REVIEW | LOWKEY ‘SOUNDTRACK TO THE STRUGGLE 3’ LIVE AT THE JAZZ CAFÉ, LONDON

By Faizah Cyanide • On Reviews

The Soundtrack to the Struggle 3, is the last instal­ment of the tri­logy from the artist the Israel lobby tried to ban on Spo­ti­fy, but it only made him more determ­ined to raise his voice louder –Lowkey.

“Some­where, there is a child look­ing up at the sky, at a con­trap­tion built with one aim, The tak­ing of life, The child does not yet under­stand what this tech­no­logy is, And that it will be used to kill him one day, But kill him it will, It was once said “The role of an artist is to make you, Respect the moment a baby is born above all moments” – Album Intro, Soundtrack to the Struggle 3.

Join­ing the second of three of his sold out shows at the Jazz Café, Lon­don I met all walks of life eagerly await­ing lowkey to grace the stage as DJ Karim Mussil­hy declared, “tonight we are all fam­ily”. The crowd reflec­ted the sen­ti­ment gathered in solid­ar­ity for the free­dom of Palestine and for the love of good music. From the retired advoc­ates who have dis­covered Lowkey’s works through his act­iv­ism, to those the just turned 18 with their par­ents being fans of his music, it was a beau­ti­ful sight as res­ist­ance knows no bounds. Break­ing cul­tur­al bar­ri­ers as Hip Hop always has, Lowkey’s music brings a sense of unity and oneness.

Lowkey per­formed a mix­ture of tracks both from his new album, and older clas­sics such as his throw­back to the raw, “Who Said I Can’t Do Grime” remind­ing his fans of this ver­sat­il­ity and his roots. And of course he had to spit, “Alpha­bet Assas­sin” where he lyr­ic­ally goes through alpha­bet. Merged with more melod­ic and deep­er polit­ic­ally rooted tracks there was a song every­one would enjoy.

The crowd chant­ing the chor­us as he per­formed “Ter­ror­ist” proves that the Israel lobby’s attempts at cen­sor­ship have failed miser­ably. In fur­ther attempts to silence Lowkey, anoth­er word which the Israeli lobby tried to get banned was “Inti­fada” which means upris­ing in Arab­ic. Lowkey explained if they had a prob­lem with this word, he would make sure on his next album he would have a song entitled Inti­fada, and that he does on this latest album. One of my favour­ites on the track-list­ing, with a deep bass­line and storytelling lyr­ic­al flow. “Mil­lions were stressed to see civil­ians oppressed; bil­lions inves­ted in these indus­tries of death”. Men­tion­ing rising up against the sys­tems of oppres­sion to take back con­trol, as Palestine Action have been able suc­cess­fully to take down weapons factor­ies in the UK. There is hope.

This album also had a pleas­ant sur­prise to see a fea­ture from Styles P of the Lox, on “No War” the col­lab­or­a­tion fused UK and USA Hip Hop to embraces its essence of being the voice for the oppressed. This anti-war track was refresh­ing con­trast in a world where viol­ence is glam­or­ized, this track echoes the value of a child’s life.

In light of all the chil­dren being killed in Gaza and the media focus being on the loss to moth­ers, “Baby Steps” hits dif­fer­ent cel­eb­rat­ing the love between fath­er and child.

Fol­low­ing on from Obama Nation and McDon­ald Trump on his pre­vi­ous albums, we knew there had to be a track entitled, “Gen­o­cide Joe” the unfor­tu­nate name giv­en to Pres­id­ent Jow Biden who has allowed the gen­o­cide in Gaza to con­tin­ue. It’s a chilling track dis­cuss­ing the mil­it­ary inter­ven­tion which have killed mil­lions. I loved the melody on this one, it con­tras­ted with the bru­tal truth of the hor­rif­ic scenes we’ve all wit­nessed through­out the year. It ends with a sample of Dr. Reefat Alareer’s last livestream inter­view on the Elec­tron­ic Inti­fada. Dr. Refaat clearly ter­ri­fied being trapped in Gaza, talks about the bleak­ness of the situ­ate of being trapped in Gaza, there’s no way out. He talks about Palestini­ans res­ist­ing, he’s an aca­dem­ic and the toughest thing he has at home is an expo mark­er and he will throw this at the Israeli sol­dier. He was killed by Israeli air­strikes in a tar­geted attack. This audio sends shivers down my spine.

Viet­nam is anoth­er track which bridges the gaps in know­ledge of US war crimes, as Viet­nam fought US forces, “I don’t know about you but all my hero’s fought col­on­isers” all my her­oes fought col­on­izers, I don’t know about you but all my her­oes fought occupiers”

The album also fea­tures a heart­felt skit by Karim Mussihly talk about the lack of justice after Gren­fell fire in which he per­son­ally lost loved ones.

One track off the new album I was hop­ing to hear but wasn’t per­formed live was, Two Kites feat. The angel­ic voice of Mai Khalil. A beau­ti­ful love story about a couple in trapped in oppres­sion with each oth­er for sup­port, one of which had can­cer. Life, love and loss. If there was ever a track to embody the emo­tion of being human, this would be it. After all the dehu­man­iz­a­tion Palestini­ans face through west­ern media, this track human­izes them.

Soundtrack to the Struggle 3 is by far my favour­ite Lowkey album, because I’ve felt every word on a deep­er level through­out the year and I under­stand the emo­tion­al work that has gone into its writ­ing. If you’ve been fol­low­ing events in Gaza closely many lyr­ics from this album would have res­on­ated with you. It turns our col­lect­ive trauma and pain into strength and hope.

For many it was their first time inside the jazz café but I very much doubt it’ll be their last. Fol­low­ing the events in Gaza it has been a hor­rif­ic year, but Lowey is here to uplift our spir­its to con­tin­ue fight­ing, from the River to the Sea, until Palestine is FREE.

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Faizah Cyanide

Faizah works in clin­ic­al research by pro­fes­sion and has been an avid Hip Hop lov­er since the early 90’s, hav­ing cre­ated her own Hip Hop event, ‘Breakin’ Bound­ar­ies’ in the early 2000’s which was pre­dom­in­antly based around the concept of bboy battles, she has worked with sev­er­al inter­na­tion­al events pro­moters and dan­cers to inspire oth­ers through this artform.

About Faizah Cyanide

Faizah works in clinical research by profession and has been an avid Hip Hop lover since the early 90's, having created her own Hip Hop event, 'Breakin' Boundaries' in the early 2000's which was predominantly based around the concept of bboy battles, she has worked with several international events promoters and dancers to inspire others through this artform.