Run The Jewels have just loosed a new track from their forthcoming album RTJ4 and it couldn’t be more thematically poignant with the #BlackLivesMatter protests currently raging across the USA.
Dubbed ‘A Few Words for the Firing Squad (Rotation)’, the song sees Killer Mike and El-P deliver a fiery condemnation of racism, with Killer Mike’s powerful lyrics making graphic reference to historical atrocities like lynching and slavery.
“This is for the do-gooders that the no-gooders used and then abused,” he raps. “For the truth tellers tied to the whipping post, left beaten, battered, bruised / For the ones whose body hung from a tree like a piece of strange fruit / Go hard, last words to the firing squad was, ‘Fuck you too’.”
Both members of the beloved hip-hop duo have been vocal about the #BlackLivesMatter movement and the murder of unarmed black man George Floyd by a white police officer.
Killer Mike recently delivered a powerful speech to protestors in his home city of Atlanta, while El-P took to Instagram over the weekend to address the issue.“
I’m talking now to the people that look like me,” he wrote. “No debate no comments even. it’s a fact and right and despite it being an inalienable truth it (tragically and clearly) needs to be said again and again and again until it’s no longer something the power structure of this world or the hearts tainted by hate have to be told. don’t feel weird don’t feel like it’s not your place to say just say it because it still needs to be said and your heart knows it’s time to do that much at least. #blacklivesmatter”
You can listen to ‘ ‘A Few Words For The Firing Squad (Radiation)’ below, and ICYMI Run The Jewels are sharing RTJ4 for free this Friday “for anyone who wants some music”.
To learn more about or support the Black Lives Matter movement — head here
To learn more about or support equality & justice for First Nations people here in Australia, you can visit Change The Record or Reconciliation.org.au
