No Cop Out: Vieux Farka Touré and Julie Easterlin with "Took My Brother Down"

Took My Brother Down, today's random song, is performed by Malian musician Vieux Farka Touré and American singer-songwriter Julia Easterlin. A Malian singer and guitarist. Touré first took up guitar in secret because his father disapproved and enrolled in the National Institute of the Arts in Bamako. He released his first album in 2005 after getting permission from his father and the great Malian musician Toumani Diabaté He has since released seven albums and has collaborated with other musicians from around the world, including Israeli Idan Raichel in the Touré-Raichel Collective. Julia Easterlin, now performing under the name of Hite, has been described by the Boston Globe as a one-woman a capella group due to her use of a looping machine that allows her to layer her own voice. Her musical style includes jazz, gospel and Southern folk, and she lists Björk and Philip Glass as influences on her music. Took My Brother Down can be found on Easterlin's and Touré's album Touristes (2015).

The song is very current, given the number of police shootings in our country in recent years.

I heard you took my brother down

Like a beast his blood was found

Along the road to the edge of town

With all the sirens blaring

I've since heard tell his empty hands

Were raised above his head

Just when the shots rang out

And through his skin the metal went a-blazin'

A hole shot in the corporal wall

The shattered bone and then the fall

From citizen to matrydom

The people all a-glaring

And when his head did hit the earth

Were you reminded of his birth

Descending to his country

With ___ and hope abounding

But you're a man of principle

Of boundaries that are quite simple

And you start to get like a bomb

When the right people rub you wrong

And if you call it self-defense

Then you will bear no consequence

You put my brother in the ground

And who's gonna defend him now

I heard you took my brother down

Just a boy, his blood was found

Along the road to the edge of town

The people all a-starin'

I've since heard tell you've been set free

You're settled in your certainty

But honey I just don't believe

You've got it figured out.

Listen to songs like this and more on the KUNM Global Music Show every Monday night from 10 pm - 1 am Mountain Standard Time. Live streaming, program information and the two-week digital archive can be found at http://www.kunm.org.