It’s been four years since Skipp Coon first fulminated his gospel rap for the secular. Airing grievances over samples from Network, the fuck-the-world rage of Coon met the anguished fury of Howard Beale. In the same way that DOOM matched his persona to the villain and Ghostface became Tony Stark, Coon used cinematic skits to articulate backlogged invective about economic inequality, racism, and other indecencies of the Kleptocracy. We pretend that there are no artists capable of matching the corrosive polemics of Public Enemy or X-Clan or Dead Prez, but this year alone, we have records from Shabazz Palaces, Open Mike Eagle, and Coon — all artists who keep their enemies under the scope. And that doesn’t even include a Run the Jewels sequel promised later this fall. It might lack the same national resonance, but little does anymore.
What’s lost about political rap is that the politics are invariably secondary to the music. But when the music is great, it gives the rants a credence that no soapbox acapella could ever match. You don’t have to agree with the solutions, but the diagnostic is obvious to everyone. Coon kicks it with sinners and heathens in retro Jordans, a born skeptic on the corner. Then the narrative swerves, it’s unclear whether the protagonist is Coon himself or a Bigger Thomas-like character made a monster from oppression. Whether it’s first or third person, it’s clear that the perspective is immaterial. Coon is gunning at the causes and the symptoms inflicted by a broken system. He’s attacking the human condition itself. The failures of the strong. The triumphs of the weak. The winning streaks of the wicked.
The song was released in honor of the birthday of Assata Shakur, the ex-Black Panther currently living in Cuba, the only woman to ever top the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists list. Sprinkling a last bit of sulfur on top, Coon includes a clip about how schools brainwash you to stay in line and not overthrow the Capitalist system. That might be giving them too much credit. Schools just teach you how to go to college and work an iPad , but that’s probably the same thing that he’s talking about. Sometimes you get so frustrated that you imagine that nothing will ever change. But that’s why it’s important for people like Skipp Coon to exist — even cynics need solace and not everyone has the right voice to scream.
