Tucson’s Unrehearsed Music Group added more than a dozen hashtags to their latest single “Visionary.”
In addition to tagging their group and members by their rap stage names — D-$moke, 3DWon and OddBall aka Yung OB — they tagged #SaveTheChildren, #EndRacism, #Unity, #EnoughIsEnough, #RiseUp, #RacialInjustice, #AntiRacism, #BlackLivesMatter, #BrownLivesMatter and #AllLivesMatter.
In case anyone was wondering, the rap trio is not holding back.
In a year that has tested them on more levels than they thought possible — a worldwide pandemic with its financial hardships, social injustice and political upheaval — Unrehearsed Music Group is taking off the gloves.
Their latest salvo: “Visionary,” an “enough is enough” anthem for the summer of unrest.
“The world is in chaos / got the virus, got the riots / got them kids in the camps / got them locked up in those cages,” Daniel Grijalva (D-$moke) raps.
It is their way of viewing the chaos through the lens of Black Lives Matter with a decidedly brown twist, he said.
“We are all three Mexican, and we deal with brown pride issues,” he explained. “We have felt prejudice from law enforcement and others. We want people to know that we are feeling some of the issues that are being reflected in Black Lives Matter, coming up from the gutter and being down.”
Grijalva and Luis Vasquez, who goes by the name OddBall aka Yung OB, recorded the song, which they released last month on all the major streaming platforms. The song will appear on Vasquez's debut solo EP "Evolve" due out next year.
The third member of the group, 3DWon (Eduardo Zuniga) was not part of the song, although Grijalva and Vasquez give him a shoutout.
Grijalva, 29, said “Visionary” is the trio’s way of expressing all the angst they had been feeling from the summer’s Black Lives Matter protests and political and social unrest.
“We are trying to show them another side of who we are as artists, trying to create art through our music,” said the father of three who grew up on Tucson’s south side and graduated from Cholla High School before serving six years in the Army.
Grijalva has known Zuniga since the pair were introduced by a mutual friend in high school. Even though they went to different schools — Zuniga graduated from Pueblo High School — they spent considerable time together pursuing music.
Grijalva met Vasquez several years later when they were both working at a Tucson call center. During orientation, they were each asked to tell their coworkers something about themselves, and both men said they were rappers. From then on, the pair were bonded through their art.
“Visionary” is the third song Unrehearsed Music Group has released since mid-summer as a loosely related trilogy that reflects on the chaos they see around them. In late July, they released “Squad,” which explores the bonds that have tied the friends since they started making music together a decade ago. “Pressure” kicks up the politics of immigration and COVID-19 — “standing up for something is better than dying for nothing” — with a message that the pressure is on all of us to unite.
“Visionary” kind of brings the message full circle: “Can you imagine all the things that we could change / how much better people we can be / if the cycle never ends. ... I don’t have all the answers, but we have to start somewhere.”
You can find Unrehearsed Music Group’s singles on Apple Music (tinyurl.com/y59nohvb), Amazon (amazon.com), Soundcloud (soundcloud.com/user-797359960) and most major streaming download sites.
