June 12, 2020

Streams of N.W.A.’s “Fuck Tha Police” Skyrocketed As Protests Began

As protests against brutality sprung up around the country, listens of “Fuck Tha Police” skyrocketed. Before, N.W.A.’s 1988 protest song had averaged about 387 listens a day, according to data from music site last.fm, which collects users’ listening logs from places like iTunes and Spotify. On June 1, it peaked at 5,653 listens—more than 14 times the song’s normal popularity. (Neither Spotify nor Apple Music responded to requests for listening data.)

Screenshot: Last.fm

Listens to “Fuck Tha Police” have dipped a bit since then. But why not raise that number again? Have a good weekend, see you in the streets.

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We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

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