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The Let Down

by jimmy nimbus

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about

This track started 4 years ago in the wake of Alton Sterling's murder at the hand of the police. A mutual friend of Mike Colman and I hooked us up to create some Hip Hop music. During that time, I came to him with some lyrics and we made it to the other side with recordings that were unique and deeply personal and pertinent. Mike and Brian Totoro assembled a team of musicians and took it to a place where funk meets weeping harmonies about racial injustice. I am so grateful for everyone involved and everyone about to be involved.

The Let Down is about the Black American experience and the short comings of the social systems in this country. It navigates my feelings and the general cry for justice where we are not finding it as was promised. There are blatant similarities in how Apartheid was overcome and what we are doing now. It's up to the young people to guide us. As a first hand recipient of Apartheid stories from my family, I felt the need to compare. I am bringing light to what we all know by now, but also wanting to help those who are on the brink of entering a prison system akin to slavery as it has always been in America.

Album artwork: My Brother Dr. Lee Green
Pictured: Steve Biko, a victim of the Apartheid and dirty police and a Martyr for those who helped dismantle the regime.


With this song, I would like to donate all proceeds to local cash bail programs. Whether you purchase it here, or Venmo @jameslundall2 , or donating through your local Black Lives Matter chapters. If you do choose to donate, please use the hashtag #TheLetDown so we can share and spread progress. No Justice. No Peace.

lyrics

(Words by Uncle Evan)
"He said to me 'That is a part of your education. You stay there and learn.' This is for someone who never spoke political, because he couldn't at the time...and you may or may not know this...the charge for, uh, talking political was ten years and twenty thousand Rand."

My carriage is broken
Can't carry another
I've splintered my spokes
and my horse is a runner
My voice has been stifled
I can't ask for help
but I need it so bad
So I'll do it myself
I'll take what I need and leave all the baggage
I guess it's just me, I ain't scared of no savages
Bearing my teeth as I run through the bramble patch
Ain't down with averages, nothing but aftermath
and even if I get out, what comes after that?
Nothing nigga
I'm sure there's a stat for that
Fact is, we mad as fuck
and America Black so I say that we take it back

(Chorus)
Fists up, head down
Watch your back, and your neck now
America the beautiful, and The Let Down
My Mama came from Apartheid, She don't deserve now

(Words by F. W. de Klerk)
"It is likely that the United States will be criticized, whatever it does."

Cotton mills at the Fed, got'em printing pretty money
Green backs on the backs of the blacks, free money
Told to behave, they trying to take the free from me
My parents just want to raise me in a free country
but melanin makes the incarceration probability one in three for me
That's why I don't run, that's a hands up one shot real fear for me
We ain't dumb, we just fed up with the shit we was fed back in the eighties
Now we got underprivileged, systematic, institutionalized, cyclical babies
What makes us numb is sublimated guerrilla warfare no daisies
Martial law even lately, The resistance is daily
That's word from a premature L.A. born
Not sure if my existence or yours
Should be cause for concern for our safety



(Chorus)
Fists up, head down
Watch your back, and your neck now
America the beautiful, and The Let Down
My Mama came from Apartheid, She don't deserve now

(Words by Rev. Dr. Stanley Green)
"And then I think that the protests created a momentum to make the country ungovernable. The security police were getting desperate."

(Chorus)
Fists up, head down
Watch your back, and your neck now
America the beautiful, and The Let Down
My Mama came from Apartheid, She don't deserve now

"His death leaves me cold"

credits

released July 10, 2020
The Let Down

Produced by
Mike Colman and Brian Totoro

Mixed by: Kent Toalson and Mike Colman

Drums, Percussion: Matthew McDonald
Bass: Brady Surface
Piano, Rhodes, Organ, Additional Production: Kent Toalson
Guitar: Mike Colman
Vocals: Jimmy Nimbus
Field Recording: Jimmy Nimbus (Uncle Evan, F. W. de Klerk, Stanley Green)

Recorded at HiLo Sonics in Nashville, TN

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