Tupac Shakur – Queen City Sounds and Art

S.Touze infuses his song “USA” with a touch of Bernie Worrell-esque keyboard work and production reminiscent of 90s hip-hop. But there’s a more contemplative tone to the song even as it clearly, with rapid cadences, peels back the layers of privilege and lack of self-awareness that seems to permeate the perspectives of people who take their higher relative political and economic status in the world for granted. At times it comes across as a mirror image and cousin of 2Pac’s 1996 hit “California Love.” And yet didn’t Tupac hint at the negative side of the American empire as well even in his most celebratory songs? When S. Touze raps “Walk around with a golden spoon when you’re born in the USA, go to school and make your dreams come true if you come to the USA” he exposes the American dream for a fraud both for people who come to the country seeking opportunity and for people from the USA who have yet to realize they’re never going to achieve that dream so long as the whole thing is rigged if you’re not the right color and not of the proper economic class. But S. Touze focuses on the immigrant experience and the tragic allure of America for many at any time but especially in the last few years when it seems you can be detained and separated from your children and allowed to die because you have no legal status. S. Touze casts this situation more poetically in the song but never tries to sugarcoat it while having written a composition that holds your attention regardless of your own feelings on the issue. Listen to “USA” on Soundcloud and connect with S. Touze at the links provided.