Tucson rapper Daniel Grijalva turned on the TV on Jan. 6 and couldn't believe what he was seeing.
As cameras panned over the angry crowd at the Capitol, Grijalva grabbed his phone and began writing. He wanted to capture the moment. Because what he was seeing — supporters of former President Donald Trump violently storming the Capitol — struck him as one more injustice in a year full of injustices, from social unrest to political upheaval to the COVID-19 pandemic that has turned life upside down.
"It was just a crazy thing in the world that we live in to actually see people doing that," said Grijalva, aka D-$moke, who teamed up with his Unrehearsed Music Group partner Luis Vasquez, who goes by the name OddBall aka Yung OB, to pen their latest politically charged song "Capitol Hill."
The song, released last week on all major streaming formats including Spotify and YouTube, takes the police to task as hard as the protestors. As Grijalva and Vasquez watched the crowd storm its way into the Capitol on Jan. 6 to try to disrupt the Senate and Congress from counting President Biden's Electoral College votes, one thing struck them: "If it were black people or Mexican people they would have been shot dead where they stand and would not have gotten close to the hill like these people did," Grijalva said, echoing widely expressed sentiments following the insurrection.
"We want to shed light. We are people here in Tucson, Arizona; we are far from the Capitol, but (as) people of color, we are dealing with real-life issues here. We are part of those people," said the 29-year-old.
Grijalva and Vasquez, 29, teamed up with producer Mario Balonos from Zona Zero Recording Studio to write and produce the song. It is the latest in a string of politically-themed songs the pair and their Unrehearsed Music Group rap troupe has released since last spring when Black Lives Matter protests sparked nationwide social justice efforts.
Grijalva said "Capitol Hill" is one more way the group is hoping to get out its message that change is needed.
"The world is in a crazy place and we need to have change," he said. "Things need to change. That's our philosophy with the music. We want to put it in somebody's ear that ... we can't change it ourselves, but we want to put our foot in the right path to (effect) change."
