Every time a new clip of police violence hits my TL, I’m gonna post a hip hop track that spreads love while unflinchingly confronting this ongoing hellscape.

Dead Prez, 1997. Perfect expression of that era’s sound—end of boom bap, haunted melodic sample, assonance driving the rhythm, documentary-style perspective, politically elevated. “What do power mean?”

Goodie Mob, 1996. Amazing storytelling. Extensive breakdown of Clinton-era judicial, bureaucratic and police racism, the Gary Webb revelations about CIA drug running and music industry destroying black artists.

J.PERIOD 2017. Gonna skip forward in time for this next one thanks to an incident of NYPD sociopathy. A post-Ferguson, post-Trump protest anthem from some of my all time favourite rappers. Peak of intelligence, consciousness, lyrical skill and musicality.

DJ Krust & Saul Williams, 1999. Bristol drum and bass meets Afro-American griot poetry. This is the “We didn’t start the fire” of my generation.

Killer Mike, 2012. “The ballot or the bullet, some freedom or some bullshit—Will we ever do it big, or keep just settling for little shit?”

Main Source, 1991. Grim baseball analogy. Just to reinforce how long cops have been doing this for.

Mo Muse, 2019. [Switching to NZ here as an Auckland food company apparently fired a worker for attending a BLM solidarity rally] Remember that the Christchurch massacre was planned for an American audience. America exports its violence everywhere.

Bigg Jus, 2004. Bush-era hellscape. “Macabre cadence” is the best self-description.

The Pharcyde, 1992. RTs and shares of the thuggery continues unabated but we need to take a breather with some of the greatest uplifting West Coast classics.

Souls Of Mischief, 1993. Who is still listening to this? It will never fall off.

Freestyle Fellowship, 1993. The very beginning of the lyrical innovation that would go on to influence rap everywhere.

Pete Rock & CL Smooth, 1992. Skip to the East Coast. Another timeless song that will never fall off.

Paul Kelly and A.B. Original, 2016. [NSW police are trying to premptively shut down a BLM solidarity event in Sydney tomorrow] Big middle finger to racists in the comments upset at this update to the 80s pub rock classic. Fuck you.
THE DATE’S CHANGIN’

Zack De La Rocha, KRS-One & The Last Emperor, 1998. Another horrible clip goes by so. Late in the Clinton era, this concerns the growing realisation that crack was government-produced and how the violence on US streets is connected to imperialism abroad.

Rapsody w/ Kendrick Lamar and Lance Skiiiwalker, 2017. A barbaric clip of a pig choking a teenager crosses the TL. Rapsody is one of the best and here she packs a novella’s worth of emotion and storytelling into 4 minutes.

RTJ, 2020. Came out this week. Will bring tears to a few people’s eyes.

Kendrick Lamar, 2015. “And we hate popo, wanna kill us dead in the street fo sho”

Queen Latifah, 1993. Another share, another classic.

The Roots, 1996. This is the only response I have to that Instagram/Coachella-style influencer clip doing the rounds.

Gravediggaz, 1997. Portland PB keeping Combined Systems, Inc in business with teargas and impact munitions. “At night time I can hear the earth cry.”

Onefour, 2019. Clip of Sydney cops kettling people into the East entrance of central then pepper spraying them. Here’s some other shit these cops tried to shut down and suppress recently.

A.B. Original, 2016. Another one from Sydney hits the TL. “I got too much to do.”

Ghetts, 2014. Clip of London police losing their cool. “All I acquired from the riot was that people are sick and tired of being quiet.”

Bahamadia, 1996. Flashbang grenades and teargas hitting a peaceful crowd in Seattle. Let’s take it back to the ‘90s again with one of the realest who always refused to conform to what the music industry wants of female rappers.

Big Freedia, 2018. Clip of police *standing on a rainbow pride street crossing* lobbing teargas. “Keep your apologizes hun / We could have had a good run / But you done fucked up son“

Buckshot LeFonque, 1997. Cleanse another brutal incident with a fascinating earworm oddity. A crossover of hip hop styles/eras foregrounding jazz as the origin and subtly referencing ongoing moral panics aimed at repressing both styles of music.

Erykah Badu w/ Common, 2002. Another disturbing scene of teargas and flashbangs used to break up a crowd, another historical aesthetic journey. The story of how hip hop got started is beautiful.

Deltron 3030, 2000. Awful that I have to come back to this thread but there it is, blood and pepper spray. So... Everyone hears Virus when they think of this album, but this is the best track IMO.