The new release from masked rapper B Of Briz is ‘Profoundly Sick Society’, the first single from the Solace EP. The track that warns us of the trouble now and trouble ahead if we acquiesce with the erosion of our rights while losing the fight against apathy; to paraphrase, evil wins if good people do nothing. As B says,
“what happens when stuff’s gone really badly wrong? How do we recover?”
The minimal backing has the rise and fall of an unsettling bass line stapled together with the drum pattern’s click and tick. This allows the focus to be on the concentrated tumble of words that flow so easily from B’s mouth. The track needs repeated hearings to fully appreciate the understated call to do something to help fix our world,
“They say it’s not healthy to adapt to a profoundly sick society,
To enforce it’s laws a hall-of-mirrors version of piety,
Do some cruel shit, standing on the ceremony of false propriety“
With praise from Tom Robinson and Steve Lamacq B of Briz’s star is on the rise, and her words are a welcome relief from the anodyne ‘moon-June-spoon’ rhymes of most music. The laid-back delivery belies the strength of the words, in the same way that gold is malleable but tough. B of Briz brings us poetry, polemic and perspicacity.
The Solace EP is released on 9 September with more singles to come in August.
B Of Briz: Website | Facebook | Bandcamp | Instagram
Lyrics:
They say it’s not healthy to adapt to a profoundly sick society,
To enforce it’s laws a hall-of-mirrors version of piety,
Do some cruel shit, standing on the ceremony of false propriety
Gazing at this carnage, we should experience profound anxiety
We’re not making a big deal of it unjustifiably
We can stand in the pain of this moment and narrate it conscientiously
In a pandemic of bad ideas we haven’t lost our shit entirely
So mask up, my friends, protect our communities,
Don’t commit evil, just to avoid notoriety,
We’re going to be needed to show up reliably
For those around us with human vulnerabilities,
When things get bad, I think about what’s guided me,
Can’t win ‘em all, but we can’t capitulate entirely,
Can’t fix it all, but we’re not fixing any thing,
We can be the hope that springs,
We can be the thing with feathered wings,
They say it’s not healthy to adapt to a profoundly sick society,
To enforce it’s laws a hall-of-mirrors version of piety,
Do some cruel shit, standing on the ceremony of false propriety
And we can resist, and we can persist,
Write the revolutionary text,
Even though we might be next,
Even when the words we write are obscured by the flickering of the gaslight,
Even when they come in the night, with hearts full of spite, sure that they’re right
We’ll carry on speaking truth and valuing verity,
Keep forging on with temerity and sincerity,
Won’t accept this moral vulgarity,
A matter of justice and parity, not charity,
We won’t be tricked by false philanthropy and hollow sentimentality,
We can stand on principle, apply some moral clarity,
and get ourselves to therapy
We’ll remember people are good fundamentally,
Apply our efforts steadily, move the needle, if only incrementally,
They say it’s not healthy to adapt to a profoundly sick society,
To enforce it’s laws a hall-of-mirrors version of piety,
Do some cruel shit, standing on the ceremony of false propriety
So write the revolutionary text,
Even though we might be next,
Even when the words we write are obscured by the flickering of the gaslight,
Even when they come in the night, with hearts full of spite, sure that they’re right
Review by Paul F Cook
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