Rebel Music: Empire of Two's "Let Us Live"

In response to the series of ongoing, completely unwarranted, high-profile police shootings/killings of American black men (there was just another terrible shooting last week in North Miami), Dunia Best and Aram Sinnreich of Dubistry (billed here as Empire of Two) wrote and recorded "Let Us Live" in July 2016 at the Institute for Popular Music in Bochum, Germany, with the help and contributions of Hans Nieswandt, Arno Kro, Fab Horn, and others including Best's and Sinnreich's own children. It's a terrific, stripped down reggae tune whose vocals are a passionate and forceful plea to society (and its agents) that we recognize black people's humanity and everyone's basic, elemental right to live (enshrined in the U.S. Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."). "Let Us Live" is also a chant of sorts--to ward off this plague of violence and death that is inflicted on our fellow, non-white Americans.

"Let Us Live" keeps with the proud ska and reggae tradition of creating powerful protest songs in response to police brutality directed at non-white communities (see Bob Marley and The Wailers' "I Shot the Sheriff," Junior Murvin's "Police and Thieves," Peter Tosh's "No Mercy," Max Romeo's "Three Blind Mice," The Ruts' "SUS," and "Jah War," or Ruts DC's "Smiley Culture," Linton Kwesi Johnson's "Sonny's Lettah," "Reggae Fi Peach," and more, Vivien Goldman's "Private Armies," The Specials' "Do Nothing," The Selecter's "Bristol and Miami," or "Breakdown," The Toasters' "East Side Beat," and many, many others).

Let Us Live

"Everybody screams
At their laptops and TVs
But policeman ears, they hear no sound
Even when the father pleads
For his children on his knees
They don't see a man, they just see brown

Then they shoot him in the chest
And the shoot him in the legs
And they shoot him in the back
And they hear the voices beg
"Please don't kill my father
Let him live, let him live!
Please don't kill my father
He has so much to give!"

Everybody screams
At their laptops and TVs
But policeman ears, they hear no sound
Even when the daughter pleads
She did nothing on her knees
They don't see a girl they just see brown

Then they beat her on the chest
And they beat her on the legs
And they beat her on the head
And they hear the voices say
"Please don't kill our daughter
Let her live, let her live!
Please don't kill our daughter
She has so much to give!"

Everyone believes
What's on their laptops and TVs
And policeman ears they hear no sound
Even when our voices plead
We did nothing on our knees
They don't hear a world, they just hear brown

Then they beat us on the chest
And they beat us on the legs
And they beat us on the head
And they hear our voices say
"Please don't kill our mother
Let us live, let us live!
Please don't kill our mother
We have so much to give!"

Don't kill our mothers and
Fathers and
Sisters and
Brothers
Cousins, aunts, uncles
Grandfathers and 'mothers
Don't kill our neighbors and
Lovers and
Millions of others
Let us live
Let us live"

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