Fresh off of her debut album, which was one of our favourite albums of 2024, unique, feminist rapper B of Briz is back with a brand-new EP, to be released on 9th of September 2025. B of Briz dropped us a message telling us a bit about the first single off of the new album:
“I’ll be releasing singles this summer from my forthcoming EP, ‘Solace’ coming 9th September 2025. The most imminent of those singles is ‘Profoundly sick society’ – out on 17th July. It’s an alt hip hop contemplation about what happens when stuff’s gone really badly wrong… how do we resist and recover and regroup? It’s got a fire bass line too.”
With a PhD in philosophy and a passion for feminism and social justice, there’s no doubt her music will connect people and offer hope in these times of division.
“It’s a record that offers consolations from Bristol and sanctuary in turbulent times. Sun-soaked, dystopic, full of hope, life-affirming rejection of the death cults of fascism.”
“They say it’s not healthy to adapt to a profoundly sick society, To enforce it’s laws a hall-of-mirrors version of piety, Do some cruel shit, standing on the ceremony of false propriety
So write the revolutionary text, Even though we might be next, Even when the words we write are obscured by the flickering of the gaslight, Even when they come in the night, with hearts full of spite, sure that they’re right”
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.
This year’s early contender for banger of the summer started in an unlikely place, the idyllic rural community of Lisdoonvarna on the edge of the Burren, West Ireland. The viral hit, The Spark was a collaboration between a crew of pre-teens in Lisdoonvarna and Kabin Studio in Cork City — aka “the real capital of Ireland” — two hours south.
While this collaboration has been widely reported as the track goes viral, what many people don’t know is that it started in an asylum seekers’ home.
Kabin Studio went to Lisdoonvarna with their Rhyme Island initiative, which seeks to make rap an accessible tool for expression, personal development and wellbeing. The Spark was made for the annual Cruinniú na nÓg (Youth Gathering) with local kids, many of whom live in the village’s Direct Provision centre.
Direct Provision is shorthand for the system that provides accommodation, food, money and medical services for people waiting for international protection applications and asylum claims to be assessed.
I spoke to Kabin Studio Director, Garry McCarthy, who explained: “The asylum process can be really isolating, so the Rhyme Island initiative gives young people a way to connect and create.
“The Kabin has worked with young international protection seekers over the last decade now, to the point where we have had youth from Direct Provision develop into mature artists themselves and work as youth mentors at the Kabin.”
As a member of the Kabin’s Advisory Board and global hip hop researcher, I’ve seen how McCarthy (aka GMC Beats) has expertly connected and promoted hip hop arts expression around the world.
Olympio served as MC for a collaboration between The Kabin and the Cork Migrant Centre (CMC) in 2021, producing another youth-led arts production titled, UBUNTU: Local is Global. Hip hop music, art and dance brought Northside youth together with migrant youth from Direct Provision Centres across County Cork to create a beautiful afternoon of energy and expression that has spawned countless artistic connections.
Indeed, Cork’s youth hip hop scene boasts a range of successes, from the women’s empowerment of Misneach (Irish for “courage”) and the proudly local swag of MC Tiny and Jamie the King to the Anti-Racist Youth Led Summit, now in its second year, and the recent launch of Sauti Studios — a new Cork Migrant Centre initiative.
But despite these amazing celebrations of youth creativity and diversity, some people still badly miss the point.
In the recent EU elections, the Irish Taoiseach (prime minister), Simon Harris, used the track to promote his centre-right party, Fine Gael, in the EU elections without credit. The video was quickly taken down and apologies issued, but the incident set off a feeding frenzy for far-right internet trolls and their bots, who used Harris’s bad look as a ruse to attack the government’s immigration policy.
Responding to Fine Gael’s offending Tweet McCarthy suggested to me that lost in the middle of this political hullabaloo were the kids.
“On one side was the Taoiseach and his political party using the track for their own purposes without contacting us, and on the other were these bigots trying to spin the Irish success story of “The Spark” for their own intolerant purposes.“
Ironically, the far-right trolls completely missed the fact that many of the young people in the video were those very same immigrants they were demonising. But as the kids say themselves:
“Think you can stop what we do? I doubt it!”
This multicultural crew’s got the energy. And they’re telling the world all about it.
