About This Track
Dumbfoundead uses the 2016 death of the gorilla Harambe as a frame for a critique of state violence and systemic indifference. The intro, sampled from a zoo official's statement, sets up the killing as a moment of justified force; the song then pivots to ask who else gets shot without question, and whose deaths get erased from public view. The chorus collapses the distinction between animal and human casualty, between the spectacle of a viral news story and the routine erasure of lives lost to policing and gang violence in his own community. The verses move between paranoia and resignation. Dumbfoundead catalogs the everyday threats that shape survival in his neighbourhood: cops, gangs, the risk of early death, the absence of legal recourse. He sets this against the frontpage treatment given to Harambe, a gorilla whose death sparked global debate whilst "the real ones we lost" disappear into the back pages. The world is a zoo, he repeats, and some of us are caged animals; the only difference is which deaths the news decides to mourn.
"Harambe" is a track by Dumbfoundead, from the album We Might Die, released 12th August 2016. Full lyrics are available below.
About the Artist
Lyrics
Track details
More from Dumbfoundead
Explore
Lyrics provided by LRCLIB
View full lyrics page →No coverage available for Dumbfoundead yet.
Credits