The upcoming U.S. election is getting heated. And coming off Body Count’s raging grindhouse-metal anthem, “Psychopath,” Ice-T is now tackling divisive politics, media propaganda, the two-party system and independent thought through his band’s new single, “Fuck What You Heard.”
The song, which marks the second taste of Body Count’s forthcoming Merciless LP, is intimidatingly slow-chugged and mean-bounced, with Ice-T dropping in right away to let us know “’bout some real gangstas.” While nearly 40 years ago, Ice talked street gangs in “Colors,” he’s now got his eyes set on the insidious blue and red factions of “Democrips” and “Bloodpublicans.”
As you can hear up above, it becomes a hard tale about the modern political landscape, where federal indictments seem to roll off the backs of political-class figures that “belong in jail,” divide-and-conquer news cycles dominate, and citizens are pitted against each other in the name of their parties (“Question is: What gang are you on?”). What’s worse, Ice posits, is that there’s false equivalence to the two-party system, for “both wings are on the same bird.”
The release date and full details have yet to be revealed for Merciless, but it’s the fourth Body Count full-length to be recorded with metal producer Will Putney (Better Lovers/Fit for an Autopsy).