Kenneth Whalum featuring Big K.R.I.T. “Might Not Be O.K.”

In November, Big K.R.I.T. explained to Genius that his heart-wrenching collaboration with musician Kenneth Whalum arose in part due to the frustration with a criminal-justice system whose allegiance consistently lies on the White side of history, particularly when it comes to the way police officers are punished after killing an unarmed person of color. “It’s still somebody that lost their life, it’s still another civilian…we’re gonna sit there and we’re gonna watch, we’re gonna tweet, and then they’re gonna go through the whole judicial system and the [cop] is probably gonna get off again and we’re right back where we started,” he said. “Might Not Be O.K.” is, by far, Krizzle’s most important contribution to Hip-Hop yet, and his unforgettable performance at the BET Awards, in which he appeared clad in a police officer’s uniform, reminded us of the power in unbridled Black pain. This auto-play video is available at its original post.

Marc Lamont Hill On Why 4 Years Of Trump Is Good for the Revolution

Author, activist, professor, and media personality Marc Lamont Hill has made a career out of discussing social and political issues from a distinctly contemporary perspective. His August appearance on The Breakfast Club came amidst the presidential election and during a summer plagued with police-involved killings, and he took the opportunity to share some controversial opinions. “I would rather have Trump be President for four years and build a real Left-Wing movement that can get us what we deserve as a people than to let Hillary be president and we stay locked in the same space where we don’t get what we want,” he shared. With a Trump presidency becoming a reality in just over one month’s time, Hill’s words should serve as a call to action: there’s work to be done.

Snoop Dogg & The Game March with the LAPD

2016 marked a watershed year for Snoop Dogg who, despite having more than 20 years of recording experience under his belt, continued to remain a relevant and inspirational figure in Hip-Hop. Beyond his being given the “I Am Hip-Hop” award by BET in October, he and fellow Los Angeles Rap star The Game led a march to police headquarters in their hometown, alongside Chief Charlie Beck. As reported by The L.A. Times, it was “a unification march for men of color” that came only hours after five police officers were shot and killed in Dallas, Texas. Posting on his Instagram page, Game explained the march was organized to “make the Californian government & it’s [sic] law branches aware that from today forward, we will be UNIFIED as minorities & we will no longer allow them to hunt us or be hunted by us !!!” Onsite, Snoop told reporters that “the mission is to reintroduce our community to the LAPD… just to get some understanding and dialogue. We’re the ones they’re going to be dealing with, we’re the ones that are going to be pulled over. … We’re here on peace.” It was a bold and controversial look from the two rappers, who have both been criticized in the past for “glorifying” street violence through their music. Nevertheless, Snoop Dogg and The Game reminded us that there is much more to the story, and a show of unity is far more powerful than any one song.

Jesse Williams Uses the Spotlight to Set Forth a Blueprint for Revolution

Much like Big K.R.I.T. would do months later at the Hip-Hop Awards, actor and activist Jesse Williams used his time on stage during June’s BET Awards to stand up, unequivocally, for Black Americans. He was being bestowed with the Humanitarian Awards, due in large part to his involvement in social-justice issues and his work on the Stay Woke: The Black Lives Matter Movement documentary. But rather than recite a list of thank yous, Williams instead delivered what can only be called a sermon, saying things like “a system built to divide and impoverish and destroy us cannot stand if we do,” “I don’t wanna hear any more about how far we’ve come when paid public servants can pull a drive-by on a 12-year-old boy playing alone in a park in broad daylight, killing him on television and then going home to make a sandwich,” and “we’re done watching and waiting while this invention called Whiteness uses and abuses us, burying Black people out of sight and out of mind while extracting our culture, our dollars, our entertainment like oil, black gold.” But what will likely prove to be the most potent takeaway from his remarkable speech are his words about the dichotomy of existence faced by people of color in the United States: “The thing is though, that just because we’re magic doesn’t mean we’re not real.” This auto-play video is available at its original post.

Beastie Boys’s Ad-Rock Challenges the World to Stand Up to Hate

Adam “MCA” Yauch Memorial Park in Brooklyn, New York was defaced with swastikas and the words “Go Trump,” the timing of which coincided with Donald Trump’s recent victory in the presidential election. In fact, in the weeks following Election Day, an immense uptick in hate crimes was reported across the country, a sign that racists have been emboldened by Trump’s rhetoric. The late MCA’s fellow Beastie Boy and swarms of like-minded New Yorkers descended upon the park, not to violently protest the hate crime, but to offer a message of compassion and forward-thinking, with Adam “Ad-Rock” Horovitz leading the way. Calling Yauch “someone who taught non-violence, in his music and his life, to all of us and to me,” Horovitz when on to say “these incidents and this type of graffiti has been popping up all over our country because we’ve elected a president that’s given our children the message that it’s okay to write ‘White Power’ in their high school hallway, that it’s okay to attack women and girls, that Latinos and Muslims and Jews are bad people, and that you can electro-shock the gay out of somebody. C’mon! This is real. It’s happening at a rapid rate. We gotta stand up against hate.”

Vic Mensa “16 Shots”

One of the most politically active MCs of his generation, Vic Mensa spent much of 2016 marching and protesting, appearing alongside his fellow Chicago, Illinois natives to express outrage at the handling of the death of Laquan McDonald at the hands of a trigger-happy police officer. Shot 16 times in the street, McDonald was a teenager whose worst crime was holding a knife while walking away from police, and it cost him his life. His death – and the city’s horrendous handling of the investigation – inspired Mensa’s “16 Shots,” a video which includes Black men hanging from nooses and violent encounters with the police. But it’s not all a fictional adaptation of real-life events; in the video, actual footage of Chicago police officer and McDonald’s killer Jason Van Dyke’s dash-cam footage is included. Mensa was not afraid to include the searing imagery of McDonald’s death, and for that, he stood up for those no longer able to fight back.

Also this year, Mensa wrote a powerful open letter about how politicians use race as a distraction, joined protestors in Standing Rock, and took part in the movement to register new voters (as did fellow Chicagoan Chance the Rapper).

Mike Pence Gets Booed at Hamilton & Is Sent a Plea For Justice

Politics and pop culture met head-to-head in November when Vice President-Elect unwittingly walked into a premeditated personal appeal directed squarely at his person. Attending a performance of the theatrical phenomenon Hamilton, he was booed by members of the audience, presumably due to his far-right political views. But the moment turned into something more when cast member Brandon Victor Dixon delivered a heartfelt speech in which he urged Pence to “uphold our American values and to work on behalf of all of us,” those of us who make up the citizens of a “diverse America who are alarmed and anxious that your new administration will not protect us, our planet, our children, our parents, or defend us and uphold our inalienable rights.” Two days later, Dixon expanded upon his statement, saying that he hopes “it was the beginning of a conversation…we can continue to have.”

Macklemore Implores Us To Acknowledge Our White Privilege

As “Black lives matter” continued to be a recurring theme in protest movements throughout 2015, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis stood up loudly at the top of this year and exposed a sense of helplessness for the world to see in the form of “White Privilege II.” Released in January, the song features Jamila Woods and includes questions Macklemore asked of himself (and, by extension, was urging his fellow White Americans to ask of themselves) like “Is this awkward, should I even be here marching?,” “Am I in the outside looking in, or am I in the inside looking out?,” and “Is it my place to give my two cents, or should I stand on the side and shut my mouth?” Luckily, he did not shut his mouth, and instead he invited activists and artists of color to join him in a full-fledged movement to educate White people on how they can be effective allies in the modern-day civil rights era. In fact, the song has its very own website still active today, and includes invaluable information, including a database of Black-led organizations in need of support. Macklemore also spent much of 2016 working to bring awareness to America’s opioid epidemic, even sitting down with President Obama to deliver a sobering call to action.

 Jay Z Explains How The War On Drugs Really Is A War On People Of Color

Jigga’s rise to his current position as one of the most powerful businessmen to emerge out of Hip-Hop has been well documented, particularly through his music. He’s never shied away from boasting of his prowess at selling drugs in his early life, nor has he remained modest about enjoying the life of luxury the street hustle provided him. But the majority of his career has been about achieving success in ways that allowed him to leave behind d’evils and land on the pages of Forbes. That trajectory has given him a unique perspective on the “war on drugs,” a devastating political initiative launched under the Nixon administration and which has resulted in mass incarceration, the criminalization of nonviolent drug users, and far-reaching structural racism that has devastated entire communities of color. As such, Jay Z was the perfect narrator for a New York Times animated short in which the war on drugs is illustrated with no-holds-barred imagery and language. “The History of the War on Drugs: from Prohibition to Gold Rush” included references to the government’s plan to make drug dealers into monsters, with Jigga explaining the fact that “even though White people used and sold crack more than Black people, somehow it was Black people who went to prison,” adding the sobering statistic that “when the war on drugs started in 1971, our prison population was 200,000. Today, it is over two million.”