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Jay-Z has released a powerful new song called Spiritual in response to the deaths of black American men Alton Sterling and Philando Castile at the hands of police.
The track, which the Brooklyn-born rapper revealed he started after the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson in 2014 but didn’t finished until now, is available on Tidal and addresses police brutality and the struggle of black Americans via its powerful lyrics, which include:
“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.”
In a short note accompanying the song, Jay-Z explains that he was advised to drop the track back in 2014 after the Ferguson riots, but he sadly knew it would not be last instance of a policeman shooting an African American without reason.
“I’m saddened and disappointed in THIS America – we should be further along,” he wrote. “We are not.”
He also included a quote from human rights leader and activist Frederick Douglass:
“Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.”
It comes after his wife Beyonce published a powerful letter in response to the deaths, and also paused her Glasgow concert to pay tribute to the hundreds of victims of police brutality in the US, their names displayed on an enormous screen.
Beyonce just paused her Glasgow show for a moment of silence, displaying victims of police brutality #AltonSterling pic.twitter.com/REajdvlmUf
— Will (@TheAussieSide) July 7, 2016
The issue of police brutality in America has reached dangerous new levels in recent days – Alton Sterling and Philando Castile were both killed by policemen in separate incidents over two days, and then five officers were gunned down by snipers in Dallas, Texas at an until then peaceful Black Lives Matters protest.
