Free Radicals, a musical, political, and cultural force in Houston for over two decades, is back with a powerful new single “Bipartisan Baby Jail,” out now. The single is the first from their highly anticipated album White Power Outage Volume 2, which continues their quest to put an end to white supremacy.
Free Radicals’ White Power Outage Volume 1 (2020) made waves with the press, radio, and fans through its diverse sound and beautiful mix of vocalists and musicians representing shades of Black, LatinX, white, Asian, mixed, and indigenous people that make the up the culture of Houston Texas. They came together to make revolutionary music, and to demand an end to the white supremacy in the arts, culture, politics, the economy, and in their personal lives. The album received critical praise from the Houston Press, Black Grooves, and Bandcamp Daily, which called it, “…a defiant soundtrack to our turbulent times, penned in solidarity with the victims of state-sponsored violence and systemic oppression.”
Free Radicals have been working on beats for the White Power Outage series for many years before COVID hit. Nick Cooper of the band explains, “As we were wrapping up volume 1, Black Lives Matter was in the streets, and we were collaborating with rappers, singers, and poets of color around the world, all experiencing the pandemic, recording, and white supremacy differently. By the time volume 1 was named “Local Album of the Year” in the Houston Chronicle, we were already in the middle of producing volume 2. The band has been rehearsing and recording on each other’s lawns, or in parks. We started recording every rehearsal and quickly cut up and looped, and sent to our collaborators to start writing for it.” The result for Volume 2 is another batch of 20 plus songs featuring a revolutionary spirit and performed on real acoustic instruments. Every Free Radicals album includes a rich mix of sax, trumpet, trombone, bass, guitar, percussion, and tuba without ever using MIDI.
“Bipartisan Baby Jail” features Michele Thibeaux, Henry Alvarez and Karina Nistal. It also includes 4 year old kids from Peace Camp Houston and combines singing, rap, and poetry over funk. Nick explains how the song came to fruition, “We had shot a video on volume 1 for Karina’s song ‘Estamos En La Lucha’ in front of a Houston Immigrant Detention Facility. After Kamala Harris made some disgusting remarks at the border, we decided to go back to blast the Democrats for upholding Trump’s anti-immigrant unconstitutional policies.” Stay tuned for the music video of “Bipartisan Baby Jail” and more singles to come.
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