I hadn’t spent much time in Oakland over the years but K had. We used to gently rib each other about our different preferences for Bay Area locales, with her decidedly in the East Bay camp. We were in town for a series of protests held by the Occupy Oakland family and were just walking around the city, making our way toward Oscar Grant Park.
Around 19th and Broadway, we found ourselves stopped at the intersection waiting to cross the street — on the other side I saw him. Not certain at first, wanting to get a closer look, I turned my normal quick step across the road into a slow shuffle to give me more time.
As we approached each other I knew I was right — it was him. Holy shit, it was him. I went quiet, a cold sweat flashed across my skin. We made eye contact, my eyes widened, his narrowed. I went to say something and no sound would come from my mouth, and the look he gave me made it seem like that may have been the preferred option.
We made it across the street and stopped. K looked at me.
“Are you ok?” she said, clearly a little concerned.
“Do you know who we just walked past?” I said, still trying to get my heart rate back down.
“Um, no… should I?” she asked, moving from concerned to confused.
“That was Boots Riley,” I said, exasperated.
“Who’s Boots Riley?” she said back to me.
And for too many people, that is exactly the question.
Frontman of the legendary hip hop outfit The Coup, political provocateur of the highest order, accomplished film director — do I need to continue? Well I shall. Lead vocalist of the supergroup Street Sweeper Social Club. I chafe a little at calling them a supergroup — I feel one needs to have reached a certain level of cultural saturation to earn that label. That said, take Boots Riley, add in Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello, and forget supergroup — you’ve got an awesomegroup. Two of the most electrifyingly political artists playing today decided to join up like some left wing, socially progressive Justice League? Fuck yes.
As the legend goes, Morello scooped Riley up one night and took him to a cheap Brazilian dinner and told him “we’re in a band together, it’s called Street Sweeper Social Club, it’s going to be revolutionary party jams.” Then Morello did the most Morello thing ever — he handed Riley a cassette filled with musical ideas. This was 2009. Who the hell had a tape deck at that point?
No matter — they made it work, serving as the opening act on Nine Inch Nails’ 2009 tour featuring Jane’s Addiction, and that same year released their one and only full-length record, an eponymous offering featuring their first single, “100 Little Curses.”
This album is everything you’d expect from these two titans of social commentary. Morello lays down his trademark crunch-funk guitar that rivals anything he did with Rage, while Riley serves up political commentary not for the faint of heart. I wonder if they realized how far ahead of their time they actually were.
This is the music we needed in 2016 and more importantly the music we need right now. At its best, music inspires something in you — stirs you to action, whether that’s picking up a guitar or a Molotov. Woody Guthrie famously had “This Machine Kills Fascists” written on his guitar and I see no hyperbole in the statement. Just earlier this year you would have found me complaining that the kids were letting things slide, that there was no protest music, no social commentary. Boy was I wrong — I’ll let that bad idea fall by the wayside while bringing you back to Street Sweeper Social Club.
Yes, the kids are making great music that genuinely has something to say, but many of them are still in the finding-their-voice stage. Not so Riley, Morello and crew — they’ve been around the block a time or two, seen a thing or two, and have the scars to prove it.
Opening the album, “Fight! Smash! Win!” is trademark Morello — spiraling guitar that explodes into a driving, funk-as-fuck bass line setting up Riley’s lyrical attack. He means it when he says if you’ve got a blacklist, he wants to be on it. “100 Little Curses” is the wished-upon death by a hundred paper cuts that anyone who’s ever struggled to pay rent levels at the moneyed class. Not death per se — but until we make the revolution, we all hope your life sucks ass.
“Clap for the Killers” is probably the most aggressively raw track on the album, with Boots pulling absolutely no punches while zeroing in on his target with pinpoint accuracy. Before you get your knickers in a twist worried we’re glorifying murderers, go pull the liner notes and read the lyrics — you’re welcome. Music custom made for a protest that doubles as a party, because at the end of the day if you can’t have a little fun while bringing forth the downfall of our capitalist, patriarchal society, what’s even the point?
Then we get to “Promenade” — a throwdown funk number with a pulsating bass line that would be just as comfortable in an underground dance club as it is on the protest streets. While Morello is busy doing the things only Morello can do to a guitar, Riley makes his stance clear — till everyone is fed, till everyone has a bed, his skin is black, his star red.
The ‘60s had “We Shall Overcome” and the likes as the soundtrack to their movement. While appropriate for the times, might I suggest it lacks a bit of the fire and intensity the times we live in today demand? So my plea to any of you leaning a bit to the left who still see value in the street protest — perhaps while you’re building the mixtape to get folks amped up and ready to go, include a few tracks from Street Sweeper Social Club. Oh fuck that, just play the whole damn thing and we’ll have a riot on our hands. And if the debut leaves you wanting more, find the Ghetto Blaster EP. Their version of “Paper Planes” alone is worth the hunt.
K and I finally made it to Oscar Grant Park and started milling about. Given the history Occupy Oakland had already had with the Oakland Police Department, folks were a little standoffish with us at first. But we sat, we listened, we talked about the work we’d done with Occupy San Diego, our connections to the Bay Area, and soon enough folks started warming up to us — just in time for things to turn into a truly wild and harrowing night.
Slipping past a police barricade as they worked to kettle the protest, K and I made it back to our car, exhausted, slightly beat up and exhilarated. This was being alive. This was standing up for something when there were consequences attached.
Scrubbing the phone numbers off our arms — written in black Sharpie — I looked over at K.
“Damn, Oakland knows how to bring the fight... maybe you’re on to something with this whole East Bay love thing,” I said, as a nervous laugh escaped me, part relief, part dissipation of adrenaline.
A wicked grin spread across her face. “And you doubted me…”