Government Shoes

Throughout the six tracks on Government Shoes, Manchester rapper Deepo attacks burgeoning inequality and accepted hypocrisies with a rage that recalls hip hop’s original message of social progression. On opening track ‘Let It Reign’, Deepo highlights the vacuity of worshipping money and likens his wayward peers who’ve been corrupted by success with government officials corrupted by power. Although his anger is palpable, there is a heavy dose of satire throughout his third person diatribe: “I’m getting paid / I’m in the same tax bracket as Gary Barlow / But I’ll slap you if you’re asking me for change.”

Instead of sweetening the pill, Deepo’s witty couplets are more scathing towards their intended targets. In the cathartically puerile ‘Fear of God’, he rallies at politicians and gives some insight into their sociopathic origins: “There once was a boy called George / Fagging on all fours / On dormitory floors / Who’d have thought he’d grow up / To make you want to throw up / Living off corporate fraud.”

Like Frank Zappa, whose Crossfire interview is sampled in the title track, Deepo is articulate when bringing the powerful to account. Throughout the song, he decries the militarisation of the police, altering Orwell’s prediction of the future to the present day till it reads as a pair of government shoes stomping on a human face.

The EP finishes with a hidden track, a rabble rousing rewrite of an old Irish republican song performed a cappella in a pub. Like all revolutionary music, Government Shoes expresses everyday peoples’ frustrations and gives a voice to the voiceless. It’s proof that the message hasn’t been forgotten.