The all-star team of rappers calls for justice on “Don’t Shoot (Ferguson Anthem).”
In the aftermath of the killing of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown by officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri, some hip-hop fans called for rappers to speak up and use their bully pulpits to call out the injustice.
Now many hip-hop stars are heeding that call in a big, explicit way. Organized by Compton rapper The Game, here's the new song "Don't Shoot (Ferguson Anthem)," an all-star political posse cut featuring Rick Ross, Diddy, 2 Chainz, and Wale.
DJ Khaled, Curren$y, Problem, Fabolous, TGT, King Pharoah, Yo Gotti, and Swizz Beatz also make appearances. The song premiered Wednesday night on Rolling Stone.
The Game.
"Don't Shoot" follows "Free," J. Cole's emotional protest song in response to Ferguson released earlier this month, but trades that song's mournful bellowing for a series of hard-hitting, indignant polemics by street rappers (and Diddy).
The Game even shouts out Cole in his verse on the song. "I seen Cole out there, felt I should go out there, they left that boy four hours in the cold out there," he raps.
Getty Images.
"I'm a resident of a nation that don't want me," Curren$y says in one of the track's more poignant moments. Fabolous and Wale, meanwhile, criticize all the attention given to the "Ice Bucket Challenge," while Diddy nods to Emmett Till and Trayvon Martin.
It's 2 Chainz, master of the guest appearance, who gets perhaps the song's most effective verse, however: "Tired of the okie-doke, you lyin' you Pinocchio / Driving While Black, tell me where am I supposed to go? / Gun shots hit the car, now I got the holy ghost / if excessive force was a drug then they'd overdose/ Tired of the protests, it's a slow process, heard there's a lot of rotten eggs in the crow's nest / People prayin' on they feet, police holdin' on to heat, turned on the news and seen a tank rollin' down the street!"
Mario Anzuoni / Reuters