Big Boi and Sleepy Brown’s 2017 collaboration “We The Ones” resurfaced today with a remix featuring Big Rube and Killer Mike. Originally appearing on the Organized Noize EP, the song’s been updated with a spoken word intro and outro by Rube, who’s been busy contributing to Spillage Village’s new album Spilligion, and a defiant verse from Killer Mike, who released the album RTJ4 with Run The Jewels partner El-P this summer.
Overall, the track fits with 2020’s ongoing mood of protest, as Sleepy sings, “Stand up to oppression / Stand up to all aggression.” Sadly, it also fit the mood of the Bandcamp compilation album Good Music to Avert the Collapse of American Democracy, which goes to show that we’ve been dealing with these subjects for far too long.
Killer Mike tried a different route to address those concerns in September when he met Georgia governor Brian Kemp. Although the move drew criticism online, he defended himself, noting: “I’d like to see minority contracts rise from 2% to between 8-10%. I’d like to see a program created, as early as high school, pushes in particular working-class poor men and African-American young men into trades because, over the next 20 years, Georgia’s going to be growing… I’d like to see us prepare our young men to fill those jobs because we need fathers, we need husbands, and we need stability, in particular.”
Listen to Big Boi and Sleepy Brown’s “We The Ones” remix featuring Killer Mike above.