At midnight on Thursday night, listeners who were tuned into the New York hip-hop radio station Hot 97 got a bracing surprise. Over some familiar strings, a voice said, "RIP to Sean Bell," the black man who was killed by police in Queens early last Saturday morning.
"RIP to Kathryn Johnston," he continued, naming the 88-year-old woman who was killed by the police in Atlanta last week.
"RIP to Amadou Diallo," he said naming the African immigrant who was shot by the police in the Bronx in 1999.
"The list goes on. A change gon' come," he said.
The voice belonged to Papoose, a rapper from Brooklyn whose new song, 50 Shots, is a furious -- and surprisingly detailed -- response to the shooting of Bell. In the last week or so, the song has been circulating online. And DJ Kay Slay, who has become a mentor to Papoose, began his midnight radio show by playing it.
Papoose has made a name for himself by releasing dozens of mix tapes over the last few years; in one of his best-known songs, Sharades, he rapped in the voice of "the hip-hop police," promising to throw more rappers in jail. His style is heavy-handed and quite often dull; he often seems content merely to shout his rhymes over the beat. But he is ambitious and relentless, and with Kay Slay's help, he got a contract with Jive Records.
Certainly he wasted no time in responding to the events of last Saturday, when five police officers fired 50 shots at a car, killing Bell, who was to be married later that day, and wounding two other people, Joseph Guzman and Trent Benefield.
Papoose's song uses a sample of Sam Cooke's A Change is Gonna Come. Near the beginning, he says, "Make the whole hood feel sad, it's sadness/But we feel mad -- it's madness." Then he delves into the details. He assails the officers by name: "Mike Oliver said his gun jammed, he the main one/12-year veteran and don't know how to use a gun."
He paraphrases the Police Department's Patrol Guide: "The law states a cop is not permitted to shoot at a moving car" (which is true, unless the officer is responding to some "deadly physical force" besides the car itself).
He offers measured praise for Mayor Michael Bloomberg, comparing him to his predecessor: "He got some better manners, but let's see if we get some better policy."
blog rapping
Papoose even found time to respond to a newspaper column by John Podhoretz from Tuesday's New York Post; this is a rhyme that sometimes feels more like a vituperative blog entry.
Listeners sometimes wonder why hip-hop doesn't produce more fiery protest music. 50 Shots, an unsubtle little song that packs a thrilling little charge, is proof that the protest tradition lives on. It may also help listeners understand why this sort of thing isn't more common.
Your average hip-hop track is more freewheeling than this one, and much more fun. If most rappers prefer boasts to brickbats -- well, you can see why.
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