Protest 100: Fever 333 – ‘Made An America’

Artist:          Fever 333

Song:           Made An America

Album:        Made An America

Producer:    John Feldmann, Travis Barker

Label:          Roadrunner

Year:           2018

Notes:
I hadn’t paid a second’s worth of attention to this band until I stumbled upon a Facebook Live (while it was happening) of them performing on a set by themselves in the wake of George Floyd’s murder. The power was palpable. Formed from the remnants of three other LA-area bands, Fever 333 played its first show in 2017 in the back of a moving truck parked at a donut shop in Inglewood. The 333 in the band’s name represents the three core views the three-piece band espouses: Community, Charity, and Change. The band’s logo is an homage to the Black Panther Party.

Lyrics:
We are the melanin felons
We are the product of
Plunder and policy that you gotta love
Casinos, amigos on forty acres, uh
They built this shit on our backs
Made an America

Living in terror all while they terrorise
Cover your eyes ’cause people terrified
Fuck all the promises you were promised ’cause
They’re cutting your oxygen ’til you paralysed

Where we land is where we fall (Made an America)
All for one and none for all (Made an America)
No stars dead bodies on the boulevard
Cop cars, true killers, and they still at large
Where we land is where we fall (Made an America)

Home of the big bodies and wide blocks
The government giving ghettos that crack rock
Making quotas off baking soda and mass shock
This ain’t a theory, I saw it happen on my block
The homie Hector selling heroin from nine to five
My brother’s burning down the block when Rodney almost died
We’re giving thanks for measles, blankets, and genocide
They call it “cleaning up the streets”, we call it “homicide”

Where we land is where we fall (Made an America)
All for one and none for all (Made an America)
No stars dead bodies on the boulevard
Cop cars, true killers, and they still at large
Where we land is where we fall (Made an America)

Made an America, we made an America
Made an America, we made an America
Made an America, we made an America
Made an America, we made an America

Ah, oh
Oh, oh, oh, oh
Alright
You built this on our backs
Okay
Show ’em who we is

Where we land is where we fall (Made an America)
All for one and none for all (Made an America)
No stars dead bodies on the boulevard
Cop cars, true killers, and they still at large
Where we land is where we fall (Made an America)

Made an America, we made an America
Made an America, we made an America

—

‘Protest 100’s mission is two-fold: dispelling the myth that heavy metal is a brainless, socially unaware music genre, and raising awareness of the issues facing our country in the Nov. 3, 2020 election. The path won’t be exclusively metal—some punk and rap and other stuff will be in here too, including the classics—and is not a ranking. All songs are songs I’ve heard while putting this list together, ordered in a manner designed to entertain and educate.