Police Violence Causes The D.O.C., Bishop Lamont & B-Real To Speak Up. Forcefully (Audio)

The murders of unarmed Black and Brown civilians (many of whom are minors) by law enforcement persists in the United States of America. This week is as disturbing of a reminder as any, following the murders of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling. Now, matters have escalated with lethal retaliations, as five Dallas, Texas police officers were killed, with seven others injured in an ambush shooting.

Bishop Lamont is one artist who has had more than enough, and is speaking up about it. He assembles a cast of thoughtful West Coast-based MCs in Cypress Hill’s B-Real, Thug Life’s Mopreme Shakur, Psycho Realm’s Sick Jacken, and The D.O.C. for “Go Time.”

The charged up record is a call to action to stand up for citizens rights, at any cost. In the record, the MCs maintain that police profiling, harassment, and brutal force is an issue that needs action. They also stress this social ill permeates the Hispanic community as well. B-Real and Sick, both Soul Assassins veterans, rhyme on this issue—as Bishop and others urge against Black vs. Brown tensions in the streets.

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After a fiery intro, Bishop Lamont begins with a rapped open letter, “Dear America, machine for mass hysteria. Hypocrisy and lies, but the truth is even scarier. No longer the minority, we now are the majority. So, all you niggas and others, they waging war on you and me.

On verse 2, Sick Jacken spews timely words of frustration predicting violence against police, saying, “Two wrongs don’t make a right, alright / But, it’s hard to really sleep at night when you keep on taking more Black lifes / Any second, that can be me, right?

In Lamont’s second verse, he likens police to terrorists and says the violence is deeper than race. “I don’t know about ISIS / But I know ’bout po-lices / ‘Cause most my run-ins with cops ain’t been niceness / And, now y’all even shooting little White girls too / Goddamn. Nobody’s safe from the boys in blue / It ain’t racism, it’s abuse of power / Police think that they’re soldiers, ego trippin’ off balance.

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The D.O.C.’s verse is his first in years, and it is an outright call to action for people to take to the streets to defend themselves. While the song likely was recorded prior to the shooting in Dallas, it voices frustrations that had long since reached a boiling point.

The takeaways in the song are dense and layered, however, the most important is that the killing—of citizens AND of police—must stop.

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This song is believed to appear on Bishop Lamont’s upcoming, long-anticipated debut album, The Reformation.