The fourth of July is coming up in the US, and the country is as divided as ever. Protest musicians in the US, and elsewhere, are not on any sort of hiatus, far from it, and music is being released daily in protest of the oppressive government currently in charge. One of these artists, veteran rapper Dereos Roads, is about to drop a music video made for one of the singles off of his collaborative album with Jumbled, ‘Saw the Landmark, Missed the Turn’. We caught up with Roads and asked him to tell us a bit more about the music video for ‘We Gonna Raise the Roof’ which we’re thrilled to be premiering exclusively here on the Shouts website.
“Well, for one, the guitar and bass have a blues rock vibe, so I wanted to, – in part, honor that retro aspect. The film is a bit of a Leave it to Beaver/Sin City color grade. I didn’t exactly want to spell out everything I say with an image to support it, but in songs like these I love drawing back to the past and connecting to the present, so there’s images of American child labor, the Civil Rights Movement, America’s numerous misadventures in Viet Nam and Iraq, Trump with the Saudis, and pro Palestinian protests.
I want people to recognize that this is a bi-partisan issue: income inequality, endless wars, crumbling schools and infrastructure. They’re all a product of the system run by the ruling class. I have friends with whom I disagree politically, but fundamentally, they see the problems with government as the sole product of an elitist governing class, and not the money in politics that has corrupted our institutions, controls the levers of power, and manufactured consent.“
The imagery of the video refers to more than simply an anti-war message; Roads includes shots of the neighborhood he lives in, which has been, according to him, going through a revitalization. Roads believes that his fellow citizens are renewing their faith in local goods and the power of community. The video expresses his hope for the future, that his people can get back to the economic fairness of the 50s and 60s, but with the added civil rights achievements and progress that has been made since then.
Roads struggles with the idea that a protest song is in itself a form of activism, but rather, he believes that it is an ingredient and a sign of solidarity with those on the ground, doing the important work of activism. The power of the protest song, according to Roads, is that it has “the potential to help grow a political movement,” which is why this type of music has successfully been kept off of the airwaves. Roads told me via email that in his opinion, that battle has been long lost; protest music is not on the radio much like anti-war voices are not heard on cable news. So, alternatively, for Roads, and other artists like him, the battle has shifted, and his focus now is on trying to get more ears to this kind of music. There are so many ways for people to discover music these days, and Road’s hope is for people to be more deliberate about what they choose to listen to, and not only consume what the algorithm provides.
“On the one hand, it’s like any other song: I want it to resonate with people. I want it to mean something to whomever is listening. On the other hand, I hope to wake people up to the real struggle at play: top vs bottom. Left vs right is a manufactured distraction. I think we can have our differences while having common ground on the core issue: the relationship between labor and capital, or the rich vs. the rest of us.
I think the mistake of many right now is believing that you simply just have to get the “right” set of billionaires in your corner. Look at this Cabinet. The richest in American history. They’re not there because they care about your bottom line and well being. They care about their own interests and that of their class. Unfortunately, I think some have forgotten the words of George Carlin that they used to believe in: ‘It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it.‘”
Check out the exclusive premiere of We’re Gonna Raise the Roof below and further visit Roads’ website and follow him on social media (FB – IG – Bluesky) for updates.
