"Film the Police" Rap Video Contains Better Advice Than Most Rap Videos
If you're not immediately able to remember yours rights about filming cops, perhaps a rap might help. In very direct homage to once-alarming '80s rap group N.W.A. and their most infamous jam "Fuck Tha Police," here is the more useful "Film The Police" by B. Dolan and various other rappers including Jasiri X who also has a rap video about Jordan Miles, the Pittsburgh high school student who was badly beaten by undercover cops in January 2010.
Check out the video:
My favorite lyrics:
Explain to a Judge the bounds you oversteppin'.
2011 time to the change our method.
We aim lenses at the State's weapon,
'Til they remember whose goddamn streets they're protecting.
They'd rather see me in a cell
Than me and my cell with a different story to tell.
Camcorder by the dash. Next time you get stopped,
Reach for the celly if you wanna shoot a cop.
On a public sidewalk, you can tape what you see,
Or film from your window with a view of the street!
Neighborhood Crime Watch, we police the Police.
They can't arrest the whole community.
See? Informative! (Well, don't reach towards your pockets if you get pulled over, but you get the idea.) The rest of the lyrics can can be found here. There are some token "pig" mentions, but on the whole it's certainly more polite than the original song's suggestion of committing violence against cops. I'm not assuming any friendliness with libertarianism on these gentlemen's parts, it's just a creative reaction in the face of nasty police behavior.
Reason on the Occupy movement. And Reason on the war on cameras, thanks in part to those militarized police. And below, to compare and contrast with the above rap, Reason.tv on the war on cameras.
