Hip-Hop Revolutionaries Brings it Again!
Bambu & Kiwi Reunite as Native Guns Showing Solidarity for Oscar Grant
On my last blog essay, I expressed my thoughts on the trial of Officer Mehserle for the Execution of Oscar Grant. I also wrote the need for solidarity amongst all of our communities. Well, as though it was almost an answer to what I was looking for – Hip-Hop MC’s, Bambu & Kiwi along with DJ Phatrick have reunited as their original duo group Native Guns to release their latest song, “Handcuffs”.
I remember when Native Guns broke up, I literally cried. I cried not only because they were dear friends of mine who I cared about tremendously but also I cried because of what they represented to many of us. Native Guns was not just an important voice of the Hip-Hop community but specifically the Filipino-American community. Native Guns are Filipino-American’s who are Hip-Hop MC’s amongst many others (so many to mention), who speak conscious political rhymes and voice the historical and present injustices against Filipino people. Native Guns, as many Hip-Hop MC’s, are community organizers and often make connections of our struggles to the struggles of other communities. It’s been four years since Native Guns released a song/album but here they are bringing it again, with that same connectedness and using their wise organizing skills by utilizing Hip-Hop to inspire the masses. The lyrics are witty, intelligently woven together and the beat got that ill hip-hop funky baseline and drumbeat (produced by Six Fingers). Together, they are showing that the solidarity lies amongst all of us.
Click HERE to download new Native Guns Son on Oscar Grant
The song couldn’t have come at a better time, at a time when it seems like folks are looking for something of inspiration to uplift and give hope. It’s coming at a time when many around us are trying to find ways to express our feelings but need to see positive ways of expressing those feelings. It’s also coming at the perfect time to show the media that we’re not just angry activists, but we’re activists that have a long history in this movement and we have a right to be angry.
Kiwi opens it up bringing his lyrical skills and dope flow, expressing the very views of not just activists but thousands of people who are tired of what is going on in their communities:
“fire on the streets/i can feel the smoke and the heat
the whole city on lock/got no where to eat
A shot heard around town/so the people won’t sleep
another brother taken down/by the fuckin police
We’re sick of just yelling/No Justice! No Peace!”
My last essay, also spoke about all issues being connected to what’s happening in Arizona to other issues around the world. Native Guns also make the same connections with Bambu’s line, “To the pig from Oakland/to a life getting stolen/from a pig in Gaza/To the pig who killed Ayana” and “It’s Arizona to Watts/Philippines to Iraq” and Kiwi’s lines “same bullets, same tank, used on the West Bank.”
Just when you think the verses were truth with fire, the hook itself spoke the truth and inspires me to want to walk with the masses the day the verdict goes down:
(Handcuffs) we are not afraid we are mad
(Native Guns) Take it to the streets just like that
(Handcuffs) Its bigger than the block we on
(Native Guns) All power to the masses homes
(Handcuffs) bottom to the top school up
(Native Guns) linkin all for that money/getting cut up
(Handcuffs) Meet me at the Fruitvale BART
(Native Guns) Shake the system/Rip the setup apart
(Handcuffs)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yP3W4LnX92g&feature=player_embedded
Bambu, also sharply makes a strong point with lines like “the issues are bigger than one murderous cop”, which brings it to the point that the issues are big, that we are dealing with a large entity, a system that is connected to other systems which Kiwi illustrates, “less money for city college or healthcare/more people unemployed no welfare/the same people on all the streets trying to get theirs/politicians, corporations like (handcuffs) hell yeah/”
The song is fire, speaks truth to power and I am proud to know that my brothers Native Guns came together for such an important song. Thank you, thank you, thank you and bless you.
Download the song here: http://24kmilky.com/7203/native-guns-handcuffs
(i’m also posting it on my wall so you can hear it before downloading if you wish) But please Post it everywhere And Let this be a call-to-action for all of our communities to come together. Express yourselves with a song, a beat, a dance and organize with our communities, come out when the verdict goes down, express yourself!
All I know is, we got to be together…
Peace, love, and unity
Kuttin Kandi
p.s. to read my last essay on Oscar Grant go here: http://www.facebook.com/notes/kuttin-kandi/no-independence-day-in-unity-struggle-till-we-are-all-free-for-oscar-grant/409911133373