One could argue that most hip-hop is actually protest music, but there’s no mistaking the anti-police-violence message of a new song and video called “Pig Feet” by jazz musician Terrace Martin, who is accompanied by rappers Denzel Curry, G Perico and Daylyt and saxophonist Kamasi Washington, who worked with Martin on Kendrick Lamar’s groundbreaking “To Pimp a Butterfuly” album.
The song and video — which is comprised entirely of footage from the protests across the country in the wake of George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police last week — pull no punches.
“Someone asked, how do I feel? I told them hurt, fearless, angry, aware and fully ready to protect me, my family & my people at all costs,” Martin says in a statement accompanying the song and video. “I got together with Black men that felt the same way and created a work of truth. PIG FEET.”
“Helicopters over my balcony/ If the police can’t harass, they wanna smoke every ounce of me … Go to jail and get murdered/ Murder was the case they gave us … Like Wade, I fade away/ I pray today, ’cause life is crazy/ Jay-Z, a school for hard knocks/ They want us crucified with stones and hard rocks,” Curry raps on the opening verses.“They gon’ pay for takin’ my brother,” G Perico follows. “Nas say we need one mic and they shot the brown one.”
The song arrived on the eve of Blackout Tuesday (June 2), during which the music industry will basically cease daily operations in a show of solidarity with the black community.