Last year there were 40,147 instances of knife crime in London – just let that terrifying, sickening number sink in for a second. Veteran UK rapper UNKLE FESTA has and he’s fighting back, harnessing the power of hip-hop to take a stand with hard-hitting new single ‘Out Your Mind’.
Uncompromising and never preachy, ‘Out Your Mind’ pulls no punches, savagely exposing the mindlessness of knife crime and issuing a rallying cry to put a stop to it. Over a haunting piano-led beat Festa asks, “How many of our children have to be dead” before launching into a machine-gun chorus bringing his vintage flow to bear on heartfelt lyrics set to stun.
The former Mud Family spitter has been in the game since the late 90s, when he linked up with Skinnyman after relocating from Cyprus to London – since then knife crime in the UK has rocketed, with fatal stabbings at their highest level since WW2.
And this violent epidemic is finding its way into the rapper’s tracks – “When I write it’s about the things on my mind and close to my heart,” said Festa. “Seeing first-hand the madness on our streets motivated me to write this track”.
The track is driven by a message and screaming for social change, and Festa is seeing the bigger picture to make that happen: ”Out Your Mind is not just for the youth to understand, but parents and government to understand – they need to listen and must change themselves to create a better environment for our children to grow”.
Check out the hard-hitting video for ‘Out Of Your Mind’ below:
