Living Colour Call Attention to Police Brutality During the George Floyd Protests With New Video for “This Is the Life”

Living Colour — a band that has, quite understandably, used their music to address racial politics from the very start of their career more than thirty years ago — have released a new video for an old song: “This Is the Life,” the heavy, groovy, powerful closing track from their 1990 sophomore effort, Time’s Up. The video is comprised largely of graphic, disturbing footage of police officers around the United States using excessive force during the recent Black Lives Matter protests inspired by the murder of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis PD. Towards the end, it includes some footage from those same protests which is considerably more uplifting.

Living Colour have plenty of songs that would have fit appropriately with this footage. Still, with lyrics like “In another life, you’re always the hero,” “In another life, you never have to change,” and “In your real life, try to be more kind,” it’s easy to understand why they chose “This Is the Life.”

Watch the video below. As I said before, a lot of the footage is graphic and disturbing, but I think it’s worth making yourself absorb it all. No one should be lying to themselves about the very severe and very real problems with this country’s law enforcement.