Subscribe

* indicates required
Okayplayer News

To continue reading

Create a free account or sign in to unlock more free articles.

By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy

Run The Jewels Look Back On The Year Since Ferguson & How Far We Still Have To Go
Run The Jewels Look Back On The Year Since Ferguson & How Far We Still Have To Go

Run The Jewels Reflect On The Year Since Ferguson & The Work That's Still To Be Done

Run The Jewels Look Back On The Year Since Ferguson & How Far We Still Have To Go

This Sunday, August 9th, will mark precisely one year since the murder of 18-year-old Mike Brown in Ferguson, MS; a tragedy that sparked perhaps the most powerful movement in American protest discourse since the civil rights movement of the '60s. And while the countless lives taken at the hands of our nation's law enforcement since may have only compounded the pain and outrage over the fact that our black men, women and children still must fear for their lives in any, even chance, encounter with the armed leg of the law, each and every life taken since August 9th of 2014 stands as a shameful reminder of how far we still have to go.

But as far as the hip-hop community is concerned, there may not be a more outspoken pair of reformists (or a more Disney-ish embodiment of race relations in the US) than the megalithic rhymesaying duo that is Run The Jewels. They went to Fergusson the very night that rioting began in the city, where Killer Mike gave one of the most heart-crushing and emotional testimonies of what is to be a black father in a country that routinely treats his children as the face of the enemy. And since, they've showed us precisely what it means to be brothers in arms through moving visuals and stirring high-energy-and-emotion performances. And so, as we creep up on the one year anniversary of the loss of Brown and the spark that lit the Black Live Matter movement, the duo has taken to the BBC to show us that this movement needs more than peacekeeping and that maybe, just maybe, riots really do work. Watch as Killer Mike & El-P reflect on the year since Mike Brown's murder and the work that still needs to by hitting the link below.

>>>Watch Run The Jewels reflect on the year since Ferguson (via BBC)