In the wake of the George Floyd and Breonna Taylor killings comes Gallileo Damascus’ “Long Time Come”. A Black Lives Matter challenge song that opens, in its accompanying YouTube video, with a ‘naming of the dead’ amid scenes of flames, helmeted riot police, and protestors’ placards. A quietly burning protest song, softly spoken but no less powerful for it, the repeated refrain of “It’s been a long long long time/since we stood up and we fight” quietly but firmly voicing the outrage and frustration of the #BLM movement.
Produced by Grime and Afrobeat hotshot Ransom Beatz, ‘Long Time Come’ is a low tempo jazzy hip-hop affair, Gallileo’s autotune-heavy poetic vocals sitting atop a bed of hi-hat and rimshot beats and mellow saxophone, the drums and bassline driving behind a soft-spoken but insistent call for justice for those on the wrong end of oppression and brutality.
You can check out Gallileo Damascus’ track Long Time Come via Spotify.
Review by Alex Holmes