Listen to Rae Leviné’s follow-up to ‘The Gun Talks Too Much’

Rae Lev­iné has released a pow­er­ful wake-up call in response to shoot­ings and vio­lent assaults, which have affect­ed com­mu­ni­ties in the US and UK dramatically.

‘The Gun Talks Too Much Part 2’ is a grip­ping, deeply empa­thet­ic spo­ken word response by Lev­iné to the sense­less loss of life that has been going on.

“I saw how much the Black Lives Mat­ter move­ment had increased over time. I saw a lot of hor­rif­ic sto­ries and sit­u­a­tions that had occurred last year and this year alone, and felt I need­ed to write a sec­ond part,” Lev­iné told Fringe Fre­quen­cy, when asked what led her to write this spo­ken word piece.

“Espe­cial­ly after hear­ing about the 15-year-old Jor­dan Edwards, who had been killed by an offi­cer in Texas. I felt a lot of anger towards how lit­tle has changed since the first piece. So, writ­ing part two was very much a place for me to vent.”

Levine released her orig­i­nal spo­ken word poem, ‘The Gun Talks Too Much’, in July 2015. In the poem, she paid trib­ute to Eric Gar­ner, Trayvon Mar­tin, Yolan­da Holmes, Michael Brown, and oth­ers who lost their lives in shoot­ings or from “lethal force”.

Lev­iné added: “I hope peo­ple take away a sense of hope, and restora­tion in their faith that we are all able to do some­thing, wher­ev­er we are in the world. Indi­vid­u­al­ly, we could do some­thing, whether that be a paint­ing, spo­ken word, rap, singing – whichev­er way we choose to get our mes­sage across, it still mat­ters. ‘One day, we will rise with the sun and say we are one,’ my favourite line from my piece, because I believe one day it will hap­pen, and I hope the lis­ten­ers feel this too.”

You can lis­ten to ‘The Gun Talks Too Much Part 2’ below, and con­nect with Lev­iné on Twit­ter.

Image: Ven­ture­Pro­mot­er (cour­tesy of Rae Leviné)