50 Cent certainly knows how to get a point across. In G-Unit’s new video for their recent Ferguson response, “Ahhh Shit,” (off their new EP, The Beauty of Independence) the rappers splice together footage of police brutality across the nation, including the recent chokehold death of Staten Island man Eric Garner. The video kicks off in harrowing fashion with some of Garner’s last words — “I’m minding my own business, officers, please just leave me alone,” he pleads — before the recently reunited Fiddy, Young Buck, and Kidd Kidd jump in with a chilling chorus: “Now why the fuck did you call them cops / Put your hand up, you still getting shot.”
That is, of course, a direct reference by the Animal Ambition MC to the recent “hands up, don’t shoot” protests following the police shooting of teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, whose funeral was held yesterday. Earlier today, CNN reported that new audio had emerged of the incident in which one can allegedly hear a pause between officer Darren Wilson’s gunshots, which makes the group’s video all the more poignant today. G-Unit aren’t the first musicians to voice their concern. Last week, Killer Mike spoke to SPIN about police brutality and said “I want police officers to know they’re not zookeepers. They’re not protecting or handling caged animals, and they need to be addressed and policed that way.”
