The Coup’s new album, “Pick a Bigger Weapon”, kicks off with a classic Boots Riley line: “I’m a walking contradiction/Like bullets and love mixin’�”. And the album just gets better from there. Boots Riley was in Vancouver hosting the first in a series of listening parties for the new album last night. The new album is backed by an all star band including Audioslave’s Tom Morello, Dwayne Wiggins, and veterans of Parliament-Funkadelic, the Gap Band, Toni! Tony! Ton�!, Jesse Johnson, and Frankie Beverly and Maze. The band has cooked up some songs reminiscent of “Dirty Mind”-era Prince, late-80s Too Short, and they even get into some hyphy.
The album features an R&B song entitled “BabyLet�sHaveABabyBeforeBushDoSomethin�Crazy”, performed by Silk E. The title is pretty much self explanatory. And it’s easy to see that Boots isn’t happy with the ways of this administration. That’s why Boots has also teamed up with the activist organization, Music For America for the listening party tour.
As he’s travelling around the country, he’ll be urging young people to get involved in the political process. Attendees will be able to register to vote and opt-out forms will be available for high-schoolers, allowing them to opt-out of an obscure provision of the No Child Left Behind Act that forces public schools to supply high school students’ names and private contact information to military recruiters.
�Public schools can’t, out of one side of their mouth, tell students that they want them to have a bright future after high school and out of the other side of their mouth tell them that it’s okay for them to go kill and die for a profit-making war machine,� says Boots on military recruitment. �That’s why I support the “Opt Out” campaign promoted by Music for America. I think conscientious school administrators should choose not to release student’s personal information to military recruiters.”
Boots and MFA volunteers will also be educating the audience with minimum wage �issue cards� containing facts and actions to take. “Putting music into action is something that both The Coup and Music for America are all about,� says Riley, �so it’s only fitting that we work together in this way. What we really need are militant unions at fast food places and chain retail stores, but until then, we need to substantially raise the minimum wage because people are struggling, not only in their every day existence, but to make enough to pay for gas and parking to get to work in the first place.”
Below we have a tracklisting as well as two tracks to download:
01. Bullets And Love (Introduction)
02. We Are The Ones
03.
04.
05. I Just Wanna Lay Around All Day In Bed With You
06. Head (Of State)
07. ShoYoAss
08. Yes �Em To Death
09. Ass-Breath Killers
10. Get That Monkey Off Your Back
11. MindFuck (A New Equation)
12. Two Enthusiastic Thumbs Down
13. I Love Boosters!
14. Tiffany Hall
15. BabyLet�sHaveABabyBeforeBushDo Somethin�Crazy (feat. Silk E)
16. Captain Sterling�s Little Problem
17.The Stand
The Coup, �Pick A Bigger Weapon� is in stores April 25th
