Aloe Blacc has been relatively quiet over 2015, but when he’s spoken, all ears have been peeled.
On his newest song, “Merry Christmas Mr. Brown,” Aloe Blacc wishes a Merry Christmas to the fallen black people who have lost their lives to police brutality over the last couple years and their families. This rings similar to Janelle Monaé’s “Hell You Talmbout” in a sense that it does an amazing job in keeping the names alive of those who we’ve lost.
As NPR pointed out, “Merry Christmas Mr. Brown” is on Aloe Blacc’s Christmas EP, which was subtly released on his YouTube account a couple weeks ago. The song above is the only original song on the EP. Blacc spoke with NPR about the original song:
I chose the specific families because those were victims that were spoken about on television and in the media most widely, and I wanted to humanize the victims, to humanize the situation in such a way that didn’t discuss the protests and it didn’t discuss police brutality, but simply discussed the real human emotion around losing someone, so that everybody could connect through what these families are feeling.
Read the whole interview here, and stream Aloe Blacc’s Christmas EP below.
