Negro Terror, fantastic Afro-American hardcore punk
I came across this fantastic Afro-American punk-rock band, Negro Terror, with this monumentally awesome frontman, Omar Higgins, a force of nature really, a kind of ancient god, only to discover he passed away last year in april, only 37 years old.
Higgins was an inspiration to many, apparently, an Iraq veteran from Memphis who started several bands, alternating between pnk and reaggae, a church youth leader, a pivotal figure in the local music scene and an activist. He formed Negro Terror in 2017 ’to destroy existing stereotypes about African Americans and punk rock’.
“Coming up playing this music, people looked at me funny. They’d say, ‘That’s white-boy music.’ But music doesn’t have a color, and it’s not about being an ‘all black’ punk band either. The whole idea is for young African American kids to feel comfortable doing whatever it is they want musically. [Negro Terror] is about destroying those old ideas.” (source)
‘Voice of Memphis‘ is actually a remake of the racist, antisemitic punk-rock song ‘Voice of Britain‘ by a notorious British skinhead band, Skrewdriver. Skrewdriver rants about Britain being taken over by “aliens” and old folks not being able to safely walk the streets anymore and the “Zionist media” and so on. Negro Terror does a “right back at ya” with Voice of Memphis, completely overwriting Skrewdriver’s lyrics:
It’s a time when our old people
Can’t walk the streets alone
Fought for this city
Is this all they get back?
Risked their lives for Memphis,
But now Memphis belongs to the troglodytes
‘Bout time that the city went
And took their city back
Negro Terror brought out a demo album in 2017, ‘The Bootleg‘, purchasable for ony two bucks at Bandcamp, and an EP with two songs, ‘Voice of Memphis‘ and ‘We need Support‘. Their first official album ‘Paranoia’ was supposed to come out late last year, but apparently that hasn’t happened yet. There’s an award-winning documentary about the band on Amazon.com but apparently only for US-based customers. Jaap Job just pointed out to me that the film is on Vimeo. Facebook-page here. (PB)
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