It's unsparing in its indictment of the police and of American society: policing for profit, killing indiscriminately, expecting black Americans to comply with their own subjugation, and how the police themselves create the very criminal class that they arrest. Vince Staples' "Hands Up" is one of the densest songs about police brutality. And what's even worse is that stopping it is so easy white Americans just need to step up. Sadly, we just don't know when it's going to stop. "When it's gonna stop?!" KRS-One opines by the song's end. After all, there are more black men incarcerated today than there were enslaved in 1850. Unfortunately, not much has changed between the slave patrols of the past and modern police departments. Just let KRS-One guide you through the transformation: "Overseer, overseer, overseer, overseer/ Officer, officer, officer, officer/ Yeah, officer from overseer/ You need a little clarity? Check the similarity." You catch that? "Sound of da Police" is one of those songs about police brutality that also serves as an invaluable lesson in history. Although, white supremacists doesn't really have to infiltrate policing given the influence of systemic racism, implicit bias, and modern policing's historic ties to slave patrols. Not just because of recurring police brutality but also because of the reported infiltration of police departments by white supremacists, something that, according to the Intercept, the FBI has been monitored for quite some time. "Killing in the Name" is one of the songs about police brutality that has, unfortunately, yet to lose its relevancy.
#Swamp song lesson full#
To serve and protect? Zack de la Rocha made it plain and clear what the police are really serving and protecting when he shouted, "Some of those who work forces are also those who burn crosses!" What Rage Against the Machine did best was supply us with slogans, and it's hard to top a song full of lines like, "By wearing the badge they're the chosen whites." Crank up these jams, get woke, and shut it down! No justice no peace no racist police! That's why songs about police brutality are indispensable they both shape the conversation and are the conversation in and of themselves. In doing so, the issue is both illuminated and complicated.
You can read a book, watch a movie, and even subject yourself to raw cam footage of grizzly police violence, but what music is able to communicate is simultaneously both feeling and narrative.
Sometimes a song is the fastest and the most emotionally evocative way to communicate a lesson.
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