Tom Morello has unveiled a new song, Stand Up, with proceeds going to the NAACP, Know Your Rights Camp, the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Marsha P. Johnson Institute.
The track, which alternates a crushing, Rage Against the Machine-like chorus electric guitar riff with electronic-tinged verses, is a collaboration with Imagine Dragons front man Dan Reynolds, producer the Bloody Beetroots, and artist/activist Shea Diamond.
Morello addressed Stand Up, which features lines like “When I call the police will they just kill me? Will they just kill you?” in a press release, stating:
“I grew up in the tiny lily white, archly conservative town of Libertyville, Illinois. When I was a kid, someone hung a noose in my family’s garage, there was occasional N-word calling, etc, etc. On June 6 of this year, there was a Black Lives Matter rally and march in that same town that drew over 1,000 people.
“It seems that the times, they are a’changin’. I was so inspired that night, I reached out to Dan from Imagine Dragons. The Bloody Beetroots and I had conjured a slamming track and within 24 hours Dan had sent back a completed vocal.
“We got Shea Diamond, a Black transgender woman with a long history of activism, on the track and the coalition was complete.”
You can check out Stand Up above.
Morello recently made headlines when he surprised the 10-year-old girl behind a viral RATM cover with the gift of his signature Fender Stratocaster.
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