Eamon Whalen ony runs his mouth when the sun goes south
To quote the good doctor, Muja Messiah is still not loving police. He’s still thinking about Tycel Nelson, Fong Lee, Courtney Williams and Terrance Franklin — four cases of young men of color killed at the hands of the Minneapolis police department. Questions of guilt and innocence from the larger community enveloped each case, but no officer was ever charged. Business as usual.
In the case of Franklin, who was shot nine times in the basement of a house after a foot chase, his family wasn’t allowed to see his body until days after. While officers Michael Meath and Ricardo Muro received Purple Hearts despite both having lengthy histories of excessive force and misconduct, especially when it came to dealing with young Black men.
Every city in America has a Terrance Franklin, which is why every city should have an unfiltered, street-minded truth-teller like Muja Messiah.
A respected D-Boy as much as he is a B-Boy, Muja’s lived long enough to know that a coward dies a thousand deaths, even if they’ve received a medal of valor from the mayor. Power is abused, grievances are filed, settlements may even be paid out, but for the most part the force is immune from sanctions, even if they leave a trail of dead Black men in their wake.
“It Goes Down” features Muja’s panoramic, made for HBO storytelling. He pits himself against two of Minneapolis‘ finest, trying his best to not go Larry Davis, then levies an indictment on his hometown force, invoking the names of victims of the past.
It’s a natural companion piece to I Self Devine’s “Police Assassination Anthem”, who provides the hook over one of Mike The Martyr’s funkier loops. The track is the second single from Muja’s upcoming album God Kissed It, The Devil Missed It, which is entirely produced by Martyr.
