Episode #58: The Sound of Da Police: Hearing Police Brutality in Hip Hop Music
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Today on the podcast, Alex Gomez and new producer Elena Maris bring you a powerful, unique story. Using the DJ set as a form of narrative, Alex and Elena ask, why have we ignored decades of testimonials about police brutality in hip hop music? In order to demonstrate that the state has executed violence upon poor communities, courts now accept video footage from new technologies like the body camera or the cell phone. And yet, hip hop music has been responding to state violence for years. Throughout the episode, we’re asked to take the form seriously as an informational medium. Take a listen!
Song list:
0:39 – Interview with rapper J. Cole in Fergeson, MO via Complex Magazine
1:16 – “Be Free” by J. Cole
4:10 – Dashcam footage of South Carolina Highway Patrol officer and a black man in Columbia, SC on September 4, 2014
4:50 – “Murder to Excellence” (loop) by Jay Z and Kanye West
5:02 – Fuck the Police by Styles P
8:15 – Protect and Serve (loop) by UGK
9:11 – Cell Therapy (loop) by Goodie MOB
9:25 – The Beast by Fugees
11:28 – Sound of Da Police by KRS-One
11:46 – Officer by The Pharcyde
12:19 – Footage of black man tased by Hammond, Indiana police on September 24, 2014
12:24 – 99 Problems by Jay Z
14:17 – Just A Friendly Game of Baseball by Main Source
18:00 (and throughout) – Who Got the Camera? by Ice Cube
18:25 – Hands Up by Vince Staples
20:39 – footage of police tasing and abusing black man in St. Paul, MN on January 31st 2014.
22:02 – Early by Run the Jewels
23:23 – Rapper Killer Mike (of Run the Jewels) interview on CNN on August 20, 2014
23:49 – Cell Therapy by Goodie MOB
25:15 – Murder of Eric Garner in Staten Island, NY on July 17, 2014
26:52 – Trapped by Tupac Shakur
28:19 – Mind Playing Tricks on Me by the Geto Boys
30:21 – The Proud by Talib Kweli
32:03 – Fuck the Police by Jay Dee aka J Dilla
32:24 – Letter to the President by Tupac Shakur
33:35 – No Knock by Gil Scott-Heron
34:32 – It’s Bigger Than Hip Hop by dead prez
35:23 – Mondre Mo Murda by Mondre M.A.N. (of Main Attrakionz)
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