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Pharoah Monch Protests American Gun Violence With “Gun Draws”
by Ife Oshun ·
The ever-conscious Pharoahe Monch recently debuted a powerful video for his new single “Gun Draws.”
Accompanied by its own website, gundraws.com, the song sees the Brooklyn emcee address the ongoing problem of gun violence in America by expressing his lyrics from the viewpoint of a bullet.
The song talks about the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Tupac, Biggie and others, while the video addresses murders-by-police, and shows a little boy mistakenly shoot his sister in their parents’ bedroom.
“This is my effort to help awaken the unconscious and nourish the youth,” Monch says at the end of the clip.
Despite the fact this video is less violent than the majority of video games out there, it’s been deemed “too graphic” for television video outlets such as BET and MTV (who, ironically, don’t see anything wrong with airing a ton of videos marketing violent and/or sexually explicit images and themes). The video is currently running exclusively on YouTube.
The track’s website offers lyrics to the song as well as disturbing gun facts such as: “US Children are 12 times more likely to die by gun fire than in 25 other industrialized combined,” as stated by the John Hopkins University Center for Gun Policy.
“Gun Draws” is the lead single from Monch’s eagerly anticipated Desire, set to drop in May.
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