We’re excited to introduce our new series of bars videos WORDS 4 ACTION…
Seems like the last few years have seen racism, inequality, misinformation and far right politics come more glaringly to the forefront than ever. All happening against the backdrop of simultaneous shit shows like Brexit, the pandemic and pending environmental and economic collapse. We fully believe that now more than ever is the time for the resurgence of the spirit of protest and action that has been at the heart of much of the best hip hop over the years.
While the battle/diss element of hip hop has spawned infinite video series and other core traditions have been celebrated (e.g. JDZ Storyteller), to the best of our knowledge, there hasn’t yet been a bars series (in UK hip hop at least) with the theme of inciting action on issues/causes. As the ethic of resistance and protest has been present in hip hop since its beginning, this seems like a strange void to not already be filled.
We’ve been working on putting this together for a while and have been asking select rappers to choose a cause or issue they feel strongly about and spit meaningful lyrics on the topic. Then to briefly talk about what people can ACTUALLY DO.
We’re very proud to debut the first in this series from High focus/Yogocop/CMPNDs’ Kemastry who has been increasingly active over the last couple years with the Black Lives Matter and Kill The Bill movements.