Travis Barker, MGK Drop Poignant RATM Cover Featuring Recent Protest Videos

On Thursday (June 4), Travis Barker and Machine Gun Kelly released a cover of Rage Against the Machine's 1992 protest song against police brutality, “Killing In the Name.” Not only does the almost four-minute video show the pair, but recent protest footage is weaved in throughout sending a poignant message to all who watch.

“28 years later and every word still applies,” Barker wrote in his Instagram caption. MGK mirrored the blink-182's drummer's words writing, “they wrote this song in 1992 it’s been 28 years since, and every word still applies.”

“Killing In the Name” was written in response to the Rodney King beating of 1991 where four LA cops — three of them white — were acquitted in the brutal beating of Rodney King, a black man. 

Machine Gun Kelly screams the song's chorus, “Those who died are justified/ For wearing the badge, they're the chosen whites/ You justify those that died” as videos of protesters and their Black Lives Matters signs flash across the screen. More sobering is the images of police brutality on peaceful protesters as MGK sings the lyrics written almost three decades ago.

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Photos: Getty Images


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