On Tuesday, YG released his latest protest song, “FTP,” which stands for “F-ck the Police.” The track is produced by Larry June and DJ Swish and was released in conjunction with a planned Los Angeles march in protest of the killing of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis police.
YG raps about the long history of police brutality on his first verse:
Murder after murder after all these years
Buy a strap, bust back after all these tears
Mommas cryin', how they gon' heal?
How you would feel?
F-ck silence, speak up b-tch, this sh-t ill
Big stick on me, y'all kill, we kill
Been tired, f-ck cardboard signs, we in the field
It’s the Ku Klux cops, they on a mission
It’s the Ku Klux cops, got hidden agendas
The Compton rapper continues by describing his fear of being pulled over while driving:
Protect and serve mean duck and swerve
Police pulled me over, I don’t stop, I’m scared
F-ck 12, b-tch, I got the nerves
F-ck 12, b-tch, they get on my nerves
On Monday, YG announced a Hollywood march in conjunction with the Black Lives Matter movement. However, he canceled the protest after the National Guard was called in:
“FTP” isn’t YG’s first song to make an anti-establishment statement. On “FDT,” the rapper’s 2016 collaboration with the late Nipsey Hussle, he took on then-presidential candidate Donald Trump.
In a Billboard interview following the song’s release, YG touched on previous run-ins with the police. “We already deal with getting blackballed by the police, shows getting shut down, so we was always hesitant about going ham on sh-t,” he said. “But f-ck all that—this hip hop, this rap, we got a platform and we’re going to use it for the right sh-t. I ain’t hesitating no more.”
Sadly, not much has changed since YG made that statement.
Read all the lyrics to YG’s “FTP” on Genius now.
