2Dope PremiereSongs

Sidewalk Chalk “Dig” Into Race, Class & Police Violence

blame it on JES7 April 13, 2017
sidewalk-chalk-an-orchid-is-born

Windy City-based Hip-Hop-funk-jazz assembly Sidewalk Chalk has, without a doubt, refined their sound since releasing their debut album, Corner Store (featuring the single “Water Song“) back in 2012.

The sextet collective—which includes band members Charlie Coffeen, Rico Sisney, Maggie Vagle, David Ben-Porat, Sam Trump, and Josh Rosen—are due to release their fourth album, An Orchid Is Born on June 2nd and is broken down into three different but cohesive sections: The Hope, The Loss and The Birth and produced by GRAMMY-award winning, Texas-based musician Robert “Sput” Searight.

The creation of An Orchid Is Born was inspired by recent events, including the 2016 Presidential elections, the murder of Alton Sterling and Jesse Williams’ empowering speech at the 2016 BET Awards; and can be best described as “their most important body of work.”

In anticipation of the upcoming album release, the Sidewalk Chalk collective returns with “Dig,” a cold and piercing but sincere narrative which speaks on police violence against peaceful protestors, arriving at a time when Pepsi and Kendall Jenner are receiving backlash in light of their recent tone-deaf commercial.

Says Rico Sisney, writer and lead singer of the band:

When I started writing the lyrics, I just had an image of a kid in funeral clothes waking up in a coffin and digging his way out of the ground. In the entire song we never mention the race of any of the characters, but you automatically assume that the boy is black. We performed the song on tour and this woman was so upset that we were pushing the narrative that white cops kill black kids. That speaks to how prevalent and culturally embedded these stories are at this point.

Listen to “Dig” below, pre-order An Orchid Is Born on iTunes and keep it locked for the song’s official video.