during the Ferguson uprising, but it hasn’t been on anything like this. I’ve never seen that on anything like this scale. It says just as much that tons of popular rappers - rappers who aren’t especially known for being political - have come out with their own versions of protest songs in the last few weeks. Out in the world, though, they can function that way. None of these are intentional protest songs. “Lose Yo Job” - a song improvised on the spot by a woman who was being detained, set to a beat and gone viral - has become an unlikely anthem. (Ludacris approved.) I’ve seen Twitter videos of demonstrators chanting songs like Pop Smoke’s “ Dior” and Chief Keef’s “ Faneto” - songs that can make people feel like larger-than-life superheroes. In a spontaneous moment, the people trapped on that bridge transformed “Move Bitch” and used it for their own purposes. It’s a song about being angry that people are driving too slow. Two weeks ago, when New York police kept thousands of protesters trapped for hours on the Manhattan Bridge, the demonstrators chanted the hook from the 2001 Ludacris song “Move Bitch” at them. And sometimes, movements adopt songs and give them new meaning. Sometimes, political songs end up having accidental resonances consider the new Run The Jewels album, where the lyrics about Eric Garner become lyrics about George Floyd because police refuse to stop choking people to death. Anytime people make music about turning to criminal enterprises because it’s their only chance of lifting their families out of poverty, that’s a political act, whether it’s intended to be one or not. Politics are deeply entwined with rap music. It feels, for the first time I can remember, like a mass protest movement might actually lead to some kind of systemic change. But the past few weeks have been inspiring. It’s easily to get cynical and pessimistic, especially as global conglomerates do their best to subsume political fury and make it a part of their public-facing identities. In the past three weeks, we’ve seen a widespread global human rights movement, one that started off with police murdering George Floyd and spread outwards from there. But right now, we’re looking at something different. Some musicians build entire careers with them. For decades, the protest song has been woven into the culture of popular music. People never stopped making protest songs.
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