Hear Willie D’s Provocative Media Assassination ‘Coon’
The always-outspoken Willie D of the Geto Boys shouted his way through the late Eighties and early Nineties on songs like “Fuck a War,” “Fuck the KKK” and “Fuck Rodney King” – so the gangsta rap pioneer is no stranger to confrontational lyrics and politically motivated outrage. On his inflammatory new song “Coon,” Willie sets his sights on a handful of African-American media pundits, including Charles Barkley, Steven A. Smith and Raven-Symoné. Over a searing electric guitar, Willie D details a no-holds-barred evisceration of the media reaction to police shootings in Ferguson and Baltimore.
“Selling your people out while the police murder them/I wish them protestors would have shot you in Ferguson,” he says of CNN’s Don Lemon. “I wish that would have been Stacey Dash on the ground, instead of Michael Brown but with additional rounds.” His rhymes are furious, accusatory and aren’t shy about using sexist and homophobic epithets.
After re-emerging in 2012 for the explosive Trayvon Martin response track “Hoodiez,” Willie has spent his time touring with the Geto Boys and writing an advice column for the Houston Press. But here he’s returning with his first solo song in four years, re-igniting the Molotov-throwing feel of Nineties political rap and that of his own 1989 debut, Controversy.
Rolling Stone talked to Willie D about the racially and politically charged song and the climate of police violence it’s being released into.
It’s safe to say that this song is a little bit provocative.
Yeah… It’s gonna be just a tad bit provocative. Just a tad.
When were you like, “OK I really have to sit down and write a song”?
When Don Lemon did the Ferguson reporting…. He was out there reporting the Ferguson case and he says that he smells weed. Then Charles Barkley … made the statement that this notion that cops are out here just killing blacks is, I think he said “is wrong,” or “is not true.” Even the cops were probably like, “This motherfucker, does he really believe that? Wow. Man, it’s working.” You have to be really brainwashed to not believe that you have a particular mindset of cops out there who are not targeting black people. If you had as many white [people] out there that were unarmed, being murdered by the police, you’d probably have an overthrow in government going on right now.
See, I’ve been on both sides. You do get a good summation of what law enforcement is about when you grow up in the inner city or the hood and then you make something out of yourself and you get some money and you’re able to move out into a better environment. When I grew up, there was not one time where the cops were the nice guys, where I looked at the cops and I said, “Man, they’re nice and they’re good guys. I wanna be a cop when I grow up.” Because the cops were just not nice guys. If they spoke to you, any type of exchange you see them having, they were always aggressive. So that left a lasting impression.