Lowkey - Neoliberalism Kills People lyrics

The American civil rights activist and
Philosopher Cornell West says
Justice is what love looks
Like in public and, so what I wrote is
That neoliberalism is actually
What lovelessness looks like in public that
Now, after four decades of these
Policies and the reason
That I say the book came out on
June 12th is that just one week later was
The Grenfell Tower fire and, you know, i
Feel like this catastrophe, right
This crime really, in so many
Ways, is the ultimate symbol of
That lovelessness as policy
Of that neglect - that systematic neglect and
Systematic discrimination but also of that
Hollowness, that you're asking about, right
Because of this extraordinary cruelty of this
Investment in the image like
The investment in the aesthetic


In sharp contrast to
The divestment, the inside of the interior
Right?

How can I do a fire in the booth
When I'm trying just to maintain
And since June don't hear the word
Fire in the same way? Heard screams
Splutters and them gasping for air
That’s not bars in a booth
It’s so hard to compare
If I use fire as metaphor
Does that disrespect the people
That are never more?
How does that bomb sound sound to
Those that bled in war, that we never saw?
Remember when they settled scores with
Metal swords like Skeletor
Chinese made gun powder
Nobel invented dynamite
They say the guilt in his mind
Compelled him to design the prize
We know what Einstein's mind was like
How many geniuses we never knew
That were deprived of life?
I can't philosophise on horrifying flames
We don’t have to apologise
Or qualify our pain
De-Grenfellise our loved ones of
The colonisers name
Should we let the corporate
Media lobotomise our brains?
You are beautiful
No matter how this life disfigures you
You’re beautiful even if that image
You emulate isn't you
I don’t know if history is linear or cyclical
But know I’m ridiculed for
Making invisibles visible
That's why Plato said banish
Poets from the republic
‘Cause they know that we can shake
The social system and disrupt it
The land of liberty
They tell us leave it or lump it
When Trump comes to the country we
Hope he chokes on his crumpet
Before we sink in the ocean
Consider this as a omen
Nature's blessings aren't ours just ‘cause we
Think that we own them
Never think that you're broken
Or think that you're no one
Remember a rope is strong
Because of strings interwoven

Where love dies where love dies
Where love dies so neoliberal

Would they love you more if you
Mock the people that you're from
Self-orientalise and believe that you belong?
Overcompensate and propagate the image
Of the imbecile?
Not uninvolved even though you're further
From the killing field
Take solace in the fact there's
Always cracks in the monolith
Practically lobbing bricks like
Asterix and Obelix
Distracted with gossip it's twisted
News an interlude
To adverts no hidden clues to
Listen to it's pitiful
Rosa Luxemburg gave us this simple truth
You won't feel your chains till the
Day you begin to move
He photographed a corpse and they
Flung him in the cage
Those that signed off on the cladding
Are still receiving their wage
Helicopters hovered close
Pictures of the front page
Tried to speak all I really
Felt deep was numb rage
How could they see this pain
At such a young age leaning out the window
Screaming for help but none came?
If it bleeds it leads
Trauma tourists they gravitate
Shock doctrine in effect
Disaster capitalists salivate
Privatisation, deregulation and austerity
To zero-hour contracts
Exploitation and precarity
Adults didn't make it, children to be
Saved pennies on the block
Dropped 20 million on the opera
We see through your cold plans
Your programme is done
We don't want a Prime Minister
That holds hands with Trump
We don't want DJs doing
Shows on military compounds
Can't trivialise fire or hear
Any more bomb sounds
How can I smile when I know
The remains are still not found
And echoing in my mind is
Exactly how the sobs sound?


They say we're criminals for
The syllables and stanzas
When they subsidise the killers tools
The pillagers and bankers
Who are the engines of history
People like me and you
Who got massacred for the right
To vote at Peterloo?
It was imagineers, the poets and the artists
The miners, Tolpuddle Martyrs
William Cuffay and the chartists
Rebel and resist even through something small
Create windows with words and mirrors
Where once were walls
Manure contributes to the beauty of a rose
Why can't we accept our pain as
Something that helps us grow
They wonder why songs that make
You cry are more moving
‘Cause crying's the only thing that
We were born doing
They tell us tea is tradition to the English
When I look around this island not
A tea plantation in it
Earl Gray gave 20 million
To the slave traders
Multi-polar world now the Indians
Are space raiders
Freedom to be even or merely alienate labour
Freedom for fossil fuellers to
Desecrate and invade nature
Albert was an immigrant
Phillip is an immigrant
Were the Celts, Normans and
The Anglo-Saxons English, then?
The words sugar
Cotton and rice come from Arabic
Now we import democracy to
Civilise the Saracens
Analysing planets when this back
Water was wilderness
It seems we're still obsessed
With immortality like Gilgamesh
Pessimism of intellect, optimism of will
Wear the skin of their victims
It's syndrome Buffalo Bill
In times of permanent war there's
Always someone to kill
But when life and death are
Virtual almost nothing is real


Neoliberalism kills people, kills people
Neoliberalism kills people, real people
Neoliberalism kills people, kills people