Music

feature: russian punk group pussy riot dedicate first english song to eric garner

March 5, 2015

Featuring a bone-chilling rendition of physically being buried alive, Russian feminist protest group Pussy Riot dedicates their latest project to the Eric Garner case, and all its surrounding controversy.

By Sabrina Renée, AFROPUNK Contributor

.

.

The non-indictment of Garner’s killer, an NYPD officer, has sent American race relations into overdrive, swelling to the international stage, causing members of other societies to empathize as they consider the injustices in their own home land. Two members of the group, Nadya Tolokonnikova and Masha Alyokhina, know quite a bit about oppression, citing their own struggles with Russian President Vladimir Putin. After protesting his leadership through song in 2012, they served 16 months in a Russian prison. Their dedication to freedom and fight for justice runs deep:

“Since last spring we have been living in a condition of war and hatred towards the rest of the world that the Kremlin called the “Russian Spring”… a bloody war in Ukraine, fuelled and controlled by Russia, a civilian plane that was shot down by a rocket that killed hundreds of people from around the world – a lot of our plans and artistic conceptions were changed by news from the war zone that was arriving daily.

We really could not breathe for this whole last year. Our previous ideas did not speak to what was happening in the conflict zone in Ukraine as we were realising that Russia is burying itself alive in terms of the rest of the world. Committing suicide. Daily. And so the song […] is about us and our country as well. It is about Russia, too.”

Aptly titled, “I Can’t Breathe,” Pussy Riot dresses in Russian OMON riot police uniforms, while being buried alive in a shallow grave. A voiceover of the two featured members singing, “it’s getting dark in New York City, I need to catch my breath” with Richard Hell reading Garner’s last words, hauntingly lingers and swells in the background, compelling viewers till the very end. The visual is a definite eye-opener, reminding its audience that the fight is nowhere near over – it’s only just begun.

*  www.WithLoveSabrinaRenee.com 

    Twitter: @WithLoveSRenee

Related