It's been rather quiet here lately, time has not allowed much musicmaking - apart from the traditional Marxist Christmas songs of course - but I thought I could try to do something I have been thinking of for a while - collecting a few of the many lovely hip-hop tracks with thematics around all those lovely peacekeepers that permeate society to keep us all nice, safe, warm and cosy. It's not really a mixtape as it's just a collection of videos and links of stuff that's available online, but i could have been... So, without further ado:
NWA - Fuck tha Police: The eternal classic:
KRS One - Sound of tha Police: Another Classic!
Body Count - Cop Killer: Ice T's punk-bands controversial underground hit that was banned in the US. Fitting video from Terminator.
Gatas Parlament - Faen til prat: Have to include some norwegian stuff, and then there basically is no getting around GP. As classic a track in Norway as NWAs is in the US. There used to be a couple of live versions of this track at the GP website that were just fantastic, but it seems they have been removed in one of the many revamps of the site. Wait a minute. I almost forgot archive.org. You can look for the live version from Bylarm here. In my opinion that is the best version of the track: http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://gatasp.no Try around 2001/2002. Also check out the one from Sandefjord. Archive is however a bit unreliable when it comes to these tings, so GP should definitly put these classic recordings back out there.
NWA - Fuck tha Police part 2: Perhaps not as well known as the original, not as catchy either, but the rage is still there, and an ...interesting skit first.
Dead Prez - Police State: Can't have a list like this without Dead Prez on it. Like Apache Indian used to say to Jack Radics on MTVs Reggae Sound System: Big respect!
Per Bergersen - Knut & Henning: 2 norwegian tracks. Not hip-hop, but who can resist lyrics like "stygg som ei ape, dum som en stut, hva kan det være som rimer på Knut?" and "Henning er sherriff, Henning har pistol, Henning ser Kojak og lyser som en sol". Be sure to check out the late greate Bergersens entire music collection at http://alge.anart.no/perbergersen/
http://alge.anart.no/perbergersen/mp3/pb/pb_06_knut.mp3
http://alge.anart.no/perbergersen/mp3/pb/pb_26_henning.mp3
Public Enemy - 911s a Joke: Another group that cannot be neglected.
Samvirkelaget - Stop Volden: This collaboration between Gatas Parlament and the ska-band Hopalong Knut reacted when police brutality killed a black man in Trondheim. After being sued they edited the name of the guilty police officer out of the song. You can see the illustration of this from the gags at the end of the video.
Samvirkelaget - Stopp Voldenon Vimeo.
Now for the bonus tracks:
RATM - Fuck tha Police (cover): If you're not that into Hip Hop, perhaps you could listen to this cover version of NWAs classic?
Amanda Palmer - Fuck tha Police (cover): If you're more into folk...
And so as not to be completely negative - let's finish off with a little someting that is a bit mote positive towards the police, albeit a little naïve:
