Artists Put the Focus on Police Brutality and More

Regardless of how legend would have it, music and radical politics are not always an easy mix--one ingredient often tends to eclipse the other. But Sunday’s concert at the El Rey Theatre protesting police brutality was a mostly memorable night of hip-hop, pop and jazz.

Hosted by the Artists Network of Refuse & Resist, the show was the first of two nights at the venue and was headlined by the festive, multilayered hip-hop of Northern California’s Blackalicious. Just as powerful was a brief set by DJ Dust and vocalist Jerry Quickley, whose raps had the energy and flair of freestyle Beat poetry.

He was soon joined by rapper Mos Def, who expressed despair over last week’s guilty verdict in the trial of 13-year-old Lionel Tate, convicted in Miami of murdering a 6-year-old girl. “I guess they have the solution to crowded prisons,” Mos Def said. “Smaller prisoners.”

The five-hour concert was well-paced and mostly focused on the event’s underlying issue. So amid the red carpet, chandeliers and velvet drapes hung placards listing the names of victims of police killings around the country. Between acts, a big video screen showed public-service announcements on the topic featuring the likes of Wyclef Jean and Chuck D.

The Aztlan Underground stepped onto a stage decorated by yellow police tape and launched into raps cursing police and the media, in an often gripping hard-core mix of hip-hop beats and metal guitar. Freestyle Fellowship could speak movingly about losing friends to violence, but it also showed an unseemly weakness for self-promotion, with the first words from the group being a plug for a new album.

Singer Sheila Nicholls, however, stayed on the message, declaring, “Everyone that’s been killed is part of you, part of me. . . . Let’s take responsibility.”