DJ Quik and Problem excited Rap fans earlier this year with April’s generation-bridging Rosecrans EP. A Compton, California affair to the fullest, Quik’s production and rhyming called back to some of his 1990s brilliance. In his career, Quik often upholds the convention of releasing music through albums, not just a la carte singles. This weekend, for Black Friday, Quik breaks tradition, and does so with some powerful lyrics and sounds.

As Q-U-I-K tells it below, “I wrote this piece because I don’t like the tumultuous air surrounding Black People. Someone had to speak up for the African American community on this Black Friday and I elect Me to do so. Love, David Blake aka DJ Quik.” The song features some elegant 1970s R&B chopped down, as the veteran MC/producer raps in a stream of consciousness, seeking peace, preservation, and Black Power the way it could be.

DJ Quik Discusses Aging Gracefully In Hip-Hop

“I’ve been on my own / Thirty years strong / I was broke as a bone / Nowhere to call my home/ But I knew that I had talent, I knew that I could do it / That thing that ‘change your life,’ don’t give no credence to it / Make you put your feet into it / Don’t let the evils distract you or make you quit because if it was easy, he could do it / If ‘Pac was here, he’d write a song that would calm ya down / And I would maybe produce it, give it that Compton sound / He only haunts me now / I see him troopin’ further / I knew those Rap magazines would instigate his murder / I’ma tell you like that, ’cause I can tell you like that.”

While Tupac is gone, Quik is a veteran of violent Rap beef, problems with police, and industry politics. The same artist who made a statement nearly 20 years ago with “You’z A Ganxsta” may be reminding us to take heed to the words again.

DJ Quik Reveals He Will Release Collaboration With MC Eiht (Video)

In the past, some of David Blake’s most memorable words were about things like beef, sex, and partying. Although it’s new, this aims to be on that same pedestal.