This song is about the heartbreak of being someone who joins the police force hoping to be a positive agent of change in a community, and having your dream crushed the people on your own team. Those who you wish to serve don't trust you and they have good reason. You take one step forward being available for any questions or concerns in the community with months of consistency, and 40 steps back with one night where some racist officer has decided to exert his will over a minority youth who's life is lost in the process. And you continue to be bound by legal red tape and you see an evil system in place preserved to protect a murderer. And it's wrong.
lyrics
"The Trust"
Dispatched:
another 63 that turns to a 12 quickly.
The speed will give you whiplash.
On your trip, fast, you discern to yourself:
what was the race of this resister?
Was our purpose upheld?
You get a call like this, you're hoping that it's worth it to help.
That a fellow officer of the law didn't burn it to Hell.
It seems unlikely, but the nightly news has learned it can sell.
And a riot's a night away from citizens learn who fell.
I feel a distance between us.
You say it's 'cause I'm on a pedestal.
I say it's 'cause I see a scene with completeness.
And that's not something I can talk about in any arena.
There's a process.
There's subpoenas.
But you say my silence is weakness
because to you, I'm not a human from the start.
I'm a thug for the government playing his part.
No compassion or heart.
But my job is to defend all in a system that isn't pretend.
My only means of authority comes from this democracy's end.
And then...
I arrive on the scene,
the back of an officer (condition: pristine).
A kid twice his size dead.
His blood is pooled in the street,
down from the sidewalk where he lied from multiple shots to the spleen.
And I figured if you were here, we'd probably think think the same thing.
Added, I know this cop's a hothead and his background's unclean.
And it's low-lives like these who make a nightmare of dreams
that any of us could feel protected from a lawless extreme.
But this is that 'cause we took an oath that said we'd die to save a stranger
and here, we're taking lives outside of clear and present danger.
Hopson says, "This motherfucker tried to fight me! He's a criminal!",
responding to my non-verbal judgment: quiet, subliminal.
Now, cops who give a damn will tell each other, "This too shall pass..."
while the city's resources will go to save his ass.
All so the record shows that we were never wrong
but we were wrong
and the things that they said were happening
are happening.
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
