![]() So we just came up with this whole theme and action of it being a horror based band but we wanted it be more than just evil and, “All Hail Satan,” you know? (Eaddy) Well, first it was a song title to one of our songs which is called “Bone Collector” now, but when we got the instrumental, the mp3, it was called “Horror” and it just sounded very dark and just different and the way he even put rhymes over it I was just like, oh this is cool. (theOGM) We are Ho99o9 (pronounced Horror). ![]() United States of Horror is slated to drop on May 5 th. But to echo the sentiments of Ho99o9, we are in a United States of Horror at this very moment and to not acknowledge it, to not act…well…that is pledging firm allegiance to it. It’s very much alive and thriving, but was pushed so deep, so covert post-Civil Rights movement, especially in liberal urban havens, that those of us steeped in white privilege couldn’t (or simply didn’t have to) acknowledge it anymore. Perhaps the rest of America will catch up to what people of color have always known, which is that racism is not dead and never has been. ![]() ![]() If this video is any indication of what is to come on Ho99o9’s impending album, we are in for a chilling commentary on America, specifically on racism, and the revulsions we’re already witnessing daily via traumatic, ceaseless news cycles. All the while what would appear to be a KKK grand or imperial wizard dresses in blue silk and places his hand on the head of the patient, who by this time is paralyzed by complete sensory overload. Electrodes are attached which shock him to attention as one screen multiplies into dozens more, displaying montages of political rallies, murder, American flags, burning crosses, atomic bombs, Nazi flags, and of course, Donald Trump. Back in January I watched a teaser for this video that contained 41 seconds of perhaps the most penetrating lines of the track set against the backdrop of a burning flag: “If you stand against police brutality, racism, government oppression, motherfuckers abusing their power, false prophets trying to feed you their fucking bullshit…you gotta understand if you want peace you better be ready for war…” The subsequent music video in its entirety did not disappoint as a true testament to this battle cry. A harrowing portrait of both historical and present-day atrocities and the paralyzing onslaught of mass media, a nodding-out patient is wheeled in front of a screen of static, hands and feet bound. The music video for their track “United States of Horror,” off of their forthcoming album which bears the same name, was released just a few days before I sat down with theOGM and Eaddy of Ho99o9 at SXSW. Thus, even 15 years later with a much more nuanced sense of the stratified lines between genres, discovering a band like Ho99o9, who is melding underground punk influences with hip hop whilst overtly addressing our grotesque political situation, is literally a dream come true. To an unsophisticated yet passionately political girl of 16, hip hop and punk were one in the same. I didn’t have a sense yet that because of sonic differences, the aesthetic trends surrounding each movement, and-despite the aforementioned motifs- racial lines resulting in starkly different fan bases, these were two genres which rarely intersected. The overlap in motifs was glaringly apparent: Anti-authoritarianism, anti-military-industrial complex, venomous critiques of the police, institutional racism and classism a general call to rebellion against the evils of the establishment. As a radical music lover who grew up glorifying 70’s punk, it seemed a natural progression when I moved to New York City as a teenager to become obsessed with political hip hop artists like Public Enemy, KRS-One, and Sister Souljah…inevitable, even.
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