The routine police shootings of African Americans in the United States has been weighing heavily on the hearts of the inhabitants of the Hip Hop community. And Detroit’s very own Page Kennedy is allowing his fanbase in on how the injustice is also played out, regardless of whatever spin law enforcement attempts to feed to the press.
In his new video for “The Shoot,” the tenured actor and Viner gives a first-person perspective on how traumatic the experience for an ordinary, unarmed citizen can be when they have cops pointing guns in their faces while yelling at the top of their lungs.
“I feel that after the initial outcry, the public can become desensitized to heinous events like this to a degree because of movies and television but also because police shootings like these happen far too often,” Kennedy says of the video while insisting its semblance is not to be taken as anti-cop.
“The images on the news play on repeat and the victims become news stories, statistics. As a black man in America, I asked myself what if that was me or my son this happened to. And what I felt was so visceral and overwhelming that I began to write instinctively wanting to humanize the victims as real people. To talk about their fears and emotions, thoughts and instincts as they live their final moments…when they realize this is their reality, and how the human spirit reacts and makes decisions, good or bad, faced with its imminent mortality’.”
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An interesting story actually revolved around the video shoot as well. As Kennedy and his son, Timothy Kennedy were wrapping up the powerful Mamady Conde-directed flick, local cops appeared on the set and circled the film crew before leaving without incident. Maybe after seeing what the video entailed of, they were influenced not to test the waters?
“The Shoot” is the lead-off single from Kennedy’s upcoming album, Torn Pages, which boasts of heavyweight features from Royce Da 5’9, Crooked I, Mr. Porter, elZhi, Fred the Godson, Trick Trick, Kuniva, King Los and Marsha Ambrosius. Page is currently out in New Zealand filming Megopposite Jason Statham and Ruby Rose but he’ll be back in time for the album’s early 2017 release.
Watch the video to “The Shoot” up above.
