Happy 30th Anniversary to The Coup’s second studio album Genocide & Juice, originally released October 18, 1994.
One of the key “selling points” for hip-hop music has always been that it’s the voice of the disenfranchised. The United States has a long history of ignoring the poor, but rap music was one of the first forms of art to really give voice to the voiceless. Conceived and created by residents of inner cities across the country, emcees seized upon the opportunity to tell others about their life experiences. And quite often, these experiences included getting fucked over by the government and business institutions.
Few groups have railed as effectively against those who pull the strings than The Coup. Originally made up of Raymond Lawrence “Boots” Riley, Eric “E-Roc” Davis, and Pam “The Funkstress” Warren, the politically charged group spoke for the people in a powerful, but relatable manner. Their first full album Kill My Landlord (1993) documented life in the inner cities with keen observation and humor. With Genocide & Juice, their second and arguably best album, they continued to capture the ins and outs of the lives of the forgotten, speaking with knowledge about institutional racism and how it manifests itself in these communities.
But there’s a sense of desperation and hopelessness that is stronger on Genocide & Juice than on The Coup’s other albums. The group would continue to speak at length about the crookedness of national, state, and local governments, but there’s an overwhelming bleakness to the majority of the album. Throughout nearly every track, the crew makes it clear just to what extent the game is rigged against the poor and Black in the United States.
Nowhere is this more apparent than in the album’s opening track, “Fat Cats, Bigga Fish.” I’ve written about Boots’ strength as a storyteller before and “Fat Cats” is in the top two of his storytelling rhymes (possibly #1). Rapping over a sample of George and Gwen McCrae’s “The Rub,” Boots assumes the role of a man who fancies himself as a “hustler for real.” He travels around the city using a stolen bus pass, picket-pocketing wallets, and flirting his way into free meals at McDonalds.
Through chance, he ends up disguising himself as a server at a high-end party, thinking he’s getting an opportunity to do some high-end “pocket-swindling.” However, as he brushes elbows with CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, land barons, and other titans of industry, it dawns on him how small-time he really is. Hearing them play the game on levels he can’t conceive of, he raps, “Ain’t no one player that could beat this lunacy / Ain’t no hustler on the street could do a whole community / This is how deep shit can get / It reads “macaroni” on my birth certificate / “Puddin’-Tane” is my middle name, but I can’t hang / I’m getting hustled, only knowing half the game.”
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“Fat Cats” feeds seamlessly into “Pimps (Free Stylin’ at the Fortune 500 Club),” where the wealthy attendees of this exclusive party use their talents to make their voices sound like “authentic” rappers. So David Rockefeller and JP Getty (each channeling Boots and E-Roc respectively) try to rock the party, boasting about their opulent upbringings, the war crimes that they’ve supported, and the overall strength of their pimping game. For the final verse, members of the party begrudgingly let a pre-White House, pre-Game Show, post-bankruptcy Donald Trump engage in some Dancehall toasting. It should be noted that even three decades ago, the wealthy considered Trump a clown and a pariah.
“Takin’ These” is one of the few moments where the “good guys” triumph, as it details an uprising by the working class population against the wealthy. Boots and E-Roc trade verses over a guitar loop and synthesizer tweaks, leading an armed rebellion against the United States power structure, targeting the ruling class, the government, and large corporations. “It’s been too damn long, these profits ain't been mutual,” Boots raps. “That’s why today it won't be business as usual.”
But truthfully, much of Genocide & Juice has the feel of “Hip 2 The Skeme.” The song represents the album at its most grim. A string sample taken from Al Jarreau’s “Milwaukee” gives the song an overwhelming sense of melancholy, as Boots and E-Roc survey the desolation of urban blight throughout the landscape, marveling at the misery, but aware of who profits from its existence.
Boots delivers another standout performance, but one that fills with pessimism for what lies ahead for inner city residents. He raps, “Two hundred thousand brothers marching, one mind, one place to go / Ain’t no revolution, they just walking to the liquor store” and later states, “Now if you wondering about my fucked-up fickle frown / It’s cause I’m thinking about how the wealth don’t trickle down.” The song ends with a slight glimmer of hope, as he pledges to educate others about the lengths that the forces aligned against them will go to keep them oppressed.
With “Gunsmoke,” Boots and E-Roc reflect on being surrounded by ceaseless death. Over a hard-charging electric guitar sample from Chicago’s “Southern California Purples” interspersed with vocals from Malcolm McLaren’s “Buffalo Gals,” the two try to cope with the all-consuming violence that’s become a daily reality for them since birth. E-Roc explains how the psychic pain of oppression is practically encoded into the Black population’s DNA as he raps, “There's thirty million of us buried in the fucking sludge / Can’t go straight or budge / I got a bloody grudge.” Boots further notes that for the poor, conflict begins early, rapping, “I’m in a gang that's in an all-out war / They jump me in when they knife my umbilical cord / So it begins with a slap on the ass now you in the working class trick / You here so fast we already made your casket.”
The crew skewers the myths about rap being the means to the end of getting wealthy on “The Name Game.” They lay bare just how many rappers live hand to mouth, even after releasing a seemingly “successful” album. “Cause your shit could go gold, and the only cash you got is the silver kind that don't fold,” Boots explains, adding that “I keep my whole life savings stuffed in my back pocket.” E-Roc later confesses, “I still plot to keep my cash clot flowing / My mind is bent on the rent, I’m barely making it microphoning.” But beyond just deflating the idea that all rappers are rich, Boots and E-Roc use the last verse to assert how they aren’t using hip-hop music for capitalistic ends, rather, using it as a tool to help others.
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“Hard Concrete,” E-Roc’s solo track, delves into the at-times tragic upbringing of Black youth. He raps from the perspective of a child, beginning the song as a 9-year-old with a -1.3 GPA, but wise beyond his years when it comes to street life. The song explores how both living poor and Black in the United States accelerates the aging process (“Pass the BenGay cream, 18 looking as old as Don King”) and commenting on the often-miniscule lifespan for young Black males living in these environments.
Bay Area legends Spice-1 and E-40 join the group on “Santa Rita Weekend,” with each adopting the role of an inmate incarcerated at Santa Rita County Jail, the jail used to house inmates locked up in Alameda County. All four emcees emphasize how the criminal justice and prison system in the United States continues to dehumanize its inmates. The song takes on a mournful tone, due a piano-heavy musical backdrop taken from Willie Tee’s “Anticipation,” punctuated by synth squeals.
The album ends with incisive attacks against “outsiders” preying on poor and Black residents of the inner cities. First is “Repo Man,” the pointed attack on debt collectors that seize property in economically depressed areas. While railing against less than scrupulous practices, such as sky high interest rates on purchases, E-Roc warns, “So let it be known, black folks don’t own / They just give us this shit on loan!” The group would continue its campaign against Repo Men on Steal This Album (1998), their follow-up to Genocide & Juice.
The Coup join forces with Osagyefo and the group Point Blank Range on the album-ending “Interrogation,” an anti-cop screed. All five emcees assume the role of someone facing questioning from the police department, only to refuse to comply. Boots lays out the adversarial relationship between him and the officers of the law and their collaborators, rapping, “I am motherfucking true when it’s us against you / So fuck Starsky, Hutch, and Inspector Clouseau / I was taught don’t rely on pigs for protection / Shit, I don’t even ask ’em for directions.” He also takes aim at Mystery Incorporated for their cooperating with the authorities (“Even Scooby Doo snitched with that hippy ass van…”). The track very much points to a complete lack of trust in law enforcement agencies, if for no other reason than the belief that they don’t care about the communities they serve.
Thirty years after the release of Genocide & Juice, Pam is no longer with us (she passed away in 2017), E-Roc works as a longshoreman, and Boots has given up music for his burgeoning film career. His directorial debut Sorry To Bother You (2018) was a commercial and critical hit, and he is now completely focused on working as a filmmaker.
But the legacy of Genocide & Juice still perseveres. Its values, themes, and outlook informed Sorry To Bother You more than most of the group’s other albums. Boots even adapted parts of the album to be used as plot devices and scenes in the film. And like the film, its overall message is that while the system can grind down an individual, the only way to beat corruption is by standing together and fighting as a whole.
So while The Coup’s subsequent music wasn’t as gloomy as much of Genocide & Juice, it informed their worldview moving forward and shaped Boots’ next step as an artist. He recognized the strength and power of the forces amassed against him in the United States, and formulated the best way to move forward. And he was one of the first hip-hop artists to hold the 45th president in complete contempt, which is always a good thing.
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Editor's note: this anniversary tribute was originally published in 2019 and has since been edited for accuracy and timeliness.