Killer Mike: RAP Music (Williams Street, 5/15/12)
In May, Atlanta MC Killer Mike released one of the year’s best hip-hop albums — “rebellious African people’s music” — in collaboration with producer/rapper extraordinaire El-P.
“Reagan” is one of the album’s most fiery tracks, addressing the former president’s “war on drugs” and how it disproportionately targeted African Americans while actually making black neighborhoods more drug-infested. Mike ultimately proclaims, “I’m glad [that] Reagan[‘s] dead,” but he lumps all recent presidents together as serving the same unseen forces, launching overt and covert wars to make the rich richer.
Here’s the song’s stylishly animated video, drawn only in red, white, and blue on black.