Jay Z has become the latest musician to respond to the fatal shootings of black men by police in the United States, releasing new song “Spiritual” on his Tidal streaming service this morning. Following the killings of Alton Sterling in Louisiana on Tuesday and Philando Castile in Minnesota on Wednesday, the track addresses the escalating situation in America, containing the lyric: “Yeah, I am not poison, no I am not poison / Just a boy from the hood that / Got my hands in the air / In despair, don’t shoot / I just wanna do good, ah.”
Recorded before the death of Mike Brown a year ago, it remained, according to the rapper, unfinished in the sad knowledge that the “issue will always be relevant.” “I’m hurt that I knew his death wouldn’t be the last,” he says in a statement accompanying the release. “I’m saddened and disappointed in THIS America — we should be further along. WE ARE NOT.”
Jay Z’s intervention comes just hours after Beyoncé spoke passionately of the need to stand up to violence that has seen 136 black people killed by U.S. police in 2016 alone: “We are sick and tired of the killings of young men and women in our communities,” wrote the singer in a post on her website. “It is up to us to take a stand and demand that they ‘stop killing us’.”
“We don’t need sympathy. We need everyone to respect our lives,” she continued. “We’re going to stand up as a community and fight against anyone who believes that murder or violent action by those who are sworn to protect us should consistently go unpunished. These robberies of lives make us feel helpless and hopeless but we have to believe that we are fighting for the rights of the next generation, for the next young men and women who believe in good.”
Listen to “Spiritual” and read Jay Z’s statement on Tidal.
Credits
Text Matthew Whitehouse
Photography via Flicker user Whittlz via Creative Commons