This song tells the story about a real police encounter I had with Officer Jake Hopson of the Fort Worth Police Department on February 26th, 2012, the same night Trayvon Martin was killed. He thought I was laughing at him so he followed me for 3 or 4 blocks before instigating a fight with me, illegally detaining me, standing on my head (a deeply Napoleonic complex at play) and then framing me for 3 different crimes before ultimately writing me a jaywalking ticket (a crime which I also didn't commit). He purposefully told me to step out of the view of his squad car's dashcam so he could assault me unprovoked with as little evidence as possible and even though he wasn't physically able to take me down (without me even being aware that he was even trying to do so), once I released he was trying to sweep my legs, I realized that if I didn't go down, he could shoot me, kill me, and he'd get away with it because there were no other witnesses and it would be his word versus a dead man's. I always knew this type of abuse of power existed, but at 19 years-old, this was my first time seeing it face to face. The scariest part about being in these situations that I don't think the majority culture truly accounts for isn't the violence, but it's the fact that everyone involved feels like even though they may know that what the officers are doing is wrong, they are almost entirely certain to get away with it. This lack of justice, accountability, and responsibility is purely counter-intuitive to any attempt at being a civilized society.
Everything that happens in the song happened in real life except I used the shooting of my cousin by another police department as the end of this song because it would've been too emotionally difficult for me to write completely from his perspective. He had been released from jail for roughly a week before being killed by the police. So, for narrative purposes, I reversed our roles and, instead of him, I die in this song and the next song is about my cousin finding out I've been killed by the police while he's still in jail.
lyrics
"The Pedestrian"
Questions you ask before your cousin's uncanny demise,
Vanity lies
What is a black man's humanity size?
Answers divide us
Though united first as ancestors,
man's plan is in the damned hands of a virus
Insanity lies deep in soul
Deep in the muscle
And deep in the brain tissue that we use for control
Fuck The Man we despise
Fuck his cancerous lies
Let calamity rise
Aight then, niggas. I'll set the scene up:
Travellin' on foot, I'm cleaned up from after work
Me and the diner team up
We gonna meet up in the neighborhood, kick feet up, and chill
While walking over, I can feel the night is silent and tranquil, but stirring its will
It's like a current moving my body though I'm determinedly still
Unnervingly ill late translations of familiar landscapes be handshaking with my anticipation
and The Jake is in a squad car waiting in the parking lot vacant
of a gentrifying wine bar adjacent
closed for the night, but whose consistency for emptiness, even while open, has earned a reputation.
'I guess the cop secured the area!'
I say to myself while my laughter gets to quaking.
We lock eyes while I'm inhaling.
I discover hate.
It's tangible like hot to the touch.
I go on about my business, but he's bothered too much.
He follows.
I let my head relax and dread synapses casually shut off
cause if that hoe was in his own car, he would actually fuck off.
I hang a right towards my destination on to Desolation Row and without further hesitation,
he turns on his red, white, and blue lights illuminating,
gets out the car and asks me, 'Fuck you tryna do?'
He's baiting.
Tells me, 'Step to the side of the car!'
I calmly comply.
Soon as we're out of the view of the dash cam, he tries to get sly
and without telling me why,
he tries to sweep my legs, but can't qualify.
He pulls out his heat and (gunshot)
A joyful celebration of the sounds of Southern rap from an artist who's never felt more at home and in command of her space and vision. Bandcamp Album of the Day May 25, 2023
Having shacked up with Del and MF Doom, production powerhouse Parallel Thought now collabs with streetwise MC Bentley. Bandcamp New & Notable Mar 5, 2016
