As promised, Minneapolis-based synthpop band Poliça's third album United Crushers (2016) delivers music loaded with sociopolitical commentary: "The themes found and explored on United Crushers are heavily political and deeply personal with thick references to social injustice, self-doubt and isolation, the rapidly increasing urban decline in gentrification, overcoming music industry machinations, and finding true and honest love in the wake of it all".
As The Rolling Stone's Brittany Santos observes, the music video for their second single "Wedding" can only be described as 'subversive': "Poliça tackle police brutality and corruption in a unique way in the powerful video for new song "Wedding" [...] The clip intercuts images of police and DEA drug raids with footage of a fake Sesame Street-inspired show. The puppets, along with Poliça's singer Channy Leaneagh, lead a group of kids through lessons on crafting breathing masks and how to interact with police officers when being questioned".
Leaneagh's vocals are often hard to decipher, but multiple listens will confirm that the stormy and unsettling song is about the militarization of the police force, and their corrupt dealings with the drug mafia:
'All white weddingBarricade, cocaineA Cecil sergeant soldierWe don't even know his name
Brim brim when we lose they winKeep it cooking, all the cops want inBrim brim when we lose they winSaying hands up, the bullet's in
God was si-silentBed of nailsChains that sailAsh and ropePay my bail'
Lyrics source:
The lyrics may be fatalistic ('We don't even know we're sick/ Leaders, we have none'), but the video seems to embody Leaneagh's hope that the next generation can be empowered to make a change to the insidious and oppressive status quo:
"I think we're running out of time to make big changes within my life. But we wanted to use that format of Sesame Street, where all of us learned so many things, to try to teach the younger generation how to stand up for themselves and not be apathetic. We want to raise kids that can fight back. We want to raise kids that know their rights and are strong and are always questioning."
Source: Rollingstone.com
"Wedding" is an arguably more successful work of agitprop than Macklemore's "White Privilege II"; Poliça's treatment deracinates the problem of police brutality by framing the conflict as one between law enforcers and citizens, rather than between black victims and white perpetrators. The implicit point is that any civilian casualty is an outrage - regardless of the race of the perpetrator or the victim.
