El-P and Killer Mike have “A Few Words For The Firing Squad” on the latest single from their upcoming album, Run The Jewels 4. After giving a hip-hop history lesson alongside DJ Premier and Greg Nice with “Ooh La La” last month, the duo shift gears to address current events — or at least, the cyclical nature of state violence against citizens — on their new single, over another devastating El-P production.

Killer Mike closes the track with the titular few words — a knockout blow if ever there was one — after setting up the punchline with a few bars before delivering the crushing haymaker. ““This is for the do-gooders that the no-gooders used and then abused,” he snarls. “For the truth-tellers tied to the whipping post, left beaten, battered, bruised / For the ones whose body hung from a tree like a piece of strange fruit / Go hard, last words to the firing squad was, ‘F*ck you too.’” El-P previewed the track on Instagram, recording it from his television with his phone’s camera.

Run The Jewels have never shied away from political commentary in the past, but their latest full-length LP arrives after a week of protests of police brutality — especially the recent killing of George Floyd, a former member of Houston’s Screwed Up Click.

Listen to the new track via preview above.

Run The Jewels 4 is due 6/5 via Run The Jewels LLC and BMG Records.

In a post on Medium, former President Barack Obama offered some advice and guidance for the protestors calling for justice for George Floyd and an end to police brutality. “It’s going to be up to a new generation of activists to shape strategies that best fit the times. But I believe there are some basic lessons to draw from past efforts that are worth remembering.” Obama begins, acknowledging that the “overwhelming majority of participants have been peaceful, courageous, responsible, and inspiring” but cautioned protestors to not get swept up in the violence of the small minority who are causing property damage and looting.

“If we want our criminal justice system, and American society at large to operate on a higher ethical code, then we have to model that code ourselves.” Obama also called for protestors to channel their energy and passion into the political process, recognizing that historically the political system is responsive to marginalized communities following civil disobedience but stressing that “aspirations have to be translated into specific laws and institutional practices — and in a democracy, that only happens when we elect government officials who are responsive to our demands.”

While it’s easy to dismiss Obama’s remarks as a veiled Biden endorsement ad geared toward increasing voter turnout, much of President Obama’s advice revolves around people participating on the local level, writing “It’s mayors and county executives that appoint most police chiefs and negotiate collective bargaining agreements with police unions. It’s district attorneys and state’s attorneys that decide whether or not to investigate and ultimately charge those involved in police misconduct. Those are all selected positions.”

In closing, Obama offered a few words of hope that address a particularly tumultuous year in American history,

“I recognize that these past few months have been hard and dispiriting — that the fear, sorrow, uncertainty, and hardship of a pandemic have been compounded by tragic reminders that prejudice and inequality still shape so much of American life. But watching the heightened activism of young people in recent weeks, of every race and every station, makes me hopeful. If, going forward, we can channel our justifiable anger into peaceful, sustained, and effective action, then this moment can be a real turning point in our nation’s long journey to live up to our highest ideals.”

Read President Obama’s full message here.

Following George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police officers last Monday, people around the U.S. have taken to the streets to protest yet another act of police brutality against a black American. And, as is often the case when glaring acts of injustice and racism take place, many NBA and WNBA players took to social media to speak out about police violence against black Americans, and some even attended or led protests.

On Monday morning’s episode of Get Up, forward for the LA Sparks and WNBPA vice president Chiney Ogwumike spoke fervently about why athletes should use their platforms for social change and she praised her fellow basketball stars for speaking up.

“Seeing all the images of athletes has been tremendously inspiring, and I think the reason why you see athletes leading the charge when it comes to social change is because at the root of it all, it’s in our DNA,” Ogwumike said. “We are team players; we are wired to care for the last player on the bench as much as we care about ourselves. We’ve been athletes almost our entire lives. We cannot turn this on or off.”

The NBA and WNBA are widely viewed as two of the most progressive American sports leagues and they are also comprised mostly of black athletes and athletes of color, making this issue one that so many players have personally been affected by. Back in 2014, NBA players wore black t-shirts with the words, “I Can’t Breathe,” printed on them to protest Eric Garner’s death at the hands of an NYPD officer. In 2016, following the deaths of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling, four players on the Minnesota Lynx held a pre-game press conference to address police violence. In the days that followed, players from the New York Liberty, Phoenix Mercury and Indiana Fever all wore black t-shirts during warmups. Maya Moore, one of the Lynx players who organized the press conference and one of the greatest to ever play in the WNBA, took the unprecedented decision to sit out the 2019 and 2020 WNBA seasons to fight for criminal justice reform.

Last week’s events saw many players go out and protest right alongside people for an end to police violence, an end to racism and a recognition from those in power that black lives matter. Boston Celtics guard Jaylen Brown drove from Boston to Atlanta on Saturday to lead a peaceful protest where Indiana Pacers guard Malcolm Brogdon joined him and delivered an impassioned message to the crowd. Several other Celtics players including Marcus Smart, Vincent Poirier, and Enes Kanter, who has faced threats from his own government in Turkey, attended Sunday’s protests in Boston. Former NBA champion Stephen Jackson led a press conference on Friday commemorating Floyd’s death with Karl-Anthony Towns, who recently lost his mother to COVID-19, Josh Okogie, Gary Trent Jr. and Royce White in attendance.

“This is why you see Jaylen Brown driving 15 hours to lead a peaceful protest in his hometown,” Ogwumike said. “This is why you see Maya Moore forgoing WNBA season in her prime in order to fight for the wrongfully convicted. This is why you see Karl-Anthony Towns, star of the Minnesota Timberwolves, still show strength in the midst of his grief after losing his mom due to the pandemic.”

On Monday, Ogwumike went on to talk about how black athletes can reach the highest pinnacles of success in their respective sports, but still be reduced to nothing based on the color of their skin. In April 2015, NYPD officers broke then-Milwaukee Bucks player Thabo Sefalosha’s leg while arresting him outside a Chelsea nightclub. However, Ogwumike also acknowledged the privileges that athletes of color do have compared to other people in the U.S. who may not have the same level of financial security, power or fame.

“I guess, overall as athletes, I’ve been really proud to see them stand up and speak up because ⁠— I mean we all know this ⁠— we’re not comfortable staying on the sidelines in the middle of a battle, in the middle of a struggle, when it’s crunch time,” she said. “So, we want to be in the game, we want to win and more importantly, share that feeling. That is what moves us. That is our standard and it’s bigger than sports.”

A number of NBA players joined protests nationwide against police brutality and racial injustice following the recent killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery. Among them was J.R. Smith, who is currently in Los Angeles as he continues training for a hopeful return to the NBA, and after he joined in a protest near his home, he returned to find a looter breaking the windows of his car.

Smith was videoed punching and kicking the looter, who eventually ran off, and while many have said it was justified, Smith told Pat McAfee on Monday that he was disappointed in himself for how he handled the situation.

“You know what’s sad, is after like the first two kicks I really got in, in the third one you can see there wasn’t that much emphasis on it, cause at that point — when it happened, I seen red, and then when I finally snapped to I was so, I’m still like disappointed with myself even if people say I shouldn’t be,” Smith said. “It’s like, for me, I’m 34 years old. I have 4 little girls at home. I don’t want that image, regardless of the fact whether it was right or wrong, I don’t want them to have the image of their dad being capable of doing that, and doing something like that.”

Smith talked about how when he joined in the protests, he felt there was so much unity and love as he helped to hand out water bottles and peacefully protesting through the street, and then when he returned to the street he lived on, he found his car windows being broken. He talked about how that hurt because he’s the only black person on his block, and expressed frustration with how people have been somewhat aimlessly expressing their anger without full thought on who the target should be.

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Sony was expected to give new details about the launch of the Playstation 5 on Thursday, but that company announced Monday they were postponing that event in the wake of nationwide protests following the killing of George Floyd. Sony announced that the event would be postponed to a later date in a message on Twitter along with a nod to the current situation in America, where thousands have taken to the streets to protest police brutality against people of color and called for systemic changes in the wake of centuries of discrimination.

The message didn’t directly address protests against police brutality, but did say the current climate was not a time for “celebration” and Sony wanted instead “to stand back and allow more important voices to be heard.”

The hardware company joins EA Sports in postponing gaming events in the wake of the George Floyd’s death and the subsequent protests that have taken place in more than 100 cities in America and around the world. The developer had scheduled a reveal of its latest Madden game for this week but announced Sunday that it would also postpone its virtual event.

Major gaming events had already been considerably altered in 2020, starting with the COVID-19 pandemic shutting down many conventions and conferences, including June’s scheduled Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles. Many companies had considered hosting livestream events online to announce their products, and the PS5 announcement is one of the most anticipated of the next generation of consoles. It’s unclear when Sony or EA will reschedule its events, but we know little new information will officially come out in the current political and social climate.

Like many Americans, musicians are upset over the death of George Floyd. Now, a group of them have gotten together to voice their displeasure: Terrace Martin recruited Denzel Curry, Kamasi Washington, G Perico, and Daylyt on a new protest song, “Pig Feet.”

Curry begins his verse, “Helicopters over my balcony / If the police can’t harass, they wanna smoke every ounce of me / Breath is alchemy, see how the life converted / You tell me life’s a female dog, well I’m perverted.”

Martin wrote of the song on SoundCloud, “Someone asked, how do I feel? I told them hurt, fearless, angry, aware and fully ready to protect me, my family & my people at all cost. I got together with Black men that felt the same way and created a work of truth. PIG FEET.”

This comes shortly after Curry penned a lengthy message to his followers about the current situation, writing on Instagram:

Dear all my supporters and people who follow this page,
After looking at most of your comments in my last post about the current situation happening in the USA it seems a lot of you are Extremely insensitive, Extremely Ignorant, and most likely come from places where you don’t have to face the prejudices that my people and myself face on a daily basis. To you I’m just an entertainer and I’m suppose to dance for your support of my music and craft but now I’m here to say F*CK ALL THAT. We are living in one of the worst times in America it’s even got to the point that I don’t even want to consider myself as an American when most people don’t treat my people as American let alone human. Most of you say there’s no reason to riot but in our defense there’s no reason to be killing my people when they didn’t do anything to deserve it. The tension in the United States has got me at a crossroads and I’m here to tell you it’s either you With Me or Against Me. I don’t agree with senseless violence and that goes for both ends… I advocate for doing the right thing. With all these slick comments I see it sounds like none of you get the real problems we face today . Some say we can protest peacefully which is true, Martin Luther King JR protested peacefully and he still was assassinated so what you expect when you’ve tried everything to keep your anger from boiling over. I watch a lot of people get off Scott free for the murder of unarmed black men and women in America and the justice system has let them go every single time which results in what’s going on, This Sh*t has to end and it starts here. So If you don’t like what I’m saying unfollow me now I could give a f*ck less about people who ain’t down to stop BAD Cops from killing us. But if you’re with me help prove the justice system can work for people like me and help me raise awareness and educate the masses on what’s happening in America today. I want Justice for George Floyd, I want Justice for Trayvon Martin, I want Justice for Oscar Grant, I want Justice for Treon Johnson, I want Justice for Sandra Bland, I want just for all that were murdered for the color of there skin, And if you not with that then exit now.”

Watch the “Pig Feet” video above.

Despite being known primarily as a comedian Trevor Noah has become an icon of social commentary in the U.S. His unique perspective growing up in South Africa during apartheid, his clearly broad and deep education on the history of America, and his ability to capture and put into words the heart of racial issues has endeared him to many Americans as a voice of understanding, reason, and compassion.

So it’s not much of a surprise that Noah would have a keen take on what we’re currently seeing with uprisings across the nation calling for racial justice and an end to police brutality. In a Facebook Live video, which has been viewed more than 16 million times, Noah manages to lay out the big picture that we’re looking at, explain the foundation of it all, describe the reasons for people’s reactions, and help us all understand one another a bit better.

Noah’s commentary, which appears to be off the cuff, is thoughtful and nuanced—two qualities that are desperately needed as we process the complexities of race and racism in our society. In the first half of the video, he connects the “dominoes” that have fallen in the past few weeks that have led us to the moment we are in. In the second half of the video, he describes the “social contract” we all agree to that creates the society we live in, and how incidents of racial injustice and police brutality violate that contract. The people in power have to set the example of maintaining that contract, and when they don’t—when law enforcement does not adhere to the laws—how can people be expected to continue upholding that contract themselves? When Black Americans continually have the principles that govern a civil society denied them, when as a community they have perpetually been oppressed—not only within society but by the powers that govern and control society—is it fair for society to expect Black Americans to maintain the social contract?

As always, he asks questions worth contemplating. The whole video is worth a listen.

Thank you, Trevor Noah, for once again holding a mirror up to America and describing in detail what we are looking at.

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Malcolm Brogdon was among the many NBA players that participated in peaceful protests over the weekend against police brutality and racial injustice following the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer. It was the latest instance of an unarmed black person being killed by police, captured on tape, and following the killings of Breonna Taylor in Louisville and Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia in recent weeks, people spilled into the streets around the country to protest police violence.

Brogdon joined a protest organized by Jaylen Brown in their hometown of Atlanta, Georgia over the weekend and both spoke forcefully and eloquently to the gathered crowd about why they were there and what needed to change. On Monday, Brogdon joined Rachel Nichols on The Jump to further elaborate on the message he hoped to get to the masses, and why it was important to keep the focus on the issue at hand — police brutality towards the black community — rather than let it be shifted to rioting and looting.

“I want people to hear that this is something that has been going on for over 400 years for people of color. We are at a stage now where people are desperate, people are losing hope and people of color, black and brown people, we’re at our wits end, and at this point we need help. At this point we need other people, people of different races, to step up with us, to step in front of us and beside us and support us. Speak up, because I think so much of the focus is being put on the violence that’s going on and the looting, and in no way do I condone the violence but at the same time I don’t think that should be our focus. Our focus should be on the oppressors, not the oppressed. So there are ways, we need to vote. We have to get out and vote, on the local level, on the state level, on the federal level, we have to get out and vote as a whole. But also those that are, specifically white people, have to help. We have to find people in high enough positions that have notoriety that can speak up for us and help. So there are multiple conversations going on, but at some point action has to be put to the test and there’s only so much African-Americans can do. There’s only so much weight our voices do hold, and that’s why it’s so important for people of other races to step in and use the weight of their voice to impact change.”

Brogdon’s statement on keeping the focus on the oppressors, not the oppressed and how they are protesting injustice is reminiscent of Colin Kaepernick, who regularly had to remind people why he was kneeling in protest of the same issues of police brutality, while discussion devolved into arguments over the method of his protest. Connecting those two offers a reminder that there is no method of protest that those in power that are being protested will be accepting of, and when they insist there’s a proper way to go about this they’re simply moving goalposts that can never be reached.

Protests are meant to be uncomfortable, because without putting the issue directly in our faces, those of us in the majority who don’t face racial injustice daily can easily compartmentalize it and believe it’s not a significant and dire issue. It must be, in some way, confrontational, whether that’s masses in the streets or athletes refusing to let sports be the “distraction” and bringing the message to the field or court. It’s us that Brogdon is speaking to, those that aren’t faced with it every day, as we are the ones that can elevate the problem and help to actually affect change by showing empathy to people that face very different challenges than us and believing them when they tell us this is happening.