Rap music, that gritty, guttural expression birthed from the pulse of the streets, has always been the town crier for the everyday struggles and aspirations. It’s the megaphone amplifying the truths that society often prefers to keep buried. Its themes may shift with the tides of time, but one thing remains constant: the relentless march of urban gentrification, that creeping invasion into the heart of our cities. And it’s this very phenomenon that Brooklyn’s own lyrical firebrand, Aly G, grapples with in her inaugural anthem, “Build It Up.”
Recognizing that an overly solemn, grave-faced approach would likely fall on deaf ears, she deftly weaves a tapestry of sly humor, finding the irony in the very process that’s uprooting generations from their longstanding urban homes, making way for the well-heeled to stake their claim on these glittering, high-priced parcels of the future.
Her confident verses pirouette over electronic soundscapes, serving as a clarion call to the disenfranchised, not just in the borough of Brooklyn, but across the nation and beyond. It’s a rallying cry, an ode to defiance in the face of encroaching change, a voice that refuses to be drowned out by the deafening hum of construction and progress.
