{"id":495750,"date":"2020-06-03T12:29:34","date_gmt":"2020-06-03T18:29:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=1009277"},"modified":"2020-06-03T12:29:34","modified_gmt":"2020-06-03T18:29:34","slug":"streams-of-n-w-as-f-k-tha-police-nearly-quadruple-amid-nationwide-protests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/music-news\/streams-of-n-w-as-f-k-tha-police-nearly-quadruple-amid-nationwide-protests\/","title":{"rendered":"Streams of N.W.A\u2019s \u2018F\u2013k tha Police\u2019 Nearly Quadruple Amid Nationwide Protests"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/FTP.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"><\/div>\n<p><span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/t\/n-w-a\/\" id=\"auto-tag_n-w-a\" data-tag=\"n-w-a\">N.W.A<\/a>\u2019s classic 1988 anti-police-brutality anthem \u201cFuck tha Police\u201d is just one of several protest songs \u2014 like Childish Gambino\u2019s \u201cThis Is America,\u201d YG\u2019s \u201cFDT\u201d and Kendrick Lamar\u2019s \u201cAlright\u201d \u2014 that have seen a resurgence in streams over the last week-plus<\/span> <span>as anti-police brutality protests continue to surge throughout the nation more than a week after George Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis police officer.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>As a mainstay at protests nationwide, \u201cFuck tha Police\u201d saw a 272%<\/span> <span>percent increase in on-demand audio streams from May 27th through June 1st compared to the five days before Floyd\u2019s death, according to Alpha Data, the data analytics provider that power the <em>Rolling Stone<\/em> charts. The song picked up particularly on Sunday and Monday, with 765,000 on-demand audio streams over those two days, which is nearly five times the streams the song was seeing on a Sunday and Monday before the protests. The song previously saw a surge in listening in August 2015 amid protests in Ferguson a year after the shooting of Michael Brown, but even then, its daily streams on Sunday and Monday were double the size they were in 2015.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis Is America,\u201d meanwhile, has been a viral soundtrack on TikTok for the past month, when teens began incorporating the song in TikToks about racial inequality when charges were filed in the case of the killing of Ahmaud Arbery. Gambino\u2019s 2018 song witnessed a 149% jump in streams over the same time period as \u201cFuck tha Police.\u201d Also surging were Kendrick Lamar\u2019s \u201cAlright\u201d (+71%), Public Enemy\u2019s \u201cFight the Power\u201d (+89%), D\u2019Angelo and the Vanguard\u2019s \u201cThe Charade\u201d (+122%), Killer Mike\u2019s \u201cDon\u2019t Die\u201d (+542%) and Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s \u201cFreedom\u201d (+70%).<\/p>\n<p>Decades-old songs have also received large spikes in streams, including James Brown\u2019s \u201cSay It Loud \u2014 I\u2019m Black and I\u2019m Proud,\u201d which has spiked 455%, and Nina Simone\u2019s \u201cI Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free,\u201d which saw a 34% jump in streams.<\/p>\n<p>Asked in 2016 how it felt to continue to see so many unarmed black men continually get killed by police officers almost 20 years after \u201cFuck tha Police,\u201d N.W.A\u2019s Ice Cube told <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/music\/music-news\/ice-cube-on-police-brutality-rapping-for-david-bowie-and-trump-188684\/\"><em>Rolling Stone<\/em><\/a><span>, \u201c[It] makes me feel like a black man. That\u2019s what it makes me feel like \u2014 same as always. As a black person, it\u2019s always seemed like it\u2019s a war on us. It\u2019s just terrible.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"pmc-contextual-player\">\n<h3>Popular on Rolling Stone<\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/music\/music-news\/fuck-tha-police-streams-protest-songs-george-floyd-1009277\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">via:: Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>N.W.A\u2019s classic 1988 anti-police-brutality anthem \u201cFuck tha Police\u201d is just one of several protest songs \u2014 like Childish Gambino\u2019s \u201cThis Is America,\u201d YG\u2019s \u201cFDT\u201d and Kendrick Lamar\u2019s \u201cAlright\u201d \u2014 that have seen a resurgence in streams over the last week-plus as anti-police brutality protests continue to surge throughout the nation more than a week after [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-495750","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-01 19:16:49","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KQZR - The Reel","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=495750"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495750\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=495750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=495750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=495750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}